The Athena Operation

by Dalton Cortner

  Seraph put a finger up to silence Ret. “I don’t care. I do not care. We’re all soldiers now. We’re all survivors. We’re all fighters. Like it or not, you’ve killed seythra, and right now, in this universe, that’s the only thing that makes a soldier, the only thing that turns you into a survivor. Whoever you were, it doesn’t matter. We have a common cause, Ret. And-”

  Seraph’s words cut off as a bullet grazed the side of his neck. He fell to the ground clutching the wound. Behind him was a large seythra. It was far more intimidating than any seythra Ret had ever seen. It was pure white, conflicting with the black skin that every other seythra wore. It was two feet taller than the average seythra and must’ve had twice as much muscle. There was an aggression in its eyes Ret had never seen before. The seythra tossed its pistol aside and charged toward Ret.

  Ret yanked his rifle up, but the seythra reached him in a split second and grabbed the gun. Ret fought for control, but the seythra flung him aside with ease.

  Seraph staggered to his feet and latched onto the seythra from behind. The seythra swung him around and tossed him to the ground like he was weightless.

  Ret rolled to cover and recovered Seraph’s assault rifle. Ret aimed the gun and fired a quick burst. A few stray shots hit the seythra, but none seemed to faze him. The seythra dug its long nails into Ret’s wrist until the gun fell from Ret’s hand. The seythra grabbed the gun and aimed it directly at Ret’s chest.

  “No!”

  Seraph took off toward the seythra with a large combat knife clutched in his hand. He dove onto the seythra’s back and wrapped his left hand around its neck. He dug the blade as deep as he could into the seythra’s skin. The seythra barely noticed the wound. Seraph withdrew the blade and stabbed again, this time into the seythra’s shoulder. The seythra grunted and dropped the rifle and tried to shake Seraph off.

  The seythra slammed Seraph against a large pipe on the side of the hangar. He reached back and grabbed Seraph and threw him to the ground. Seraph’s skull smashed against the floor. The seythra began to pry Seraph’s fingers from the blade. He managed to seize the knife and slice off Seraph’s index and middle fingers in a single swipe.

  Seraph howled and the seythra moved to jam the blade into Seraph’s chest. Seraph pushed against the seythra’s hand, but his wounds weakened his grip. As the blade came within mere inches of his heart, Seraph closed his eyes and accepted his fate.

  Suddenly, Seraph heard a loud roar and felt the pressure on his chest release. He opened his eyes and saw that Drever had tackled the seythra and was driving his fists into the seythra’s face. Drever’s right shoulder had been ripped open by the bullet, but his punches didn’t falter.

  The seythra grabbed one of Drever’s fists and kicked Drever square in the chest. Drever flew backward and fell to the ground.

  The seythra picked up Seraph’s knife and charged at Drever. The seythra was about to bring the knife down into Drever’s chest when a spray of bullets rained down around him. Seraph and Drever glanced up and saw a bloody Sadhis holding a smoking gun. The seythra dropped Drever and ran for cover. He glanced back and threw two smoke grenades right into the middle of hangar before slipping behind a sheet of metal.

  Seraph tried to get to his feet, but he was dizzy, disoriented, and weak. He was losing blood. He coughed against the smoke and crawled along the floor, trying to get his bearings.

  Just as Seraph managed to stand, the seythra slipped out of cover and knocked him to the ground. It shot Seraph a savage, murderous look before slipping away in the smoke.

  Seraph fell still. He could feel himself giving in to his exhaustion. His breath grew shallow; he tried to concentrate on staying conscious, but he felt himself fading.

  CHAPTER 19: RESONATION

  Kyla was the first one up. After the initial impact of the ship hitting the Baryon, she did her best to keep herself conscious. A scraped cheek and a hurt ankle was pretty mild for her, anyway. She’d had far worse landings. As she stood up, she could hear the echoes of seythra orders over the PA system, reporting the breach.

  She glanced around and saw that the ship had been all but ripped in two. The walls were smashed in, equipment was strewn across the floor, and it looked like the cargo hold had been ripped apart by a tornado. There were bodies—some seythra, some her own crew—lying in every direction. The far end of the ship was blocked by a large pile of debris. There was a jagged hole in the metal that appeared to be the only way out, but it was too small for her to slip through.

  Diam and Maxen lay near her, unconscious. She picked up a stray pistol and knelt beside Diam. She shook him gently.

  “Diam. . . Diam, Come on, wake up!”

  Diam didn’t move. Kyla was about to check his breathing when there was a rustling noise behind her. She whipped around and raised the pistol. She lowered it when she saw that it was Maxen who had stirred.

  Maxen sat up and shook his head, dazed. “We crashed.”

  “We nearly died.” Kyla looked back at Diam. “He won’t wake up.”

  “Leave him,” Maxen said. “He’s probably dead.”

  Kyla scowled. “And what if he isn’t?”

  Maxen sighed. “Come on. We need to get a move on.” He picked up his gun and tried to stand.

  Kyla raised an eyebrow. “What? Where? We’re supposed to follow a plan.”

  “We are. We’re going to destroy those fucking Goliath Drives, double back, and take the bridge. If anyone’s alive, they’ll be here or on the bridge, making our job a little easier. Let’s go.”

  Behind them, Diam coughed and struggled to sit up. Kyla rushed over and helped him to his feet. He seemed stable aside from a few cuts and bruises.

  Diam surveyed the wreckage. “That was one hell of a landing. Where’s Seraph? Sadhis?”

  “We’re not getting to them anytime soon,” Maxen said. “They’re trapped in the other half of the ship. We need to get a move on before the seythra guards can organize. We need to get to the Goliath Drives.”

  Diam’s eyes widened. “So you’re suggesting we just leave them to die? Or be killed?”

  “You want to stay and try to dig them out, be my guest. We’re sitting ducks as it is. We need to go. I won’t say it again. I’m going alone if I need to.”

  Kyla sighed. “Okay. Okay. You’re right. We’re not much help if we stay here. We’ll go. The Goliath drives, they’re-”

  “I know where they are,” Maxen interrupted. “I’ve been in my fair share of ships. Blown up my fair share of ships. Just because this one is a hundred times bigger doesn’t make the basic layout any less practical. I can get us there. If you’re coming, move your ass.” Maxen set off down the narrow hallway.

  Diam looked at Kyla and nodded. He grabbed a rifle and the two followed Maxen down the hall.

  Maxen led them through several bunkers and rooms, gunning down more and more seythra the further they moved along.

  Maxen stormed into a central room, rifle raised. He fired and took down two seythra who had been standing guard. He ducked into cover. Kyla and Diam followed. Maxen poked his head out and saw that the room was clear. The three slipped out of cover into the light of a single dim bulb. There was nothing in the room but a few beds.

  Kyla shook her head. “This is wrong. You’re taking us to the heart of the ship. The Goliath Drives are going to be near the back. For something this size, the location is proportional to-”

  Maxen scowled at her. “Hey, do you wanna lead this operation? Step off. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Really?” Kyla moved up to face Maxen. “We’ve gone through three levels on your little hunt. Eighteen rooms. You’re just as lost as you were back at the ship. The seythra numbers are increasing toward the middle of the ship. You’re going to get us killed!”

  Diam stepped between the two. “Enough! Maxen, we’ve been doing it your way for a while. We’ll follow Kyla now. Keep your heads in the game!”

  Kyla nodded. “Okay. We need to go as
far east as possible.”

  Kyla led them down several flights of stairs to a damp area littered with pipes. The lighting was bad, but Kyla wove through the cramped halls like she’d been through this ship hundreds of times. The soft hum of the drives rose slightly as they made their way deeper down the hall.

  Kyla led them around a corner and stopped in front of a large room with a thick door sealed by a security panel.

  Kyla immediately went to work, typing away on the holographic keyboard.

  Maxen scoffed. “Just how is it you know how to do that? I’ve broken into hundreds of ships, but that shit’s gibberish to me.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I can get us in.” Kyla’s fingers worked. The rhythm and pace was that of a seasoned veteran, someone who had seen these codes before and knew exactly what the system wanted. After a few more moments, there was a loud ‘click’ and the door opened.

  The lighting was dim, but they were no doubt in the ship’s central power room. They could just make out the Goliath Drives. The room vibrated with the hum of them. Kyla, Diam, and Maxen stared in awe at the drives, which were each at least thirty feet tall.

  “Jesus Christ,” Kyla said. “They’re massive.”

  “The design is truly worthy of praise, if nothing else.” Diam placed a hand near the casing of one, feeling the vibration.

  “And it’s time to burn these motherfuckers to the ground,” Maxen said. “Then we get the fuck out of here and find the bridge.”

  “Hey! Hands up!”

  Maxen, Diam, and Kyla all turned to find a seythra standing behind them, a rifle planted firmly in his shoulder.

  Kyla held up her hands. “Easy. We’re not moving.” Kyla met Maxen’s eyes, silently begging him not to do anything stupid.

  Diam placed his gun onto the ground, and raised his hands.

  The seythra looked confused. “I-I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t know what’s going on. My brothers, they’ve stopped communicating with me. I’ve been stowed away here for a week at least. What’s happening?” The seythra eased his grip on the gun.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Diam asked. “The seythra, they’ve attacked. Everyone. Everything. Everywhere. They’re massacring people left and right. They mean to destroy the entire universe, as far as we can tell. We lost contact with most of the military outposts galaxy and universe-wide. It’s chaos.”

  The seythra wrinkled his brow. “What? What are you talking about? Why would they do that?”

  Kyla shook her head. “Nobody knows why. But we’re trying to stop them.” Kyla took a few steps toward the seythra. “Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody. My name is Ioudas. I stowed away here on the Baryon after some security from Trini 5010 came after me.” He paused. His eyes grew wide. “My god. My family. What’s happened? No, you can’t be right. There is. . .”

  Ioudas lowered his gun and closed his eyes. He slumped against a large machine, trying to maintain his balance.

  Maxen wasted no time. He rushed past Kyla and tackled Ioudas to the ground. He pounded his fists into the seythra with all the strength he could muster. Kyla and Diam rushed forward and tried to pull Maxen off. Maxen easily shoved them away and dug his fists harder into Iodas’s face.

  A gunshot cracked and Maxen turned to see Kyla aiming a pistol right at him. Her warning shot had come dangerously close to him.

  Maxen stood up slowly, breathing heavily. His face and arms were covered with Iodas’s black blood. He shook his head at Kyla.

  “Don’t point that thing at me unless you’re going to pull the trigger.”

  Diam peered down at the seythra and scowled at Maxen. “What have you done? He wasn’t hostile! He may have had information!”

  Maxen glanced back at the mangled Ioudas. “No, he clearly didn’t know anything. I bet he was a trap planted by the seythra. They wanted us to lower our guard so they could capture or kill us. Or God forbid put a spy in our group.”

  Kyla glanced at the body. “Well, now we’ll never know. Great job.”

  Kyla felt a pang of fear. She didn’t trust Maxen, as capable as he was. He was too violent and impulsive. A silent glance at Diam gave Kyla the impression that he felt the same.

  Kyla took a few steps toward the seythra’s smashed skull. Something inside the mess caught her eye. She bent down and reached her fingers into the seythra’s head, nearly gagging as she sifted through the remains. She gasped.

  Inside her hand, amidst the blood and gore, was some sort of chip. The wiring had been destroyed, and the casing surrounding it, which appeared to be inside the brain, had been removed.

  “What the fuck?” she whispered under her breath.

  “Guys, look at this.” Kyla turned around and held out the chip. Diam and Maxen moved to take a closer look. Maxen shook his head.

  “The fuck is that supposed to mean? Probably just a tracker. Didn’t the seythra put them in a few years back?” Maxen asked.

  “That, or perhaps a neural augmentation?” Diam suggested. “I had heard that they were toying with technology along those lines. It’s not any neural augment I’ve ever seen, though. That type of technology, well, we didn’t usually see it in the Chamber. We passed it off to corporate sciences, but nothing they produced ever looked like this.” Diam took the chip and gave it a once over.

  Maxen groaned. “I’m telling you. It’s probably nothing. We aren’t going to have time to go to the bridge. We need to get out of here now. Let’s fucking go.”

  After shooting at the Goliath Drives, Maxen managed to spark several large fires that annihilated the systems within a matter of minutes. The fire slowly began to spread throughout the remains of the ship.

  Kyla, Maxen, and Diam rushed toward the hangar, trying to beat the flames.

  They came upon a group of enemies, but Maxen destroyed them with a few well-placed shots from his assault rifle. Kyla retraced her steps through the halls with precision, remembering exactly how to get back to the rear cargo hold. The group retreated as quickly as they could. When they arrived on the cargo hold floor they saw a swarm of seythra heading into the hangar, guns blazing.

  “We have no choice,” Maxen said. “It’s our only way out. Come on!” Maxen charged around a corner.

  Maxen opened fire and killed several seythra in a matter of seconds. The seythra returned fire and Kyla fell back as bullets rained down around her.

  Maxen had taken cover behind a pillar a few feet up the hall. Bullets were chipping away at the stone, shrinking his safe zone. He popped a fresh magazine into his rifle and rolled out of cover. He rose to a knee and brought his sights up. He shot three seythra in the head without hesitation. A bullet grazed Maxen’s left arm and threw off his aim. He charged forward to the next pillar. A shot hit him right in the knee. His legs buckled and he crashed into the pillar. His gun fell from his hands and he cried out in pain.

  Kyla and Diam darted behind the first pillar.

  Diam popped out and fired a few shots that caught a seythra straight in the chest.

  Seythra were funneling down either side of the hall, making their way toward the pillar Maxen was sitting behind. No matter how many Kyla and Diam shot, more kept coming. They stepped over their fallen brothers without regard and charged forward faster than Kyla and Diam could fire.

  The seythra reached Maxen. They yanked his gun from him and smashed the end of it into his temple, knocking him out cold.

  “Maxen!” Kyla raised her gun and fired at the seythra.

  Just as the seythra formed a wall around Maxen, a loud blast rocked the entire ship, and the walls to the right of Diam and Kyla exploded, sending chunks of concrete flying everywhere.

  CHAPTER 20: EXTRICATION

  There were sounds, but they were muffled. She couldn’t make out what they were, or how far away they were. Her vision was spotty. As she tried to move, pain shot through her arm. She screamed and fell back to the floor. She looked down at her right arm and discovered why she felt such immense pain upon trying to mov
e it: her bone had broken the surface of her skin.

  “Kyla! Get up, we have to go now!”

  Kyla turned and saw Sadhis standing above her. She hadn’t expected to see him alive. She tried again to sit up, but her arm buckled under her. Gunshots rang out behind them. Sadhis bent over and pulled Kyla out of a pile of rubble. Her head was pounding and her face was bloody from a fresh cut.

  Sadhis pulled his pistol from its holster. “Come on, we have to move! There’s a ship that works, but we have to go right now!”

  He led Kyla up the pile of rubble. Kyla got her first good look at the aftermath of the explosion. The wall had been blown open and the room was strewn with debris. Seythra bodies lay between the chunks of metal and concrete.

  Sadhis led Kyla through the hole where the wall had been. At the far end of the hangar, Drever was manning a large machine gun, firing at seythra who were entering on the other side of the room. Next to the machine gun was a large cannon, which Kyla assumed was used in the blast. Right in front of the ship, Vinnor was standing over a body that was covered in blood-soaked bandages. One of the hands was mangled and a steady stream of blood trickled from a wound in the neck. Kyla moved in for a closer look. She gasped. It was Seraph.

  Twenty feet away, Diam and a wounded Ret were blasting bullets toward the seythra from behind a pile of crates.

  Kyla went to move towards them, but the loud blast of an assault rifle stopped her in her tracks. She was shocked to see Maxen coming into the hangar, guns blazing. He was limping, shot in the knee, but he seemed barely aware of it. He ducked down and fired a few burst shots at the seythra as he pushed forward. A stray bullet nailed him in the shoulder and he staggered for a moment. He recovered quickly and littered the offending seythra’s body with bullets.

  Drever aided Maxen in killing the last of the seythra in the hangar. When the area was clear, Drever fired up the ship’s engine. Vinnor and Sadhis carried Seraph onto the ship and Kyla and Maxen followed. Ret and Diam gathered up what equipment and ammo they could.