Galactic Champion

by Dante King

  I charged as the Marines continued blasting the Queen with energy bolts, and the projectiles ceased just as I got within six feet of the target. I leaned back, fell to my knees, and skidded across the rock. I held my sword vertically as momentum carried me beneath her, and I split the Queen from bow to aft. She dropped like a warm sack of wet paper and covered me in bug ichor.

  I laughed because there was nothing else I could do. I laughed harder when I thought about the jokes I’d hear later about being the first human to be inside a Xeno Queen like this. They were going to give me hell.

  A few seconds later, the simulation ended, and I rose to my feet. The alien goo and viscera had vanished, and the Marines who’d died were standing among the victors.

  All eyes were on me, and their laughter filtered through my helmet. I couldn’t help but grin at them after a battle well-fought.

  Reaver stepped forward and patted me on the shoulder. “That was a mighty fine job, Sir. Makes me kind of jealous, too.”

  “Jealous?” I asked.

  “Yes, Sir. You were deep inside a nasty bug Queen before you were inside of me. I’m not sure how I could compete with that.”

  I had to wonder if she heard my jaw hit the inside of my helmet. She walked away with her hips swinging as she returned to her fellow troops. They either hugged her or delivered playful shoulder-punches. She’d be a hero for a long time.

  “Job’s done, Marines,” I said.

  The door to the 300-foot-square room slid open to let the Marines out. The two hundred camera-like hologram and force field generators reconfigured themselves by receding back into the gray walls.

  The armor plating on the walls was scarred from the hundreds, probably thousands, of impacts Marines had made against it over the years. Though most of our weapons were simulated by the projectors, our swords were not. The Marines felt that the sword, above all else, must become an extension of the person’s own body and mind. It was an up-close, personal weapon, and the only way to learn to respect it was to use it. Rifles were great for softening the enemy, but more often than not, it took a blade to finish the job.

  As I turned and started walking toward the exit, Joker spoke to me over a private communications channel.

  “That was really nice work, Sir. Really outstanding stuff.”

  I’d been half-expecting a joke at my expense after the unfortunate way the Queen’s corpse had ended up, but it was clear he didn’t want to provoke me. He probably felt like a failure for asking me to assist when the Queen showed up.

  I waited for him to come alongside me before I continued walking. “Thanks, Sergeant. But I wasn’t the only one out there.” I looked at him from the corner of my eye and saw his lips upturn a little. “Your squad responded to the exercise like they were born to it. You’ve done well in developing their teamwork and instinct. It’s pretty amazing what can happen with the right tools and training, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t want to mention his failed plan; it was already clear that he’d learned his lesson. There was a time and place for correction, and the simulated battlefield had done more than I could ever do by grilling him now.

  “Absolutely, Sir. Oorah!”

  “Oorah, Marine,” I said. He stopped and waited for the rest of his squadmates, who all seemed to be in good spirits. It was a good fight against overwhelming odds. We’d lost six Marines in the sim, but it was all part of the job. One thing the squad was good at was learning from their mistakes and growing as a team.

  When I’d received the squad three months ago, they couldn’t even have breakfast together without fighting over where to sit. Now, they were a cohesive, dangerous fighting team, and the Federation and her people were better for it.

  Hell, the simulation exercise almost made me crave the battlefield again. Would I ever get another chance to spill a real Xeno’s guts with a vibro-blade? Or pop a skull with a combat rifle’s energy bolts?

  I almost wondered whether I should offer a prayer to Joker’s gods, but I shook my head of the silly thought and walked through the hatchway.

  Chapter Three

  A man of 60 in a perfectly pressed green uniform with silver icons on his epaulets stepped out of the stairwell to the observation room beside me. I immediately removed my helmet and snapped to attention.

  “Good afternoon, Sir,” I said.

  “Good afternoon,” Colonel Goswin replied.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a slight smile on his face. He wasn’t a man who hid his thoughts well. If I were in trouble for failing to accurately judge the squad’s training performance, he’d be frowning. This was something else.

  “Walk with me,” he ordered.

  “Aye, Sir,” I replied, and adjusted my position to be on his left, in the subordinate position.

  “Your class did very well, Major,” he said. His tone was light and pleasant but held a hint of caution that made me wonder what he had in mind for me.

  “Yes, Sir, they did very well today. The simulation was designed to place them in a near-impossible situation. I didn’t have all the details because I wanted to be surprised as well. The simulation programmers did a great job of adding the unexpected.”

  “Indeed,” the colonel said as we turned right down another hallway.

  I became a little worried because the only thing down that particular hallway was a few storage rooms, the communications hub, and his office. If we were going to his office, he had something important to discuss. Something he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

  When we approached his office, the door slid open, and we walked inside. The familiar tidy space filled with small trophies and subtle pieces of religious iconography met my eyes as I stood to the right of the door. A large desk took up most of the space, and comfortable, non-regulation chairs sat on either side of his workspace. I’d spent plenty of hours in here before as I’d received orders and the occasional congratulation for success in the field.

  “Please, have a seat,” he said.

  I took the chair on the opposite side of his desk and set my helmet on my lap.

  “I was very impressed with what your class has done,” the colonel continued. “You’ve trained them well, especially Sergeant Hadell. Did you notice the way he called everyone into battle?”

  “I did, Sir.”

  “It took a lot of humility to request your help.”

  “It did, Sir. He’s becoming an outstanding leader.”

  “That he is.” Colonel Goswin nodded thoughtfully, never breaking eye contact with me. “Tell me,” he said, “have you given any more thought to attending church with me this coming Sabbath?”

  Oh, great… this again. I had to think fast. I could lie, which might just prolong the issue but wouldn’t crush the man’s hopes and dreams. Or I could tell the truth and risk insulting him and ruining whatever kind of friendship we might have now or ever. I liked the colonel, so I preferred lying to protect his feelings, but I also respected him and knew I’d feel bad if I lied. So, I decided on something in the middle.

  “I have, Sir,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I’m just not a religious person.”

  His eyebrows went up a little, but at least he wasn’t frowning. “You don’t believe in the Void Gods?”

  Before I could stop myself, I shrugged. “I’m not sure, Sir. There’s a lot that science still hasn’t explained. I’m not inclined toward belief in a higher power than Mars.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy him. He stared at the ceiling for several seconds, nodded, and leaned back in his chair.

  I wondered what he was going to tell me next. I disliked these religious indoctrination sessions. Sometimes, they’d last for an hour—him telling me everything he thinks he knows about his gods. How they lived in the “place” we call “hyperspace.” How they, through their infinite wisdom and power, seeded the galaxy with humans, their perfect creation. How they littered other worlds with aliens because they enjoyed diversity. What he never mentioned was the fact that we
kill some species of aliens, like the Xeno, without mercy and how they do the same to us. Apparently, the Void Gods like war, too.

  As the silence and ceiling-staring lingered, I filled the time with admiring the awards, holopics, and militaria decorating the gray walls of the plain office. The only thing even close to being out of regulation was the desk and chairs, which appeared to be made of real wood, not the synthetic stuff.

  “Tell me,” Colonel Goswin said, pulling me back to the moment, “do you believe Sergeant Hadell is ready to lead his own team?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I replied, “I do. He’s still a little green, but I believe he now has the confidence to grow his squad into an even more impressive fighting force. The simulation proved that he won’t fall prey to ego.”

  The colonel lowered his gaze to me. “You remind me of my younger self. I was an ambitious Major many years ago. I helped found this academy.”

  He didn’t ask a question, so I didn’t respond. Instead, I sat there in uncomfortable silence as I waited to hear what he had to say next.

  “Good,” he said. “Because you are being reassigned to a new command. Your command.”

  “Aye, Sir,” I said, doing my best to keep the shock and excitement from my voice. I’d been training other Marine squads for so long, I wasn’t even certain how the war was going. All I could learn was gleaned from the media and short security briefings. I wanted back in the action, and today’s sim had only made that more apparent to me.

  “Where am I going, Sir?” I asked.

  The colonel let out the faintest sigh and tugged at his jacket to flatten the wrinkles. It was the first thing I’d seen him do that told me he was uncomfortable in the conversation. “You aren’t going anywhere, yet. Your command is coming here.” He waited, probably expecting a question, but when I didn’t speak, he continued.

  “You will be in command of a starship. We haven’t named it yet. I’m not sure we ever will.”

  “Why not?” I blurted.

  “Because it’s not one of ours. It’s a Xeno cruiser.”

  My eyes widened at the news. I wasn’t aware we’d ever captured a Xeno vessel. The freakish ships were part machine, part organic, and completely terrifying. They had tech we didn’t understand, including portal generators. We were stuck with regular faster-than-light drives, which weren’t nearly as fast. The Xeno generators could open a portal in one area of space and let their ships appear hundreds of light years away in only a few seconds. If I was a scientist instead of a soldier, I might have wanted to know how, but all I cared about was how dangerous it made the enemy.

  I had a dozen questions I wanted to ask the colonel about my new assignment. Instead, I made a statement. “I am ready to serve Mars, Sir.”

  Rather than respond, Colonel Goswin continued staring at me as though there were a hundred things he wanted to tell me but couldn’t.

  The silence brought more questions to my mind. The Xeno ships were mysteries, and we weren’t even sure how they propelled themselves. We hadn't been able to recover any usable data from our regular starships to point us in the right direction. Any time the Xeno found a probe hiding in the void, they destroyed it.

  There was also the problem of boarding a Xeno ship. Some of the space-support sections in the MSM theorized that doing so might set off some kind of autoimmune response that would eject or destroy us. Others said technology like that would be too expensive in energy and space, even for a Xeno starship. The truth was we didn’t know. We didn’t even know if the ships had breathable air, or if there was a toxin that would kill us, intentionally or not. We just didn’t know much at all.

  Yet somehow, they’d brought the ship to this battle station, 60 light years away from any other base, far within Federation-controlled space. And somehow, the scientists and engineers had made enough discoveries for this mission to proceed.

  It was time for me to have faith in something outside of myself. Maybe not in a god, but in the Federation’s abilities.

  “Thank you, Sir,” I broke the silence. “This is a great honor. What is my mission?”

  He chuckled. “Aren’t you going to ask me how you’re going to fly it? Or about whether or not it’s crewed?”

  “No, Sir,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve already thought of that. I’d appreciate the briefing package as soon as you’re able to deliver it.”

  “It’s already been sent to your inbox. But I’ll give you the highlights now. The Xeno vessel will contain one Burner loaded in a launching tube we’ve mounted within the vessel. Your mission will be to take the ship and the burner to the Obae-21 system.

  “The Xeno have colonized one of the planets there and no doubt will use it as a jumping-off point for attacks deep within Federation space. The attack could possibly turn the tide of the war, and it will deny our enemy the ability to use that planet for at least the next hundred years.”

  The Burner was no joke. It was our last resort for attacking a planet and worked on a scale that put the war-ending weapons of centuries ago to shame. I’d seen the results for myself. It could irradiate an entire planet, setting fire to its atmosphere, if it had one. The doomed planet would burn like a star for a week. If there was no atmosphere, the radiation would keep any known form of life from existing more than a few seconds on its surface.

  I had to take a deep breath to calm myself. It helped, a little. “I’m ready to kick some Xeno ass, Sir.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Colonel Goswin said with a laugh. “There is a catch, though.”

  Ah, there’s the shoe I was waiting for. “What’s the catch, Sir?”

  “We’ve modified the ship. We know the atmosphere isn’t toxic. We’ve added some of our own weapons systems to the hull. We have sensors, human-style furniture, and have removed everything we didn’t think we would need. The catch is that we had to leave the portal generator onboard.”

  “I figured as much, Sir,” I said. If this were something they wanted to use FTL travel for, the Federation would have just used one of our own ships. No, they needed the ability to get in and out in a hurry. That’s why they needed a Xeno ship. Leaving the portal generator on the ship was completely intentional.

  “The problem is,” he continued, “our scientists aren’t sure they fully understand the portal generator tech onboard the ship. They think they’ve got it. They’ve even opened a couple of portals to try it out. But if you do this, you and your crew will be the first humans to actually go through a portal.”

  “Sounds like a party,” I said. “Sir.”

  I couldn’t wait to get back to the action. And while I wouldn’t be fighting up-close-and-personal with the Xeno, this would be the biggest payload I’d ever get to deliver.

  The colonel smiled. “Like I said, our squints think they’ve got it all figured out, but until someone tries it, we’re not sure. They believe the ship can enter the portal, but where it’ll come out is what makes them nervous. You could end up right on target the first time, but in another galaxy entirely the second time you use it. We just don’t know.”

  So, it was a suicide mission, most likely. Maybe I’d get there, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d make it back. Maybe I’d never see home again. It was a sobering line of thought. But I was ready to leave my role of instructor behind and finally see some real action for the first time in years.

  “What happens if the mission isn’t successful or isn’t even attempted?” I asked. It wasn’t that I didn’t plan on taking the mission, I just wanted to know my options.

  “If you don’t try or don’t succeed, the tide of this war will turn,” he said. “Our warplanners believe the Xeno could overrun us in just a hundred years. No more humans. All gone.”

  “Then I’ll do it,” I said.

  I’d never killed a million of the bugs all at once. I was ready for my shot.

  “Good,” he said, relief evident on his face and in his posture. “Because you leave in 10 hours. It’s time you examined your mission briefing in detail.”
r />   Chapter Four

  Four years. They’d had that damned Xeno ship for four years while they studied it, took it apart, retrofitted it, and I couldn’t even remember what else. Where did they keep it? How the hell do you keep an enemy ship secret for four years?

  I walked in a daze back to my berth and was glad I didn’t see anyone on the way. I’m not sure I could’ve carried on a conversation with anyone about anything at all. Somehow, the Federation had managed to tow an enemy ship into a dock somewhere and keep it secret while people mapped it, studied it, and experimented on it.

  While I waited for the hatch to recognize me, more thoughts came to mind. How did they get all those people to keep a secret as big as that? I could only come up with two ideas: either the people who did the studies and retrofitting were now the crew, or they were dead.

  A third option came to mind, and I realized it should have been the first: money. There were enough large corporations who could turn that kind of research into a profit. They could send their most trusted engineers and scientists, and even fund the work themselves, so long as they secured the rights to the discoveries. I felt better after that idea came to me. It was reasonable, less terrible than the alternatives, and made complete sense. Also, it gave me something to look forward to in the next few years. I wondered what kind of gadgetry would be “invented” in the near future. I hoped it would be more powerful weapons. Something that could punch through tough Xeno exoskeleton in a single shot. That’d make short work of the bugs.

  Then I remembered I might not be around to see it. This was that kind of mission. The kind I might not return from—ever.

  I needed a shower. Someplace quiet to gather my thoughts. I needed to process all the information I’d found in the briefing package.

  I tapped a panel on the wall as I walked into the shower, and water began to fall from hidden openings in the ceiling. It adjusted to my preferred temperature automatically. A couple of taps on an illuminated panel made it a few degrees warmer. I had a little less than ten hours until I was on my way to Xeno-controlled space to drop a world-ruining weapon on a planet. It would never support life again. It would be a toxic, radioactive mess for centuries. I needed to relax and prepare myself.