The Cull of Lions (Darkening Stars Book 2)

by Mark Iles

  “Christ, we must have killed hundreds of the beggars,” Kes said.

  “How many troops have we lost?” Selena asked.

  “We’ve only a few wounded. We weren’t taken by surprise this time. It could have been a lot worse,” he replied.

  She watched as the troops started to shoot the wounded lenars, when someone shouted, “Just cut their paws off and let them die. Hopefully it’ll put the others off.”

  “Belay that,” she snapped. “Give them a quick death. No creature deserves to suffer needlessly.”

  The skimmers landed and the wounded were put aboard, and a short while later they were on their way again.

  “There’s a large clearing ahead,” Singh informed Selena three hours later, from overhead.

  “Thanks, we’ll rest there and get a hot brew going,” she replied with relief.

  Three skimmers remained aloft, while the remaining craft grounded and formed about them defensively. They’d barely settled when a cacophony of shrieking came the undergrowth and more lenars raced like greyhounds towards them, but by now the troops were used to them and were ready. Side-by-side they stood and hosed fire into the oncoming creatures, killing dozens. Overhead the skimmers were adding their fire to the carnage when suddenly, from the far side of the clearing, fire from an unknown source laced into the creatures. Caught in such crossfire the lenars stood little chance. Shortly after, the battle was over.

  “Kes, come with me,” Selena ordered, and set off at a brisk walk towards the far side of the clearing, where their supporting fire had come from. She stopped dead in her tracks, as shadows moved in the gloom between the trees. Together they peered into the forest.

  “Fuck,” Kes yelled suddenly, raising his weapon.

  “Hold!” Selena bellowed, slapping his weapon down towards the ground.

  The Manta stood in front of them, unmoving, their weapons down by their sides. Man and alien stood silently, watching and waiting for the other to make a move.

  Chapter Seven

  The silence stretched, and the dark greens of the foliage grew lighter as the sunrise turned the sky a cherry red. The strong earthy smell of the forest somehow became richer and far more acute, and Selena swallowed as she gazed at the enemy who stood still, staring straight back at her with those vermillion eyes – the top two, mechanical, moving independently of the others.

  Both sides remained still.

  “Nobody move,” Selena said softly, into the battlenet. “There’s to be no firing, unless I say so.”

  An orange glowing metallic ball appeared over the right shoulder of the lead creature, and a voice beyond description said, “We were mistaken yet don’t understand. The makeup of your bodies is that of our old enemy, the Cetra. You’re the same, but not. It was only when we captured your vessels and accessed your information we realised our error. We’ve been watching you. How is it you are them, and yet not them?”

  “What are they on about?” Kes growled. “Let’s just kill the fuckers and be done with it.”

  “Shhh, she hissed. Then answered loudly, “We call them the ForeRunners. It’s possible they were our ancestors, although we’ve never even met them. All we’ve found are their ruins all over the galaxy.”

  The glowing orb swirled. “You are the same, but not.”

  “We have nothing to do with them. We defended ourselves because you attacked us.”

  “You, the ancient enemy, stained our worlds. The Cetra, your ForeRunners, are to be erased.”

  “We aren’t them,” Selena insisted.

  There was silence for a moment, and then the Manta spoke again. “Yesssssss. We will go, soon.”

  “Go where?” Selena asked.

  “Away. Those that were coming for us were destroyed. We’ve called on…friends.”

  “What do you mean, ‘friends’?” Kes asked, with a frown.

  “Captain,” Singh’s voice demanded through her earpiece. “I know you’re kinda busy right now, and I wouldn’t usually interrupt, but something’s coming.”

  Selena touched her earpiece. “What do you mean, ‘something’?”

  “Exactly that, Ma’am, I haven’t got a bloody clue what it is. I can’t make it out. But it’s big, damn big, and will be here shortly, it’s travelling incredibly fast.”

  “This war is a waste of lives,” Selena shouted to the Manta. Squinting, she couldn’t even make out the silver insignia on the criss-cross webbing that she knew would be there. All she could see was their spider-mantis shapes swaying back and forth in the shadows of the trees. “Is there a way we can stop it?”

  “Perhaps,” the creature replied. “We go now.”

  Overhead a large gelatinous orb of constantly changing colour swept into sight and stopped instantly. It was so large it blotted out the sky above them and cast a huge shadow over the forest. A small section began to bulge from the side. Detaching itself it floated down towards them, settling gently in the grass on Selena’s left, between them and the Manta. Despite its size there was no noise at all. As soon as it touched down the Manta began scrambling from the forest and running directly into the rainbow skin, simply disappearing within as if they had dived into water. The Manta with the orange orb, however, remained exactly where it was.

  “What is that?” Selena demanded, pointing her left hand at the craft.

  “Allies. They did not take part in the war against you and the…ForeRunners, but they have come to help us leave this place.”

  Just then a creature detached itself from the strange craft and drifted towards them.

  “Good grief,” Kes gasped, “that’s one of those weird things from Arcadia. Remember the one that sat on the branch and got scoffed by the tree?”

  “You have a way with words…But, yeah, you’re right.”

  The creature hovered in the air in front of them. Its many eyes, if you could call them that, were round black tips at the end of long writhing stalks. The creature itself looked like a jellified seahorse, this one translucent and blue. It stared at the humans for a while, its stalks squirming in different directions like snakes.

  “We have to go now,” the Manta said and lumbered towards the strange vessel on the ground. “Your ships are coming.”

  Just then three small patrol craft shot over the horizon and opened fire with canons at the alien craft, which although hit repeatedly remained undamaged. The armour piercing, explosive shells had no effect at all. It was like dropping pebbles into water, they were simply swallowed up. Instantly globs of matter flew from the craft towards one of the human ships and hit it. The patrol ship wobbled and limped away, trailing smoke. The other two ships swung back in a tight circle and attacked again, this time with beam weapons. As the rays struck there was a sizzling sound and cuts appeared in the craft’s skin, but these resealed instantly. This time the alien ship fired a multitude of black globs at both craft. The projectiles hit, and then encompassed the human vessels. Split seconds later the stains on the patrol craft turned black and fell away like dust, taking most of the vessels’ structure with it. Spinning out of control the remains of the two ships crashed into the forest and exploded, smoke rising over the trees.

  “That ship just took out three of ours,” “Braxis said over the battlenet, “we’ve got to do something!”

  “Like what?” Selena asked. “Those regular ships had far superior weapons than we have, and they didn’t even make a dent in it. Plus we’re pretty exposed here. Besides, those weren’t our ships, they were the Federations and no doubt that’s less for us to face later on. Nobody does anything, unless I say so.”

  “Look, there’s more Manta,” Kes pointed with his right index finger towards the dark depths of the forest.

  He was right. Long streams of the enemy emerged from the trees and lopped towards the alien craft. Each of them carried something in their arms and suddenly Selena realised what it was. “Chrysalides,” she gasped. “They’re carrying chrysalides!”

  “If any of those are Queens then hum
anity’s had it, they’ll breed like wildfire and you know it. We have to destroy them,” Arthur growled, approaching Selena from behind.

  The Manta with the Orb over its shoulder swivelled its eyes towards Arthur, as he walked purposefully towards them. Instantly its demeanour changed. The Manta snapped its weapon upright but even as it did so Selena’s machine gun hammered explosive shells into it, cutting the creature in half. Instantly her team followed her lead. Beams, and bullets raked the aliens, and grenades burst amidst those carrying the chrysalides. Manta and foliage were blown to pieces, torn to shreds and thrown aside as if by an angry god. As one of the Manta carrying an egg leapt desperately at the alien craft Selena snapped four rounds after it, and saw part of the left side of the creature’s fly away. Even as the strange craft swallowed the Manta it was already falling, the burden dropping from its arms. The amoebic vessels outer skin closed up after them, as they fell through.

  Within moments not one Manta remained standing. The silence after the hellish cacophony was unbelievable, and Selena turned to find herself face to face with the seahorse-like creature from the strange craft. Somehow she read disbelief and sorrow emanating from the creature. It watched her for a moment or two and then turned away, drifting as if on an unfelt wind toward the blob-like craft on the ground. It simply vanished into the side of the craft. No doors opened, no hatchway materialised, it just melted into the side of the ship. Then the blob rose silently from the ground and, gaining speed, joined the bulky rainbow craft high overhead, like a raindrop joining a puddle. The vast craft rotated several times then shot skywards. Faster and faster it went, until it had disappeared into the heavens.

  Her men advanced towards the tree line and gunshots rang out, as they came across wounded Manta. She watched as they fired into the chrysalides, pulping them, gore splashing their uniforms. At length silence reigned once more. Between the dead lenars on one side and the Manta on another, it was like standing in the middle of a charnel house.

  “On me, now.”

  When her friends stood beside her Selena turned to Arthur, her eyes burning like lasers. “Lower that weapon. Singh, take it away from him. What happened here, Arthur, and why did that Manta lose the plot when you appeared? You’d better explain yourself, and fast.”

  Arthur surrendered his weapon and held his hands open in front of his chest. “Hey, I’m as surprised as you are. I’ve no idea what happened, but I’m right in what I said and you know it.”

  Selena pulled her knife free and walked up to him, pressing the point under his chin, forcing him to lift his head and raise his eyes to meet hers. “You lying son of a bitch. They helped us when we were being attacked and they had no need to. We actually had a chance of ending this war and then you come along and it all goes to rat shit. Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  Arthur met the cold fury in her eyes quite calmly. “The fact they talked to us means they could have done so at any time. They said they only realised their error when they captured our ships, yet they got hold of the Lexington and her crew when she was on trials and that was a long time ago. We saw her during our mission to attack Mantis, if you remember. Think about it, they only helped us so we would allow them to escape but we couldn’t do that and you know it. They’d only breed and attack us again. Oh, and when you asked if there could be peace between us they didn’t exactly reach out, shake hands and say ‘oh yeah, sure, that’ll be nice.’ They said ‘perhaps’. Not exactly promising, was it.”

  “So, why did they behave as they did when they saw you?”

  “I don’t know,” Arthur replied, exasperated. “Maybe it’s because I’m just plain ugly. Look at me. I was repaired by the ForeRunner technology. I may look normal to you but perhaps they saw me as some kind of threat.”

  “Yeah, well I can certainly see their point,” Selena replied, putting her knife back in its sheath before pushing him away roughly with both hands, then stepping up close until she was an inch or two from him face. “I don’t trust you, Arthur. You’ve changed. There’s something about you that isn’t right.”

  Arthur’s eyes bore into hers. “Are you going to say that to Hope too, and her parents? There’s nothing different between her and I. Both of us have been altered by the ForeRunners, it doesn’t make us bad guys. You really need to rethink who your friends and enemies are. Those things have killed billions of us, what the hell have Hope or I done? Oh, and tell me, would you hold a knife up to Hope’s throat? I’ve fought alongside you, Selena, when we had little or no hope of survival. I was even killed right next to you, not that I remember it, and yet you treat me like this.”

  He stepped back, turned and stalked away.

  Selena watched him without a word, then the general’s voice came over the battlenet.

  “Captain Dillon, give me a situation report. We’ve just had two patrol craft shot down and another damaged by an unknown vessel in your area.”

  “That craft was acting in self-defence, Sir. Our ships opened fire on it without provocation. I’ve no idea what kind of ship it was but it’s nothing we’ve seen before and belonged to an unknown party, which I’ll tell you about when I see you. It retaliated initially with warning shots and damaged one of our craft. The other two didn’t take the hint and came back for another go. You can understand why it took them out.”

  “Roger. What’s the situation now?”

  Selena spoke quickly, eager to get on with the mission. “The alien ship came to rescue the Manta, but we killed them and the craft has left now. I’d like my team to continue a bit further if that’s okay, Sir. I can’t see the enemy would come all this way just to meet an alien craft, when they could have defended their position and been picked up there. I want to make sure we’re not missing anything.”

  “Okay, it makes sense. But I want to see you in my office when you get back. You and I need to talk.”

  “Aye, Sir,” she replied, “I’ll keep you updated. Dillon, out.”

  Selena ordered a breather. Her troops were tired and restless, and so was she. From practice the military could sleep anywhere, any time, but when they weren’t sleeping — even during their breaks — they were constantly alert and searching for trouble, inevitably it wore you down.

  An hour or so later it began to rain. It was gentle at first, then the sky exploded into a torrent of thick droplets, whipped about by a fierce wind that blew the water sideways. She extended the break, it was pointless going on in this weather. A light repeller field above them kept them relatively sheltered from above, while they donned light foul-weather gear against the slashing sideways onslaught. As soldiers do, they pulled their clothing around them and made the best of it, waiting out the storm while one of them aboard each craft cooked the rest of his crew a meal. The aromatic smell of the dark-brown stew, filled with bright-red carrots, potatoes, turnips, other locally grown vegetables and mutton from the local farming community was torn away by the gale but just the thought of it made Selena’s mouth water. Luckily each craft had a silver-coloured foldaway hob at the back with a pull-over cover, on which they cooked group meals from basic materials when they weren’t using self-heating packs. The instant on-off heat dissipated in no time at all, which meant the equipment could be folded away in under a minute in case of emergency.

  Kes bought Selena her a good portion of the stew, plus a hunk of granary bread, and hunkered down beside her with his own meal.

  “Thanks,” she dug in with a spoon and savoured the taste. “This is one of my favourite meals. It reminds me of what Aunt May often cooked.”

  “I’m glad we brought some fresh supplies and thought you must like it, I saw your nose twitching from five feet away.”

  She looked at him sideways and took another mouthful. “Well, I’m sure this is much better for us than the processed crap we usually get.”

  “I’ve been looking at the maps,” he replied. “This forest ends before long, then the moors begin. So, if something is here we should find it pretty shortly. I
do believe the rain’s finally easing off.”

  “Can you hear that?” Selena asked, her head cocked to her left, listening.

  “What?”

  “Listen.”

  Kes did so and caught his breath. “You mean that sound, like a puppy whimpering? No idea, but I’ll be rogered sideways if you think I’m going out there to find out.” He looked pointedly into the night. “You can’t see more than a few feet, and what little you can looks pretty damn muddy and treacherous.”

  “Well,” Selena replied her bottom lip curling, “you stay here if you like but I’m not going to ignore it.” Putting down her dinner she leapt over the side of the craft into the downpour. In the middle of a curse, Kes picked up his weapon, cocked it and followed her.

  He caught up quickly and side by side they squelched past the tattered and torn trees, the grey ashes of their adversaries in the burnt ground long since washed away. Then Selena stopped, holding up a hand at the sudden silence. She cut away sharply to the left and into the thick green rubbery undergrowth. Within moments they were gazing down at the body of a female lenar, its offspring lying dead beside it in the mire. Then a slight movement caught Selena’s eye. One of them was still alive.

  Kes aimed his weapon, only to have Selena knock it aside.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “It can’t survive without its mother, best to put it out of misery.”

  “No way,” Selena reached down and moved the mother’s body aside, picking the cub up from underneath her by the scruff of its neck. No longer than half her forearm the creature twisted and turned, trying to bite her with razor-like teeth. Selena tapped it sharply across the nose with the tips of her fingers. “No,” she said firmly. As it looked up at her, Selena felt oddly drawn to the creature and swiftly tucked the squirming bundle of fur under her right arm, where it calmed down.