The Complete Void Wraith Saga

by Chris Fox

  A plasma blade flared into existence, descending toward his face in a tight arc. It whizzed through the space Nolan had just occupied, humming so close to his face that he could see individual whirls of superheated particles in the beam.

  Nolan snapped his wrist forward, igniting his own blade. He lunged forward, ramming it toward where he thought the enemy’s chest might be. The disembodied plasma blade snapped up to block, knocking his own aside.

  A flash of blue streaked by overhead, then two more in rapid succession. Nolan risked a glance behind him, wincing when the saw the target. More and more plasma blasts streaked into the master core, until it finally shuddered and went dark. Whatever force had been holding it in place disappeared, and the cube plummeted toward the table. Nolan sprinted into the room, diving for Atrea. He tackled her out of the way as the cube crashed down where she’d been standing.

  “Put your weapons down, Nolan,” Kathryn’s voice called from up the corridor. “You’re outnumbered, and we’d prefer to take you alive.”

  Four figures shimmered into view as Nolan rose to his feet. Nolan recognized Delta immediately, though the other two cyber Marines were new. All three held plasma rifles, and both Delta and the Marine who’d assaulted Nolan had plasma blades. They were armed with Void Wraith tech, and Nolan guessed the belts accounted for the cloaking fields.

  “Captain, we must not let them take the cube,” Atrea said, groaning as she rose shakily to her feet. “It is all that remains of the master cube.”

  “Not helping,” he said, his eyes never leaving the Marine in front of him. The cyber Marine had taken two steps closer, his plasma blade raised.

  If Nolan excelled at any one thing, it was analysis. That was the reason he loved all things tactical—from video games to chess to ship-to-ship combat. He knew how to read a situation, and his read on this one left no room for escape. Kathryn had him dead to rights, and if he tried to fight back all three of them would die. The best he could hope for here was a slight delay, something to buy time for Hannan’s squad.

  “Before I surrender, I need answers, Kathryn,” Nolan said, still watching the Marine. “Why are you doing this? Why are you selling out your race?”

  “I’m sorry, Nolan,” she said, and from her tone Nolan thought she might actually mean it. “You’ll understand soon enough. What’s coming is inevitable, and the best way to minimize the loss of life is to give the masters what they want. I’ll only say it one more time. Lower your plasma blade. We’d rather not kill you.”

  Nolan flicked his wrist, and the blade winked out. Despair clutched at his heart. He was out of options, and judging from the frantic plasma fire in the distance, Hannan was in no position to help.

  41

  Alpha Duel

  Edwards wasn’t the smartest guy ever to enlist; he knew that. That was part of what had landed him in the 14th to begin with. He rarely knew the right thing to do, unless the right thing was bashing an enemy into submission. Unfortunately, his understanding of when that should happen didn’t line up with his COs’—until he’d met Hannan.

  The shift from being a flesh-and-blood Marine to a giant killing machine hadn’t really changed Edwards much. It just changed how other people looked at him. Before, they’d tried to restrain him. Now, they pointed him at things they wanted dead. It was his favorite part of being an Alpha.

  “I love this job,” Edwards said, leaping twenty feet into the air. Streaks of plasma zipped past him, from above and below. One even hit his right foot, scoring the metal but not causing him any pain or discomfort. Edwards took aim at the Judicator who’d fired, its form hunched behind a table. He fired a single burst, and his target simply exploded.

  He landed in a crouch behind a shelf, then popped up over it to fire at another pair of Judicators. Both died messily. “My favorite part is that all that cloaking crap you do doesn’t work on me.”

  Edwards pivoted to face another pair of Judicators.

  “Guess what? I can see you.” Two more casualties.

  “Edwards, stop screwing around,” Hannan’s voice echoed in his head via the comm. “Someone in your weight class just showed up. Enemy Alpha, eleven o’clock.”

  Edwards felt a stab of uncertainty, for the first time since he’d woken up in this body. What if the enemy Alpha was a better fighter? If it took him out, the rest of the squad was toast.

  So he needed to win. Sarge wanted that thing dead, and Edwards was going to go kill it.

  He sprinted along the library’s outer ring, kicking aside tables as he circled the room. It didn’t take long to spot the other Alpha. It used one hand to fire into the area where Annie and Hannan had taken shelter, and the other to suppress the sniper fire raining down from above.

  “Hey, ugly!” Edwards roared, pounding across the library floor toward the other Alpha. “These things come with plasma swords. You wanna have a go?” Edwards ignited the blade built into his left arm, skidding to a halt amidst the wreckage caused by exploding Judicators and plasma fire.

  The other Alpha turned toward Edwards. It paused for a second as if considering, then extended its right arm. An identical plasma blade appeared, and the Alpha began stalking toward Edwards. As it approached, a smaller Judicator walked in front of it, and the Alpha swatted it aside like a puppy. The Alpha pointed at Edwards, then beckoned with its free hand.

  “Guess becoming a robot don’t strip away pride,” Edwards said, wishing he had a mouth to grin with. He strode forward, launching a brutal strike at the other Alpha. It knocked his blade away, swiping at his side. The blade cut through his armor, exposing circuitry covered in orange fluid.

  So Edwards punched the Alpha in the face. The move caught his opponent off balance, and in that split second Edwards charged up the rifle underslung along his arm. The enemy Alpha tried to take a step back, but it was far too late. Edwards fired, melting its head to slag. The Alpha collapsed to the floor.

  “Yep, definitely love this job.”

  “Edwards, I’ve got two more heavies moving into the room. Move your ass,” Annie screeched over the comm.

  Edwards turned in time to take a blast to the chest that launched him into the shelf behind him. He didn’t feel any pain, but the red areas on the HUD were terrifying. That shot had done some real damage.

  42

  Didn't See That Coming

  “You’ve got me dead to rights,” Nolan sighed, holstering his pistol. Beside him, Lena did the same.

  Kathryn advanced, lowering her own weapon. She smiled at Nolan. “I’m so glad you’re willing to cooperate. I promise that very soon you’ll understand that you’ve been fighting on the wrong side.”

  Nolan was completely unprepared when Delta pressed his plasma rifle to the back of a cyber Marine’s skull, and fired. The Marine’s head simply ceased to exist, and his lifeless body tumbled to the ground.

  That triggered several things at the same time.

  Lena leapt to the shattered remains of the table, yanking the data cube out of the socket. The second Marine, the one who’d attacked Nolan, swung his plasma blade at Delta. Finally, to Nolan’s surprise, he found himself lashing out with his foot, catching Kathryn in the knee.

  She rolled with the blow, staggering backwards and igniting a plasma blade. He should have expected she’d have one. Nolan brought his own blade into a guard position, easing his pistol out of its holster with his other hand.

  Kathryn glided forward, darting like a viper when she was within range. Nolan barely managed to block, knocking the blade aside, and backpedaling into the room. Kathryn pursued, keeping pressure on him, just like Fizgig would have. One of her first lessons had been: don’t give ground, unless you have a reason.

  Nolan did. “Lena, shoot Kathryn.”

  Kathryn’s gaze darted toward Lena, whose hands were busy stuffing the data cube into her satchel. It only took Kathryn a split second to recognize the deception, but Nolan made good use of the time. He swiped low at Kathryn’s belly, and as he’d expected, s
he hopped back a step to avoid the blow.

  Nolan raised his pistol and fired a gob of plasma at her chest. The shot knocked her prone, but he’d used a low enough setting that he knew it hadn’t killed her. Still, he shot her once more for good measure. It was best not to take chances, not with this much at stake.

  “Done,” Lena said, tucking her arm through the satchel’s strap.

  Nolan glanced at Delta, who was wrestling with the last Marine. Delta ever-so-slowly forced the man’s own blade down, grunting with effort until he plunged the weapon into his opponent’s heart. The Marine twitched, then lay still.

  Kathryn’s form suddenly moved, lunging forward and planting her blade into Nolan’s leg. Every muscle seized up at once, and he collapsed into a twitching pile. Before Kathryn could capitalize on the attack, Atrea stepped up and fired a plasma pistol into her face. Kathryn collapsed next to Nolan, twitching in the exact same way he was.

  “That’s for what you did to the master cube,” Atrea snarled, then knelt next to Nolan. She raised a small blue device, passing it over the area where he’d been stabbed. “She’ll be all right in a moment. I’d recommend restraining her. She wasn’t trying to kill you. There’s almost no cellular death. You were lucky.”

  Feeling returned to Nolan, and he struggled into a sitting position. “Why didn’t she stay down after I shot her?”

  “I believe the device they’re using as a cloaking field also provides them limited protection against plasma weaponry,” Atrea said. She unclipped Kathryn’s belt and handed it to Nolan. “We’ve long theorized that a personal protective field would be possible, but our only hand-to-hand combat is ceremonial, so no one has bothered to test the application.”

  Nolan staggered to his feet, rubbing his temple. Blinding white pains still shot through him every few seconds, but he was more or less functional. He turned to face Delta, who waited impassively for Nolan’s attention. This was going to be an awkward conversation, one they didn’t have time for. “Delta, we can talk about details later, but for now I’m assuming you’re with us?”

  “That I am,” Delta said, licking his lips. His chest was still heaving from the combat. “We need to get out of here fast, before Reid figures out I’m not his puppet. The moment that happens, he’ll yank my strings again. I want to be far away from here when that happens.”

  “We’re just as eager to get out of here. Give me a second,” Nolan said, then raised his comm. “Hannan, give me a sit rep.”

  “Sir, now’s not a great time,” Hannan called back. Something detonated in the background. Plasma fire sounded all around her. “We need to get out of here, and quick. We’re getting the worst of this fight.”

  “Give us forty seconds,” Nolan said, clipping Kathryn’s stealth belt around his waist.

  43

  Hannan

  Hannan sized up the combat, swearing under her breath. “Annie, shift your fire to the south corridor entrance. Keep it as clean as you can.”

  Annie continued to impress Hannan; she was an economical soldier who knew how to follow orders. Hannan watched as she moved in a low sprint from one shelf to the next, ducked behind a table, then let out a burst of plasma that dropped a Judicator.

  “We’ve got trouble, Sarge.”

  It didn’t take Hannan more than a split second to spot the ‘trouble.’ A flood of enemy Judicators had rushed both stairwells, and were forcing their way to the second level. They burst out, using superior numbers to overwhelm the snipers Hannan had left in place. That reduced the cover fire from above, which allowed more Judicators to reach the stairwells.

  “Captain, this is going south,” she called into her comm. “You’d better run faster.”

  Hannan ducked as Edwards sailed overhead, smashing two Judicators flat. Both detonated a moment later, launching Edwards back into the air with an explosion of concussive force. Hannan braced herself behind cover, and when she glanced out again her heart sank. One of Edwards’s arms had been severed, and there was exposed circuitry along his chest and right leg.

  “Private, can you hear me?” she yelled into the comm.

  “Sure can, Sarge,” Edwards called back, cheery as ever. He began crawling to his feet, using one of the last remaining shelves as cover. “I don’t think I can take too much of this punishment, though. I did for those two Alphas, but if they send another one I think we’re in real trouble.”

  “Annie, how’s that south corridor looking?” Hannan yelled, popping from cover long enough to blow the leg off a Judicator.

  “Not too rosy,” Annie yelled back, pausing to fire another volley. “They’re not coming out of the tunnel, but I think they’ve figured out we’re trying to reach it.”

  “Shit,” Hannan said. She looked at the east corridor, where all the Alphas had come from. The heat shimmers were layered thickly around the door, and she was betting they were massing for another assault. “Edwards, the second you see the captain, I want you to bull rush every Judicator between us and the south corridor.”

  “Yes, sir,” Edwards yelled back, sticking his remaining arm from cover and firing wildly. She couldn’t see if he hit anything, but the answering volley of plasma shots put several head-sized holes in the shelf Edwards was sheltering behind.

  Hannan took a look at the levels above, cringing. The enemy Judicators were clearing the third floor. They’d be on the fourth floor in moments, and that meant the wonderful sniper fire wouldn’t just be gone—it would be replaced with Judicators targeting them. Man, did she miss Mills. He’d have loved this firefight.

  “Let’s move,” the captain bellowed, charging into the room from the north corridor. He layered a series of well-placed blasts into the unsuspecting Judicators, downing three before they were even aware of the new threat.

  Lena came in next, taking out a Judicator herself. She paused to help the most ancient Primo that Hannan had ever seen. Behind them came a familiar black man with chrome eyes. He carried a limp female figure, her long dark hair trailing along the ground as the big man hurried behind Nolan. Hannan recognized both of them from the station where they’d ambushed the captain, and still remembered slamming a pipe into the black man’s face. She wanted to ask why they were suddenly working together, but knew Nolan didn’t have time to explain. If the captain trusted them, she had to as well.

  “Now, Edwards!” Hannan roared.

  Edwards lurched from cover, limping into an awkward run. Hannan popped from cover, as did Annie. Both picked their targets carefully, looking for Judicators trying to stop Edwards. Captain Nolan quickly figured out what they were doing, adding his own fire as he sprinted toward the south corridor.

  Plasma began raining from above, and Hannan ducked to the right as a shot cratered the floor where she’d been about to step. She rolled behind a table, her rifle tumbling across the floor, out of reach.

  “Screw it,” Hannan said. She charged forward, snatching the rifle as she passed. Plasma balls rained down around her, but—miraculously—none hit. She zig-zagged through the wreckage littering the library floor, vaulting the remains of a table to catch up to the others.

  Edwards shoulder-checked another Judicator, knocking it from his path. Then he backhanded another, sending it spinning into the wall. Annie and Nolan were cutting down targets with precision, so Hannan started directing her fire behind them. More and more Judicators were closing, and she did her best to discourage them.

  They reached the safety of the corridor, sprinting headlong down the corridor. Edwards shrunk against the wall, letting everyone pass.

  “What are you doing, Private?” she asked, darting back to Edwards.

  “I’m going to slow them down, sir,” Edwards said, resolved.

  “Screw that,” Hannan said, slapping his leg. It was hot to the touch. “Move your ass, Private. We don’t need a heroic last stand. We need to get the hell off this station.”

  Then Hannan turned and ran. Edwards followed, something grinding in his leg with every clattering step
. Bursts of plasma followed them, more than one striking Edwards in the back. He stumbled, but kept moving.

  Ahead of them, Nolan stood next to the airlock door, beckoning them forward. “Go, go!”

  Hannan redoubled her speed, sprinting like she’d never done in her life. She dove into the airlock, landing between Lena and the ancient Primo. Edwards hurried in after her. Plasma splashed the walls next to the door as Nolan pounded the airlock control. Two more plasma bursts shot through, scoring the walls, as the door inched closed behind them, cutting off pursuit.

  44

  Prideless

  Fizgig clenched and unclenched her claws, staring at the starmap on the Claw’s view screen. Many vessels were still breaking orbit and diving for the sun.

  “What will you do, Mighty Fizgig?” Khar’s voice rumbled behind her. Fizgig didn’t turn to face him. She couldn’t, not yet. Mow had orchestrated the situation masterfully, and for the first time in her life Fizgig felt powerless.

  She studied the vessels moving toward the Helios Gate. Every last Leonis Pride vessel was departing after Mow, headed to war against the humans. A smattering of privateers and merchant vessels were all that remained, the dregs of the Tigris. The prideless.

  Her tail rose a bit, and her shoulders squared. There just might be a way. “Tell me, Khar, what is your lifedream?”

  Khar eyed her quizzically, whiskers twitching as he seemed to consider the question. His words were more deliberate than she’d heard him use before. “I wish to find a pride, Mighty Fizgig. I have long hoped that would be among the Leonis, as that is your pride.”