It was here that the Legacy of Night lay in ruin.
The assault carrier’s tail end loomed almost three thousand meters over his head, casting a long, intimidating shadow across the marshland. The ship was leaning against the edge of a cliff, and much of its bow was submerged in the brown waters of a lake.
Kenon guessed it must have grazed the top of the cliff and then careened over the side.
It was a total wreck. Sparks flew from shredded cables and plumes of smoke rose high into the air. Energy shields attempted to re-form over the crooked and scarred metal body, only to flicker and fail. There were gaping holes torn in the hull, but what was worrying was that one particularly large chunk had been ripped out of the armor that shielded the bridge’s starboard side.
Kenon hopped off his companion’s back and landed on the smooth, slimy stones that formed the lake’s shoreline. As he approached the crashed ship, the tyliven chirped in protest, and he looked back at her, raising his hand for her to be silent.
She growled and backed up a few steps onto the grass, laid down with her paws tucked under her chest. She kept a close watch on him as he carried on, ready to spring back onto her feet if he required her assistance.
The young Drahkori was waist-deep in the water before he found a spot where he was able to climb the side of the carrier’s bow. Using the deep scratches in the hull as footholds, he inched his way up to the hole leading into the bridge.
When he was close enough, he reached out and grabbed ahold of the jagged metal rim, pulled his weight up and over, then stumbled sideways on the tilted deck. He grasped a cable hanging from the ceiling to keep himself from falling, and once he’d adjusted to the awkward angle, he surveyed the bridge with wide eyes.
A pair of crewmen lay lifelessly here, bloodied and beaten—one impaled on a twisted strip of flooring, the other pinned to the bulkhead by a metal beam that had broken out of the ceiling.
Looking to his right, Kenon had been expecting to see the Ship Commander sitting in his gravity throne—severely injured, if not dead—but all he saw was the throne, tipped over on its side and pushed up against a damaged console.
Upon closer inspection he could see that the controls, glistening in the light of the viewscreen, were drenched with the luminous blood of the absent Leh’kin warrior.
The Ship Commander couldn’t have gone wandering around the carrier after losing this much blood—he would have been far too weak to traverse the corridors, sloped as they were now. He must have just barely gathered the strength to climb out of this wreck.
Kenon swept his hand across the controls, his fingers came away sticky and blue. If his tyliven companion could pick up the Ship Commander’s scent, perhaps she could track down the warrior before it was too late . . . if it wasn’t already.
He hauled himself back to the hole and slid down the ship’s hull, landing in the water and making his way over to the tyliven. Hoisting himself up onto her back once more, he held his bloodstained hand out for her.
The hybrid twisted her neck around and took in a breath, then lifted her head and sniffed the air. Sure enough, she’d picked up the Leh’kin’s scent, and she set off on a brisk trot back into the trees.
Chapter
———FIVE———
1920 Hours, December 01, 2438 (Earth Calendar) / Hornet’s Nest Military Base, near Terrak Mountain Range, planet Calypsis, Sol System
A freshly shaven and showered Lieutenant Knoble sat in the company of unfamiliar soldiers at one of the tables in the cafeteria, which was attached to the base’s main hall. This would be the place he would call home for the next few days—at least until he could catch a ride back to Anahk.
Known as the Hornet’s Nest, this place was a military base built in the thick of the marshland just a few kilometers away from the hollowed-out mountains that concealed the city of Viro—currently the largest metropolis on the planet, and by far the most secure.
After the brief engagement over Anahk, the UNPD Rain of Fire turned tail and fled to Calypsis via slipspace with all evacuees safely onboard. Captain Nicholas’ initial plan following their escape had been to take the civilians straight to Viro City and drop them off at Chergard Station, but when they’d exited slipstream space and begun their descent through Calypsis’ atmosphere, the Rain of Fire had started to fall apart and Nicholas had had to make an emergency landing.
Now the frigate was undergoing extensive repairs in a neighboring facility. It was a wonder she’d even managed to land considering the hits her hull had taken, but the fact they’d all arrived alive was thanks to the ship’s AI unit, Catherine.
Though there was still one problem grating on Knoble’s nerves: they wouldn’t be able to move the civilians they’d rescued from Anahk until morning. If Captain Nicholas hadn’t insisted on toughing it out with the Legacy of Night, they could have had everybody moved to Viro long before dusk.
And now Knoble and his team were stuck here in the swamplands until the ship was fixed. God knows how long that’s going to take.
At the touch of a hand on his shoulder, the Lieutenant twisted around to see who had come up to him and was pleasantly surprised to see such a familiar face.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he said.
Alana Carmen—his stepdaughter. She was the most exuberant girl he had ever met. Stubborn, too. Optimistic and adventurous, she was always in search of something new and exciting to dedicate herself to. Knoble had married her mother four years prior to the Drocain-Human war.
He hadn’t seen her in close to six years. She was once a member of Alpha, back when the team was under the command of First Lieutenant Andrew Reese. Reese had bled out internally one night following a horrendous battle—the very same battle that claimed the lives of his wife and daughter. It was the next day that Alana transferred to Calypsis.
Alana sat down beside him, folded her arms on the metal tabletop. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” She heaved a wistful sigh and asked, “How are you?”
He had been caught in an eight-hour firefight, thrown against a wall, he’d been stepped on, shot at, and had the air forced out of him . . . and he’d escaped Masahi City only minutes before it was swallowed by an alien bomb. The last couple of days had been quite eventful—more so than usual.
“Could be better,” he said simply, not wanting to bore her with the gritty details. “I thought you were stationed somewhere up north?”
“That’s where I was supposed to be staying, yeah,” Alana said. “But I don’t know, I guess somebody screwed up some paperwork and I ended up here. Not that here is bad, here is great! I’ve got a good team, and I managed to get into a fantastic training program which has really helped me out a lot. I do miss being a part of Alpha, though.” She drummed her fingers along the side of the silver canteen she was holding and bit her lip. “How’re those guys doing anyways?”
Lieutenant Knoble brushed his hand over the stubble of his close-shorn hair, hesitant to give her an answer. “Team’s not what it used to be,” he said. “Bennett and Stanford are still around. Both of them have been missing you a lot, by the way. They wanted me to tell you that the next time I got to speak with you.”
“Well tell them I’ve missed them, too.” Alana smiled. She turned around when a man tapped her on the arm with the grip of a combat knife.
“Carmen, we’re mounting up,” he said, pointing with his thumb to the other two soldiers waiting behind him.
“Got it. I’ll be with you in a minute.” When the man left she turned back to her stepfather, a disappointed look on her face. “I guess I’d better get going then. An assault carrier crashed down some kilometers south of here and we’ve got orders to dash out and investigate the scene. Should be interesting. Maybe later we can grab a drink and talk a bit. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice. I look forward to it,” Knoble agreed, holding out a clenched fist.
Alana bumped her knuckles against his and stood, giving him
a quick wave as she ran off to join her teammates. The four headed out the door just as a group of soldiers in heavy, black body armor were on their way in—shouting at each other as they tugged on metal ropes hooked to something out of sight.
Headhunters—the most effective recon and recovery squadrons in the United Nations Planetary Defense. They were the guys the UNPD called to rush head-first into a bloody war zone when nobody else could, and they were damn good at what they did.
“Lockdown the moment we get these bastards inside!” one Headhunter shouted to the guards standing on the catwalk above the main gate as he pulled back hard on his end of the rope.
The Headhunters had brought back two Drocain warriors: a stocky Digred in silver armor, and a monster of a Khael’hin warrior whose face had been dreadfully disfigured. Knoble didn’t retain the memory of every alien he’d fought in the war, but he remembered this one all too well. He’d hacked the poor sucker to bits with a machete several years ago.
Despite their hands being bound behind their backs, these warriors were putting up one hell of a fight, and judging by how exhausted they both were, it was easy to guess that they’d been at it for a while.
The Khael’hin lost his footing on the smooth metal floor, and three of the Headhunters piled on top of him the second he hit the ground. One of them—a man with skin so black it looked almost blue—planted his boot on the warrior’s neck and crouched down over him, slid the helmet off the alien’s head and gripped his long, scarred jaws.
“Somebody messed you up good, huh?” the man sneered, then knocked the warrior out cold with a swift blow to the back of his head. Some of the other men in the room, including those who sat around Knoble, whistled and cheered, clapped their hands and congratulated the Headhunters on another successful outing.
But Knoble stayed quiet.
While it was satisfying to see a warrior so big and menacing put in his place by a fellow soldier of the UNPD, he was too busy wondering what they were going to do with a couple of over-sized lizards. The only thing they could potentially be used for were study and, on the odd occasion, information.
And target practice, maybe.
Drocain warriors had been captured, imprisoned, and interrogated many times in the past and rarely did anything ever come of it. They were sworn to silence and would rather die than divulge the Royal Empire’s secrets.
“Julian, Marcus,” a man addressed the squadron’s leading pair as he strode up to them in a dark green-and-brown camo print uniform. He tugged at the rim of his cap and folded his arms. “Impressive catch. Where’d you pick them up from?”
“Sergeant Major, sir!” They both stood at attention briefly, then relaxed. The man whom Knoble presumed was Julian, the heavy who’d knocked out the Khael’hin, spoke first while Marcus helped the rest of his squad secure the Digred warrior.
“Found them out back, twenty miles from the crash site in a field of escape pods, unarmed and without shields. Easy targets. Assumed they must have been aboard the Legacy of Night when she was hit.” Julian holstered his firearm.
“Then they may know exactly where the device is on that ship, and with a carrier that size it would take the rest of the night to search her,” the Sergeant said. “I do believe you may have saved us from hours of searching. Good work. You can take those two to their cells.”
Julian complied, wrapped the metal rope around his arm and grabbed the alien’s wrists, then proceeded to drag the hefty body across the floor with the help of his squadmates. The Digred had stopped fighting his captors apart from the occasional defiant tug on his ropes.
The Sergeant Major watched them go, then looked to the cafeteria table where Knoble was sitting and eyed the soldiers for a moment. “Alright, that’s enough gawking,” he said, clapping his hands loudly. “Dinner time is long over, so move your lazy carcasses and get back to work!” He kept clapping as they cleared out, and then stopped when his gaze rested on Lieutenant Knoble. “Hm, new meat. What’s your name, Lieutenant?”
“Lance Knoble.” The Lieutenant rose from his seat and held out his hand.
“Sergeant Major Jeffrey Shepherd,” the man introduced himself, took a firm hold of Knoble’s hand and shook it. “You must be the one Carmen’s always talking about.”
“I wasn’t aware that she talked about me at all, to be honest.”
“Son, thanks to that young lady you are known very well around here. But that’s not much of a surprise anyway. I mean, look at all of your accomplishments. You’re a real hero, you know.”
“Accomplishments?”
“You’ve gotten right up close and personal with those lizards, beat their sorry asses into the dirt, and come out alive. That girl of yours has told us plenty of stories. It’s obvious she idolizes you.” Shepherd pulled a metal case from his breast pocket and opened it, slid a cigar out from under the elastic band and lit it.
Lieutenant Knoble had never really thought about the way his stepdaughter viewed him, not that he’d had much of a reason to. He just did whatever he thought was necessary to defeat his enemies, to protect the people he cared about and to protect humanity. It was simply the way he worked, the way he’d always worked—even when he used to fight against rebels from insurrectionist colonies. And if his methods were effective, then that was great. He was glad.
“Anyhow, Lieutenant,” Shepherd said, smoke puffing out from between his lips as he spoke around his cigar. “You’ve been here for a while and I noticed you’re looking a bit bored. How would you like to lend a hand around the base? You and your men.”
“What do you need us to do?”
“I’ve deployed three squadrons to search the swamps since that Drocain carrier came and crashed on my turf. Echo Team’s gone to investigate the ship while the rest are out looking for escape pods. If you wouldn’t mind, you could take your guys out to the field and help speed things up. I would appreciate it, and you might find a few extra credits in your account if all goes well.”
“Yes, sir,” Knoble replied with enthusiasm. He’d considered asking somebody to give him a job, so he was more than happy to hear that the Sergeant had something for him to do. “I’ll have my team ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Good. Feel free to grab whatever equipment you need from the armory. We’ve got plenty of supplies here, more than we can use.”
Knoble made his way to the armory, where he had told his teammates to meet him, and when he arrived he was pleased to see that they were already suiting up.
Second Lieutenant Leonard Stanford was helping Sevadi to secure the straps on his chest plate, Private Paul Tucker was grabbing grenades left and right, and Corporal Bennett and Private First Class Allison West were checking their weapons over, making sure they were in working order.
“Hey, catch.” Bennett bent down and hooked his fingers around the straps of a rucksack, then tossed it to the Lieutenant.
Knoble caught it in his arms and nearly fell backward. “I thought I said pack light,” he said, surprised by how heavy it was.
“There’s a lot of useful equipment in there,” Bennett told him. “You should be happy I packed it for you. If I hadn’t, we would all be ready to move while you were still stuffing frags in your bag.”
“Good thinking, Corporal.”
Lieutenant Knoble and his team waded through deep pools of swamp water. It washed up against his waist, cold and wet, and left slimy green algae on his uniform. The thick algae floated atop the surface like a blanket, glittering with the light of fireflies.
Alpha Team had been out in the woods for a while now, trying to track the beacon of a Drocain escape pod, but they were having a hard time getting to its location. The route they’d chosen was apparently the fastest but, with all of this water and mud, Knoble was beginning to think they should’ve taken a different path.
And to add to his frustration, there was one soldier amongst them who was becoming more and more edgy with every passing second.
“You know, I wouldn’t have
minded at all if you guys had left me behind at the camp,” Private Sevadi complained, his voice shaking uncontrollably as he shivered from the cold water soaking his clothes. “It was warm and dry there, and we didn’t have to fight off swarms of stupid bugs . . . and these ones are biting! I mean, look at this! Does this look infected to you?”
Tucker slapped him across the face, not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to make the younger soldier shut his mouth.
“Can it, Sevadi,” Tucker said. “And grow a pair, would ya? There’s gotta be worse things out here than bugs, kid.”
While Knoble could understand where the Private’s apprehension was coming from, he also knew that they had a mission, and that they needed to avoid drawing any unwanted attention to themselves. Sevadi should have known as well. There was also the fact that he had joined the military of his own accord and he wasn’t being paid to bitch and whine.
Just when Knoble was starting to think they would have a bit of peace and quiet for the rest of the journey, he heard the poor kid speak up again from the back of the group.
“Uh, guys . . .” he murmured.
“Private, we need to keep quiet. Shut your mouth already!” Knoble ordered.
“No, seriously, there’s blood in the water.”
At that, the whole team whipped around to face Private Sevadi. They pointed their flashlights to the pool’s rippling surface and, sure enough, there were streaks of crimson blood swirling all around them.
Private Tucker stepped forward and kicked at the bottom of the pond, then jumped when a pasty-white face floated up in front of him. Sevadi aimed his battle rifle at the body and backed away as well, almost tripping over his own feet.
Knoble inspected the corpse. It was a man, middle-aged. The right-hand side of his face had been ripped to shreds, his jawbone exposed, and his neck looked like it had been chewed on. His uniform was torn open across his chest; claw marks stretched from his collar bone to his abdomen.
The Calypsis Project Page 7