Galactic Champion 2

by Dante King

  She pouted and crossed her arms. I hoped she’d still do what she was told; I didn’t want to have to fight a giant machine and pull her out of the fire at the same time.

  With no more time to consider the matter, I turned my attention back to the battle waging behind me, drew Ebon, and charged.

  The golem was taking a swing at Reaver’s right arm. She caught the giant fist, dug her heels in, and still managed to slide a foot across the dirt before stopping. A new noise, mechanical and high-pitched, drew her attention up.

  Tubes on the machine’s arms began to spin, but before I could call out to her, she recognized the danger. She let go of the mech’s first and rolled forward between its legs. Less than a second later, the multiple barrels on the arm tore a hole through the air where she’d been standing. The slugs kicked up the nearby soil into a cloud of dust. The gun discharged so fast, there was no way I could count how many rounds had been fired.

  Beatrix came charging in next, red-blazing hammer held high above her head. She had to throw herself flat on her back to avoid the incoming firehose of bullets, and though I couldn't see the rounds, I did see them kick up the dust just above her head.

  I threw Ebon as hard as I could. The sword twirled through the air like a buzzsaw, hit the golem, and made it spin backward twice before it fell to the ground. My sword was buried in the machine’s torso, with the blade sticking out. I’d managed to impale the machine with the grip.

  The machine was trying to sit up, but it kept banging the flat of Ebon’s blade against its left knee, ruining its balance. I heard electric motors whining as it strained against the obstruction, saw Ebon flex slightly, and hoped the golem wouldn’t be able to break the blade. Then, seemingly out of nothing, it slumped to the ground, and I wondered if it was all over.

  But a second later, it let out a deafening screech and blew up a cloud of dirt. Instead of trying to right itself by getting a foot under its body, it had activated rockets on its back and was lifting itself to a standing position, hinging on its feet.

  The maneuver also gave me a clue as to the true nature of my enemy. For a split second, I caught sight of a single eyeball peering at me from inside the machine—it wasn’t an autonomous machine. This was battle armor. So I didn’t have to completely destroy it.

  “Reaver,” I yelled, “Kill the pilot inside it!”

  She nodded, and though I wasn’t sure if Beatrix knew what a mech was, she nodded as well. The two women exchanged an unspoken message with their eyes and charged at the same time. Reaver went high, leaping into the air like a jaguar about to pounce on her prey, while Beatrix came in low, glowing warhammer cocked back for a strike.

  Reaver hit first and knocked the mech a little off balance. Beatrix struck the machine solidly in its knee, which bent at the joint, momentarily capturing her hammer before she yanked it loose. The machine didn’t go down, though. Instead, it stomped the ground where Beatrix had been. Then, it quickly spun, followed her slide across the dirt, and stomped again. Beatrix batted the strike away but still had to kick herself into a roll to avoid being crushed.

  Meanwhile, Reaver was crawling across the mech’s body, apparently looking for a way in. If she could find one, she’d likely grab the guard and twist its head off. She hissed with pain and dropped from the machine. It had activated a rocket near the back of its head, and Reaver was scrambling away, one arm guarding the smoking remains of her leather shirt.

  I planned on tackling the mech, but when it turned to try to stomp on the downed Reaver, it also brought Ebon’s protruding blade across my path. Instead, I slid face-first between its legs and kicked one hard as I slid by. The leg looked like it might come off, but instead, it swung high enough for the mech to kick itself in its little arm.

  A faint high-pitched sound came from somewhere inside the machine. It wasn’t mechanical, so it had to be the guard. Their legs probably went in the mech’s legs. I guessed he hadn’t spent a lot of time stretching before the fight—it must’ve hurt. I almost felt bad for the thing.

  The leg returned to the ground with a heavy, metallic thud, and both of the mech’s hands grabbed its crotch, a direct interpretation of what it was doing inside its suit. Beatrix laughed, snorted, then laughed again. Reaver joined her. I kept my cool and looked for a way to free Ebon.

  The mech swung its left arm out at me, missing me by a few inches as I pounded its tough armor with my fists. I had to duck when it turned, sending Ebon shoulder-high over my head.

  A shower of red lightning bolts accompanied by an ear-shattering gong announced that Beatrix was working on it from its other side. A loud clang followed by the mech’s stagger said it had taken a blow from Reaver.

  I hit it again and saw Ebon shift but had to duck as it turned again, reaching for something with its left hand. A moment later, Reaver grunted, and I knew she’d been caught. I also knew that although I could likely pry the thing’s fingers open and free my companion, it would put both of us in even more danger. I had to end the fight, and I had to do it now.

  I decided I’d been cautious enough. As the mech turned again, I didn’t duck under Ebon’s razor-sharp blade. Instead, I flattened my hands, clapped them together, and caught the blade between them. I did feel it nick my skin, but I ignored the pain and yanked hard, pulling Ebon free of the mech’s armor.

  Then, I spun the blade back toward the machine and, still holding it in my hands, drove it through the hole I’d already made. There were sparks, a puff of black, acidic smoke, and—the mech froze.

  Reaver grunted again, but by the time I’d looked, she’d already freed herself and hopped to the ground, gasping for breath.

  Beatrix came out from the other side of the machine with a grim look in her eyes. The left side of her face had been struck and was beginning to swell, but otherwise, she looked unharmed. With a roar, she swung her warhammer, connected with the mech’s chest, and sent it skidding several feet, before our enemy fell over with a dull clang.

  Reaver and Beatrix attended to each other’s wounds while I ran to the mech, drew Ebon free, and looked for the cockpit. I found the seam and the window. So long as the pilot was alive and his mech was operational, it was still a threat. The pilot and I stared at each other for a moment before I jammed my sword into the seam and through his shoulder.

  The guard—the rushada, as the priestess had called him—tried to bite me through the thick cockpit glass. He was bleeding but not much. His mouth began to unroll from the center of his face, revealing a nest of pointy fangs that never seemed to end. He looked like he was trying to turn himself inside out. When the long tube of teeth reached the glass, they began scratching at its surface.

  I gave Ebon a small twist before driving the grip to the right and the blade to the left. The top of the guard’s head came away and fell with a soft thud to the back of the cockpit. Inside his skull, I clearly saw the gray matter of a brain. The guard twitched once, and the tube he had been forming with his snout-thing slumped to one side. He was dead.

  “Wow,” Skrew breathed as he approached from wherever he’d been hiding. “Such brains. Is probably gross for eating, yes?”

  I ignored him, took a second to make sure there weren’t any other guards in sight, and inspected the mech closely.

  “I think that’s the power distribution center there.” Beatrix pointed her hammer to the center of the mech’s abdomen.

  “No, please,” Skrew whined, hopping onto the mech’s cockpit. “No break for dead,” he pleaded. “Skrew want! Make work. Look!” He waved all four of his arms. “Guard have four arms. Skrew have four arms. Skrew keep, yes? Make kaboom with golem, yes? Please? Smash enemy! Squash flat! Enemy pudding, yes?”

  I had mixed feelings about turning Skrew loose with a mech.

  Skrew gave me his best impression of puppy-dog eyes and stuck his thin bottom lip out with a frown, but he only managed to make his face a little uglier than usual. Images flashed through my mind of Skrew stomping cities to the ground, buildings on
fire all around him, people running in fear, screaming. My brain felt like it had vapor-lock.

  On one hand, Skrew had earned my trust over and over again. On the other hand, the machine lying on its back before me was a war machine. It was designed for one thing: destruction. I’d never given Skrew so much responsibility or power.

  “I’m not even sure it’ll run again,” I said, hoping to nip the idea in the bud without having to forbid anyone anything.

  “Here,” the priestess said as she marched forward and dug through her colorful backpack. “I can get it moving again. It won’t be right until we get somewhere safe, but it’ll be good enough for now.”

  I facepalmed.

  The priestess didn’t notice. She withdrew her hand from her bag, inspected a black and pointy cylindrica, device, and hopped onto the mech. She got down on her hands and knees and peered into tiny gaps.

  “Ah, there it is,” she said after a moment.

  She pressed her ear against a spot near the center of the mech’s chest and tapped her black tool against it. Then, she turned 180 degrees and did it again, facing away from me. I couldn't help but notice the shape of her ass against her heavy work pants, though I tried not to stare. I failed with a growing grin. Perhaps I wasn’t trying all that hard.

  She opened a panel and tugged a big handful of wires loose. I stepped closer to try and see exactly what she was doing, but a moment later, there was a spark, the cockpit canopy swung open, and the mech hummed to life.

  Skrew yipped with joy and began unbuckling the guard from a harness holding the creature in place. A few seconds later, he’d finished dragging the thing’s corpse free, including the separated piece of skull, and was strapping himself in.

  “Skrew,” I said. “Be sure you keep the barrels, and any other weapons you find, pointed away from anything you don’t want to destroy. That includes me and anyone who is not absolutely certainly your enemy, okay?”

  A faint beep and softly blinking lights drew my attention to the mech’s interior. I walked over to see. Although the outside of the mech looked like it had been cobbled together from leftover parts, the interior was advanced. There were rudimentary sensors, status lights—most of which shone red—and what appeared to be a comm system. If it was true, then Skrew would be the third team member who would be able to communicate with us.

  In the back, there was what looked like an overland map of the nearby area. I recognized the location of Brazud, but I didn’t recognize the red, blinking symbol overlaid on it. Would that be good or bad?

  “Oh, no, no,” Skrew said. “No shoot Jacob. No shoot Reaver. No shoot Beatrix. No shoot priestess.”

  “Good,” I said. “Meet us back at Ish-Nul. We’ll get there as fast as we can, but I have a feeling—”

  I was interrupted when Skrew found the self-righting button, and screeching rockets blasted the ground under his mech’s back, standing him upright.

  “And take it easy,” I added. “The thing’s in pretty bad shape. If you push it too hard, we’ll have to cut you out of it.”

  Skrew nodded, turned, and bounded away. Just moments later, he’d disappeared into the charred remains of the nearby woods, and almost immediately the heavy footfalls faded into the distance.

  I turned to the priestess as she discarded her heavy clothes and revealed a petite woman in a close-fitting shirt and tights. Her hair was short and pulled into a tight ponytail near the crown of her head. She was slender, and her breasts were small but well proportioned. She had an air of confidence, bordering on arrogance, which I found charming for someone so unassuming.

  She was busy checking me out as well. She started with my face, paused at my chest, then paused again at my groin. Although she had a look of innocence about her, I got the idea that she was anything but that. Her youthful appearance hid the fact that she was more than experienced. I had to remind myself that we weren’t out of danger yet, and reinforcements could be, and likely were, on the way.

  Then, her eyes stopped and settled on Ebon, still in my hand. I was worried she might have felt threatened by it, but when I started to put it away, she touched my hand. Hers was cool with thick calluses on her palms. She was used to working hard with them, and I suspected there was more to her than met the eye.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked as she gently touched the handle with a finger. “It’s Void-tech, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and pulled Spirit-Watcher from under my shirt. “So is this, I think.”

  The priestess gasped and stared wide-eyed at the device. “May I?”

  I looked around—there were no thrums from approaching hovertanks, and there was no evidence of approaching troops. We had a little time, and, more than anything, I if she could make sense of what she saw through the thing.

  “Priestess—” I started to say as I handed Spirit-Watcher to her.

  “Call me Nyna,” she interrupted. “Only the Ish-Nul call me a priestess. They’re baffled by the tech I…” Her voice trailed off as she placed the visor-shaped device over her eyes.

  She turned her head left, right, up toward the sky, then back to me. “You’re Void-touched,” she whispered. “I can see it. So are your companions. You’re all Void-touched.” She turned to the forest. “Oh, and the fires in the forest are out, but it looks like the main powerplant is gonna burn to the ground, you know? Yeah, you really messed it up good, but that’s fine with me. Screw them, you know?”

  “Yes,” I said, “we are Void-touched. I was led to believe you could help us get some information. When I asked the Ish-Nul about you, they said you’d been taken. That’s how we learned you were here.”

  I wasn't sure she was paying attention to my words. She was digging in her backpack again, which I could then see was covered in intricate beadwork, painted shapes, and runes. The biggest, most prominent shape was the two-pronged trident, the symbol of hope.

  When she pulled her hand from her bag, I reflexively grabbed the muzzle of the pistol in her hand and twisted it from her grasp.

  “Ouch!” she complained. “It’s not loaded. I was going to offer it in trade for the… what do you call this?” She pointed to the visor.

  “Sorry,” I said as I inspected the pistol. “It’s called Spirit-Watcher. The previous owner said anyone who looks through it can see into the spirit world. It looks like some kind of scanner to me. Or a data terminal, maybe.”

  “Oh,” she said in a dreamy voice as she continued to look around, “it’s so much more than that.”

  The alien pistol she handed me appeared to be a mixture of Void-tech and well-constructed local technology on par with the electronics on the inside of Skrew’s mech. I suddenly thought of Skrew heading straight toward the Ish-Nul, who would have no warning. A sinking feeling hit me right in the guts.

  I aimed the pistol at a nearby building and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. There was nothing about it—not the weight, no electronic indicators, or even a dial, to tell me whether it was ready to fire.

  “Told you it was empty,” Nyna said, “but the Fex in your pocket should power it just fine.”

  “How did you know?” I asked as I retrieved the small orb.

  She smiled and tapped the visor. “It’s amazing what these things reveal.”

  “Can they reveal a quick way back to the Ish-Nul? We need to get there before Skrew and make sure they don’t panic and attack him.”

  “No worries,” Nyna laughed. “We’ll get there long before he does. I’m looking at the data from four hoverbikes right now. They’re in that building over there, and they’re already powered up. Look like fresh charges, too, so we won’t have any problem with them. Oh, and they have spare batteries as well!”

  I pressed the Fex against the pistol as we followed Nyna’s indications. A moment later, thin, blue lines along the barrel and frame began to glow, before going out. I took aim at the burning central building and pulled the trigger. I was not disappointed.

  A white-hot ball of energy blasted out f
rom the pistol and burned a two-inch hole through the metal. I aimed again and held the trigger down. Instead of firing like a machine gun, though, the blue lines got brighter, and the gun grew warmer. When I let go two seconds later, the white ball of energy that erupted from the pistol was as big as my fist. When it struck the building, a six-foot-wide section of the wall dissolved into white-hot ash.

  “Stop playing with your new toy?” Reaver scolded. “We need to go.”

  “Agreed,” I said, admiring my new hand-cannon. I missed having a ranged weapon.

  Reaver was looking better. Part of the benefit of being Void-touched was our ability to heal quickly. Plus, the rocket had burned off enough of her shirt that I could see the bottom edges of her breasts, which was always a pleasure. She caught me looking and feigned shyness as she covered them with one of her arms.

  When we got to the building a few seconds later, she and Beatrix ripped the door off what turned out to be a fully equipped hangar. I hoped we’d also find a nice hovertank, fueled up and ready for the taking, but there were only hoverbikes inside. They all already had a security matrix inserted. We each selected one and took off toward the quarry to pick up Yaltu.

  “Oh, nice, that’ll spare our legs,” she said as she waved a hand at my transportation. She hopped on the back, holding me tightly, and offered a small wave to Nyna, who returned it with a smile. A few seconds later, we were on our way.

  Instead of trying to go through the forest, dodging trees and avoiding the hidden wildlife, we opted to take a slightly longer path to the beach. From there, we’d be able to see threats from a long way off and travel faster.

  The sea air was a little cold, especially at our speed, so Yaltu was holding me tight, warming herself against my body.

  On the beach, Nyna slowed down until she was riding alongside me. “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said. “I don’t know how long I would have been left there if it wasn’t for you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Why did they kidnap you, anyway? What did they have you doing while you were there?”