“LeBoeuf, feel free to teleport us out of here if a ship is in range!” Boyd shouted to her.
“Ideally, one that isn’t in distress,” McMillan added.
“Nothing safe is in range,” LeBoeuf said. “And remember, this is my first time on Earth, site-to-site teleportation from me isn’t recommended unless you want to risk ending up inside of a mountain.”
“Was afraid you’d say that,” Boyd said as he primed his weapon for action, gazing at the coming violence without fear. “Alright, Witch Queen, you’re up.”
LeBoeuf’s arms rose while the holographic bracelets that twirled around her wrists changed to a light purple color and her implants began to shine and glow with psionic energy. A psionic barrier flashed into existence ahead of her, one that resembled a wall, more like a barricade. It was perfect cover for the storm that drew near.
Chevallier, Maxell, Boyd, and McMillan hunkered behind it and periodically rose up to spray their human might into the battlefield, retreating behind it when the invader soldiers returned fire with their tachyon rifles. Chevallier remembered her tips and used particle beam strikes for targets that got too close and needed to be vaporized right away, namely the stampeding drake tanks which the soldiers hid behind.
“This is new,” Chevallier said, ducking from a tachyon beam.
“You can thank the Lyonria for that,” Boyd said. “They've been messing with our genes since ancient times. Human psionics got tricks Hashmedai and Radiance psionics can’t do.”
LeBoeuf’s rifle remained silent, as she opted to use her abilities for support. Drake tanks were pushed backward with the thrust of her hands, and wyverns were flicked away with telekinesis as she used what mental strength she could spare to reinforce the psionic barricade. Maxwell’s psionic rifle entered cryonic mode, snap freezing targets he found, then shattering them into pieces with a telekinetic push. McMillan and his exosuit body delivered three back-to-back headshots, splattering invader brains in random directions from the exit wound.
Chevallier’s rifle put down the last attacker, she grinned. Watching invaders die screaming was incredibly invigorating. She hoped her mother, from beyond, was watching and enjoying the show she put on.
More sounds of flesh tearing echoed. Another wave of enemy forces was due to pop out from the slimy interior of the apertures. Chevallier was more than willing to stand there all day and send them all to hell.
“We need to move,” Boyd said, scanning the area around them.
Running was the last thing on her mind. She wanted to stand her ground and fight. The dead dragons before her wasn’t enough, she wanted the entire surface of the back of the beast they rode on drenched with their blood, even if it killed her. At least, if it came to that, she’d be able to join her mother.
Someone screaming horrifically made her change her mind instantly.
One of the apertures below them opened, McMillan stood over it. Chevallier watched as his screaming body was pulled under and out of sight, jets of blood squirted upward like a broken fire hydrant seconds later. The apertures evidently had another function, human meat grinder.
Going out like that wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for a glorious death her mother would be proud of. Chevallier made sure to keep up with Boyd and the gang, while watching her racing footsteps, ensuring not to stomp into the hundreds, if not thousands, of lip-like apertures waiting to spit up new targets to attack them or swallow her.
Boyd tried to call for help, so did the dozens of fighter pilots that ejected from their crafts, so did the survivors from the downed capital ships. Everyone needed help, and they all needed it more than they did. What they needed was another way to survive until their turn came. Chevallier searched frantically as new dragons and half-dragons slowly began to emerge from the apertures around them during their retreat.
She found it.
Chevallier stood ahead of a large aperture and stared down at its goo-soaked lips which were in the process of parting and paving the way for more horrific surprises to leap out. As Chevallier recalled, if this creature was really a ship, then these dragons and half-dragon soldiers were its crew. The apertures were entrances into their ship.
“Here!” Chevallier called out to her group. Once their attention was drawn she pointed to the aperture below her. “Get inside.”
Maxwell’s face was flabbergasted. “Are you fucking crazy? Did you not see what that did to the poor guy?”
“He wasn’t ready,” Chevallier lowered her rifle and fired four rounds into the opening of the aperture, a muffled scream came out. “We are.”
“How does going inside help us?” Maxwell said.
“Fine, stay out here with those flying things,” Chevallier said then returned to firing rounds down into the slit.
Maxwell faced Boyd. “Sir?”
“I don’t see any other option,” he said, and joined Chevallier. “Maxwell, LeBoeuf, force this fucker to open up.”
LeBoeuf and Maxwell stood shoulder to shoulder, held their hands above the aperture, used their psionic might to force it open, and brought to light its soft, red, and slippery flesh going down. Three snarling foot soldiers within the aperture attempted to pull their bodies up to the surface, Chevallier and Boyd’s rifles put them back down and then sprayed additional rounds to ensure the hole going down was clear and safe.
Tactical scans revealed no possible contacts were present, and no signs of anything dangerous to them were inside if they entered. It was the entrance into the living ship, the escape from the terror nearing them. The four stood and exchanged neutral glances, not one of them wanted to take the first plunge.
“Fine, geez,” Chevallier said, and dove in.
20 Chevallier
Sea Wyrm Interior
Mediterranean Sea, Earth, Sol system
August 9, 2118, 14:32 SST (Sol Standard Time)
The fall was deep, much more than she thought it was. Chevallier’s slide down into the belly of the wyrm took two minutes, during which she cringed at the strange goo that coated her shields, and the swishing sounds the flesh made when her body slid over it. Light became rare the deeper she fell into the orifice, forcing her helmet’s night vision to power on.
The journey ended when she fell out from a slit on the wall, landing inside a darkened passageway over top of two corpses. It was the soldiers they recently gunned and pushed down. Their theory was correct, however, the wyrm wasn’t just a dragon, it was a vessel. A quick scout ahead revealed a maze of hallways, rooms, pipes, air vents, and even computers surrounded by throbbing flesh and organic material.
The interior of a ship was built inside a dragon, for lack of a better term. What kind of sick and twisted species are we dealing with?
Boyd’s body tumbled out of the slit on the wall next, followed by LeBoeuf and Maxwell last. Of course, he’d be last. The EDF soldiers came to their feet, except Maxwell who laid down looking up at the flesh covered ceiling that dripped a strange liquid.
“Yo, Maxwell, you okay?” Boyd said.
“I feel like I got pushed into a five-credit hooker’s vagina,” Maxwell moaned. “No, I’m not okay, sir.”
Boyd laughed and lightly kicked the side of Maxwell’s body, triggering his shields to flash. “At least you had protection.”
The four began a long trek through the maze of tunnels of the living ship, keeping an eye out for its crew, and listening to the strange noises in the distance. It wasn’t by any means a smooth walk, understandable since the wyrm was still swimming rapidly to the east. Any sudden turns it made they felt, and nearly tipped over. Random vibrations trembled across the floor, and they didn’t feel natural. The UNE might have begun bombing runs, and according to Boyd, now would have been the time backup from the UNE would make their presence known. It was both good and bad news, good because it meant the UNE had regained air superiority, bad because, well, they were still inside.
None of them were able to establish a communication link to the outside world, inter
ference from being so deep inside the creature they suspected. Said interference, no doubt, was hindering LeBoeuf’s ability to teleport out. Though the most likely reason was because of the unknown cybernetics the wyrm had on its insides and out. The four intruding humans encountered a dozen search parties, including a group that most likely arrived after them from the surface.
Being caught in the maze worked out nicely as they were able to hide in dead ends, and then wait for patrols to pass. When said patrols lurched past, the four silently vaporized them and kicked the ashes and melted metal aside, eliminating the risk of another patrol discovering bullet-ridden bodies. The trade-off, however, was that it drained Boyd and Chevallier’s rifle batteries, while putting more mental drain on the psionic duo, as if they didn’t go through enough. Ammo conservation, for lack of a better term, was a reality.
“Keep your HNI on record guys,” Boyd said, looking around. “’Cause we’re getting some top-tier intel right now.”
“You weren’t kidding, it is a full-on bio-ship,” Maxwell said.
“I guess the invaders took a creature from their homeworld, stuffed it with cybernetics and corridors for a crew to operate in,” LeBoeuf said.
“And not one person noticed it do the butterfly dive from orbit into the fucking Mediterranean?” Maxwell snorted.
“Who knows? There was a lot of confusion during the opening hours of the attack,” Boyd grunted.
The four encountered two soldiers standing guard in front of a disk-shaped doorway. It looked like the opened mouth of an earthworm, complete with tiny teeth encircling it.
“Two guards standing watch,” Boyd whispered as they hid around the corner. “There’s probably something important inside.”
A double check of motion sensors revealed no other patrols were inbound, and probably nobody beyond the mouth-like doorway. Chevallier checked the status of her rifle’s power via its tiny holographic window. It was still up for more action. The four stormed away from their cover and greeted the guards with their energy weapons. Two piles of ashes blew away as they stood looking at the horrific doorway.
The mouth-like doorway retracted, almost as if it detected their presence and gave them access to what was beyond. Chevallier eyed the doorway and passageway that was lined with teeth and slime-coated flesh. Her face winced. I’m going to have nightmares about this place for years . . .
Chevallier crawled in along with her team, and ensured her finger was close to the trigger of her rifle, paranoia was at an all-time high. Night vision lit the way into the wet, gooey, and narrow passageway, one that forced them to crouch in order to pass through. Her teammates followed behind and then stopped suddenly when their motion sensors began to pulse with information.
“Anyone else noticing the same pattern of motion from this ship?” Chevallier asked.
Boyd concurred. “Yeah, thought it was just their troops making a whole lot of noise but . . .”
“There’s a pattern to the sounds,” Chevallier said. “It is consistent, like a heartbeat.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, indeed,” LeBoeuf said. “This is organic after all, and all living things need a heart to live, bio-ships are no exception.”
The heartbeat-like pulses on their motion detectors guided them through the narrow and sticky passageway into a central chamber, shaped like the inside of a hollowed sphere. The four stealthily looked over a railing before them after exiting the passageway. They took note that there were two levels to the chamber, a top level, where they stood, and a lower one where humanoid invaders without any armor operated computer stations. In the center of it all? The enormous heart of the wyrm, beating rapidly and pumping blood into its body via numerous veins the size of steam pipes.
The vantage point they had gave Chevallier the opportunity to closely examine the humanoid invaders, using the enhance zoom function of her helmet’s camera. The appearance of the invaders looked as if a human and dragon had a child, featuring long tails, razor-sharp claws for hands and feet, horns, thick, scaly skin, and yellow eyes that glowed, almost like a Hashmedai. Some were male, others were female, and it was easy to tell since they didn’t wear any clothes. Oddly enough, not all of them had tails and a select few had long and thin wings growing from their backs.
“Any bright ideas?” Maxwell said.
“Shoot it and give it a heart attack,” Chevallier snorted.
Maxwell gestured to the forces below the balcony. “And them?”
“They’ll probably be pissed and come after us,” Chevallier said.
“I say we should come back later with a full strike team,” LeBoeuf suggested, while observing the number of targets below. “We’re going to have a huge fight on our hands if we go loud. We should search for a place further away from the psionic interference, so I can teleport us all outta here.”
“Last time I checked, this is on a direct course to the east. Who knows what it will do once it gets there,” Chevallier said, standing up and priming her rifle. “We can kill it right now and prevent a shitshow.”
“Or, we could blow our load, not kill it, be stuck inside, and hunted. Let’s be smart about this.”
“I’m glad you weren’t part of the Sirius team,” Chevallier spat.
LeBoeuf faced Boyd. “Sir?”
She heard him sigh over their comm channel. “Stand down, Chevallier. We got priceless intel that needs to get out. We’ll come back with a stronger team, now that we know how to get in.”
“Fuck that,” Chevallier said, and peered through her scope, zooming in on one of the blood vessels. “Maxwell, LeBoeuf, you take care of any hostiles that come after us. Boyd and I will serve up some heartburn.”
“Whoa, when did she start giving orders?” Maxwell said.
Boyd forced the barrel of Chevallier’s rifle to lower with his firm hand pushing down on it. “Stand down, now! That’s an order!”
“Step aside if you’re not going to help.”
“Chevallier, we’re not doing this right now—”
“Just watch me.” Chevallier smirked beneath her helmet.
Her rifle switched gears entering projectile fire mode. Its rapidly fired bangs drew the attention of the shocked invader forces below and forced Boyd, Maxwell, and LeBoeuf to assist. Chevallier might have been going against orders and what they wanted, but she knew, like all soldiers, they weren’t going to leave her behind to suffer when the enemy started moving. She had plenty of experience to know this for a fact. Plus, where would they go? Even if they found a place free from interference, LeBoeuf wasn’t going to be able to make a teleport while under fire, much like how she was now, as her psionic barrier deflected weapons fire.
Shooting when told to hold, holding when told to shoot, it was the way Chevallier treated combat situations in which she didn’t agree with her CO, which was always. It’s what got her into trouble a lot, and it was her mother’s influence and rank in the navy that kept her out of the brig, until she was forced to the Sirius expedition. Even then, being eight light-years away from Earth didn’t stop her from doing things her way. Chevallier’s mother being dead, and her stuck inside the chest of a dragon, wasn’t going to change a damn thing.
Her impulsive nature and gunplay always produced results, such as the results her tactical HUD gave her, confirming the heartbeat of the wyrm was suffering. The ruptured veins began to spill a fountain of blood within the chamber amidst the death from above her team delivered onto the raging humanoid dragons below.
Chevallier’s finger released from the trigger as she lowered her smoking-hot rifle. She watched the now idle and bullet-ridden heart and veins drain its thick and warm fluids below, washing away the dead and not-so-dead invaders. She noticed plumes of steam escape the dead heart, and waves of more rising away from the now bubbling and growing ocean of blood below them. Thermal scans revealed its temperatures to be two-hundred three degrees Celsius and rising. Water boils at one-hundred.
The blood was showing no signs of stopping,
and the second level they stood on was poised to become flooded with the super-heated liquid that would burn and drain their shield power. The sudden rumbles felt below their feet that tossed them all off balance didn’t help. The wyrm was dying and probably rolling in pain.
“Chevallier . . .” Boyd firmly said to her.
“Write me up later, we need to get out.” Looking at their psionic duo, Chevallier asked. “I assume teleportation is still off the menu, yes?” Chevallier had hoped with the wyrm dying that perhaps the psionic interference would fade and allow for teleportation. The angry glares that came at her from the two said otherwise. She shrugged it off. “Anyone remember the path we used to come in?”
The four backtracked into the narrow corridor, and most likely missed the entrance that they had used to enter it originally as they found themselves inside a maze of hallways that looked unfamiliar. They ran as the boiling hot blood seeped through the walls, flooding the floor, and dripped from the ceiling, burning everything it touched.
Left, right, left, left . . . they ran through the maze unsure of where to go.
The blood continued to rise at their feet, and their shields continued to lower slightly each time their feet splashed through it.
Right, right, left, and dead end. “Fuck!”
Backtrack, left, left, right? They were back where they started. The blood had reached their ankles and maintained its roaring, bubbling, and boiling effect.
They arrived at a long hallway where the walls took on a different appearance. The fleshlike hull was thicker than what they encountered previously.
“I don’t remember any of this . . .” Maxwell commented as they ran past.
Chevallier stopped and examined her helmet’s tactical scanner, then ran her hands across its surface. “This is the wall.”
Maxwell faced her and said. “It’s a wall? You don’t say!”
Chevallier smiled. “As in the outside world is beyond it!”
Celestial Incursion (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 1) Page 21