Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

by Ronald Wintrick

  “It can’t get any worse.” I told Meerla, but by her expression it was obvious she hadn’t heard.

  Then I saw something through a large rip in the hull off in the foliage outside the ship. I only saw it because the branches of the nearest trees had been ripped away by our passage and had created an unnatural opening in the vegetation, otherwise its camouflage would have been complete; it was a dappled green and brown lizard, a big one at that, maybe four meters or so in length and not timid at all.

  The thing looked right up into my eyes and flickered a tongue to test the air, to taste me, and I did not doubt it liked what it sensed. Only fifteen meters separated us from the beast, but half of that was up the wall of the ship or I think it would already have been trying to dig us out of the crack in the wall of the hull. The rip in the hull here might have been too high but there were bound to be other spots where the rips were both large and low enough to let in the local predators. The thought wasn’t a pleasing one, not with all the spilled blood and nightfall arriving. No, not a pleasing thought at all.

  I knew one lizard that wouldn’t be bothering us this evening. I stuck my de-atomizer out the rip in the hull, pointed it at the lizard, which exhibited no fear or knowledge of weapons, and vaporized it, just as it was flickering out its tongue again for another taste of, on the rich humid air, of what it must have thought would be its evening meal.

  These reptiles were obviously at the top of the food pyramid, at least in this section of the planet. Was it possible we had crashed on a primordial world? Most such hospitable worlds were already populated with sentient species (humans, of necessity, were Terra-forming new worlds as we went, there being no uninhabited such worlds to claim), but here and there worlds such as this might be were yet to be found. It was possible. I didn’t know which prospect would be worse, however, a barbaric world where we would be pursued for the meat on our bones or a civilized world where we would be pursued for being Alartaw or if we were unknown, for the knowledge which could be gotten from us. Neither eventuality seemed too welcoming. The only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn’t an Alartaw world. You wouldn’t crash on an Alartaw world unless they wanted you to (and they certainly wouldn’t have wanted me to), nor would you find free roaming predatory reptiles. The Alartaw did not like lizards.

  Vengeance was now utter black darkness beyond these outer passageways, and soon these would be dark as well if the dusk that was falling outside were any indication. We needed to gather weapons and prepare fortifications for the coming night, and by and large ships personnel went unarmed, so we needed to do it quickly

  “Arm yourselves.” I said, pointing to my own weapon, not thinking I would be able to be heard or that my own hearing would be returning so quickly, but I was able to hear myself, if only slightly. Whether anyone else heard was a moot point because they understood my pantomime and the object lesson of the predatory reptile outside the hull of the ship. If only we’d been given just a little more daylight to go around and find all the breaches and guard them, but we hadn’t and now I had the terrifying feeling we were in for a long, deadly night. A night which the lizards would be able to move through relying on their heat seeking tongues (most reptiles, no matter which planets they originated from, had this ability), and would have a distinct advantage over us once night was fully upon us.

  “Head for my armory.” I yelled into Naagrotod’s ear. He nodded that he understood so I grabbed Meerla’s hand and stuck it into his belt. I grabbed her belt. I motioned for others to link behind us. We were an Alartaw chain and Naagrotod led us into complete blackness and near silence, unerringly, I might add. I kept my weapon out at the ready. Through twists and turns and up back staircases we moved in utter blackness, fearful of every little sound or obstacle we bumped into. There were a lot of loose personnel wandering around in the dark and I marveled that the Alartaw has so believed in the infallibility of their machinery and systems that they hadn’t thought to include flashlights, though several crewmen we came across had personal computing devices with dim screen illuminations that cast a feeble glow within the gloom, but there were only a few that hadn’t been wrecked and I didn’t have the heart to take them from those who possessed them, but I did make them join our group.

  “Form defensive groups.” I told everyone I saw. “Get armed and form defensive groups. We’re breached and on a reptile world. Form defensive groups.” There were already hundreds in our chain and only so much room in my suite, or I would have had them all follow me.

  They all knew the implications of having crash landed on a reptilian world, and that our hull was breached. Lizards were the most successful of the Universe’s creations. Seventy-five to eighty-five percent of all sentient races were reptilian in nature, though there were both warm and cold blooded versions.

  On primordial worlds, reptiles were almost always the dominant species. Fast, aggressive and well adapted. Always meat eaters. All those silly science fiction movies that had hypothesized that creatures from one planet wouldn’t be able to eat creatures from other planets were ridiculous. Lizards were excellent protein synthesizers, and anyway, there are a finite number of forms of protein and Mother Nature had found them out everywhere life thrived. We would be a tasty, nutritious snack for any lizard that could get us into its stomach. The problem lay in getting me into its stomach in the first place. I didn’t go down well.

  Naagrotod led us on to my suite, the slight illumination now really speeding our progress, and finally through the hole Meerla had blasted in the outer door and on into my weapons room. My weapons were passed out until there were no weapons left to pass out, but not before I added another de-atomizer and a huge blast rifle to the weapons I carried myself. The blast rifle wasn’t the largest in the room but it did have the largest battery back. Battery life seemed to me to be of utmost significance in the light of what we faced. What we possibly faced was an extended stay on this world.

  Then we set up a defensive perimeter by cutting free the furniture, cabinets and everything else bulky we could burn free with the lasers garnered from my weapons room. With the hole in the outer hatch buried behind a mountain of debris, I took a first settled breath, and weapons at the ready, we settled in to wait out the night, however long that turned out to be.

  “Is anyone going to be able to trace our Hyper Space signature through that black hole?” Meerla asked no one in particular. Eyes looked into eyes but no one had an answer.

  “It’s doubtful.” Ventured a tech I didn’t recognize. He didn’t look like he wanted to be on the spot, but he was obviously one of the techs responsible for knowing such things and figured he had better step up now and assume responsibility, but none of this was his fault. It was my fault, or Meerla's. We were the only ones who knew about the possibility of a black hole weapon and we’d even been gulled.

  Obviously the armada of local species had known nothing of the plan to open a black hole right within their own midst. They had been tricked into carrying and activating the black hole weapon as treacherously as had we. I cannot hardly believe they would have agreed to the destruction of their own ships on the off chance we would be destroyed with them. No, the Kievors had probably told them it was some force shield gadget or other some such device and to only use it as a last defense, once the Alartaw had gotten close to them. Who knew what story had been used, who cares, they had been tricked as ruthlessly as had we.

  We thought we were the great conquerors, the mighty hunters, an irresistible force, but we had been taught a quick, violent lesson, slapped on the hand like an unruly child. Imagine if I had brought my entire Navy and the lizards had waited just a fraction longer. What mayhem might they not have accomplished?

  But the Kievors had underestimated us. They couldn’t have expected we would escape their trap, or the real size of the Alartaw Empire, a fact the Alartaw had kept as secret as the Kievors had themselves of their own real size, or I am sure they would not have tried such a treacherous trap, not a race that proc
laimed to all that they would not fight.

  They had must have been confident we would return with a huge force to annihilate the upstarts, and be caught entire in their trap. They had vastly underestimated us and our technology. I wondered how many times in the past the non-violent Kievors had completely annihilated a race they distrusted. I imagined whole worlds vanishing into the maws of inescapable black holes, thousands or even millions of years ago in the deep past, because a fledgling sentient race displayed the intelligence and vigor that the Kievors calculated would be dangerous to them in the far future, and those worlds and races still stuck in the funnels of those time warped gravitational anomalies, doomed to billions of years journeying and at the end of which would be crushing death. Even now the Alartaw we had lost were beginning their own doomed journeys. Thank the stars I hadn’t been with them. I’d take primordial reptiles any day over that.

  An unabiding hatred rose up in me when I thought about it. I couldn’t help also thinking about the oh so clever human race, advancing across space and up the technological ladder at many times the rate of most the alien races around them, doubtless already on the Kievors minds as potential future trouble makers; in fact, in only a short span of time, no more than one beat of the cosmic heart, humans had climbed down from the leafy arbor they had hidden within for so long, conquered their entire planet, wiped away all the animals and fish we didn’t use for our own nourishment, split the atom, leapt into space, brought life to dead worlds, and were now expanding in an exponential manner across our sector of space. The Kievors would of course notice us! Us and our Alartaw cousins. How many similar species had the Kievor already extinguished? The number must be staggering.

  Somehow I had to escape this world, get home, find and bring the human race into the Alartaw Empire, find a way to nullify the black hole weapon and wipe away the Kievor scourge before they wiped us away. Even now they would be arming every species in our way while we cowered like prey in my ruined Flag Ship. The rest of the Alartaw probably wouldn’t even know what a true threat the Kievors who were responsible were if we didn’t survive and get back to tell them. I felt my blood literally boil.

  It didn’t boil for long. Soon, weapons fire, and the occasional triumph of a lizard predator, noted by the blood curdling scream of an Alartaw crewman or Trooper who hadn’t gotten to a weapons locker or who had but been surprised in the dark, became all we could think about.

  The lizards didn’t find it necessary to kill their prey before they started feasting, either, but the screams of those being eaten drew in armed Alartaw to the scenes. I was glad that no screams punctuated the air anywhere near us or I would have felt the need to intercede, and I really didn’t want to take down our barricade.

  Over the long night we heard a lot of screams and weapons fire, but nothing disturbed our barricade. More than likely, because we were in the middle of the ship, no lizard had needed to come this far to find its meal. I don’t know where I found the strength but I never let the muzzle of that blast rifle waver from the barricaded hatchway, and though I had to adjust myself around numerous times to relieve my cramping body and numb limbs, from the time we heard the first screams for help to the end at what seemed a millennia later, my weapon never wavered.

  When, an eternity later, the screams and weapons fire finally ceased altogether, I guessed that we must have passed our first night safely (some of us, at least). The nocturnal lizards must have left Vengeance to go back to their daytime lairs to rest and digest. We had at least made enough of a showing that the reptiles had not thought Vengeance a welcome new lair. Or maybe they had. We’d soon be finding out.

  We had to cut into the stasis chamber to get at the food. The meat was already going stale and certainly wouldn’t last long. I ate my fill and went back to guarding the barricade while the others did the same. It might be a long time before we ate again and I had learned early in life to fill my belly when the opportunity to do so presented itself.

  “What’s the plan now, Emperor?” Meerla asked after a long silence. There was just the slightest bit of sarcasm in her voice but everyone in the room turned in shock to look. Alartaw women weren’t generally given such freedoms. I felt my blood begin to boil but I quashed it with a visible effort.

  “Now’s not the time for your humor, dear.” I said. “I’m certainly open to suggestions if you have anything constructive to add.” I glared at her a moment, then looked around at the rest of the crew present.

  The technician who’d commented earlier about the unlikelihood of our being tracked through a black hole looked away as my eyes passed over him.

  “You.” I said. His eyes snapped back to me guiltily. He knew I was speaking to him and I knew he knew things. An Alartaw version of David Bren.

  “Yes Emperor?” He asked. He was the most timid Alartaw I had yet met.

  “No one calls me Emperor for the time being. I’m just Brune for now.” If we were captured I didn’t want to be known as the Emperor. I went on staring at the tech. “What can be done to restore power?”

  “Probably nothing.” Scared now. The bearer of bad news, especially such bad news as this, could be deadly to the bearer. “Only a complete failure of the fusion containment chamber could cause such a total power failure as this. I can’t even imagine the force that would be required to do it.”

  “You mean like escaping a black hole and then crashing into a planet.” I said sarcastically. “Are we in danger of radiation poisoning?”

  “Radiation?” Astonished. “No!”

  “Can it be repaired?” Did I need to spell it out for him.

  “Oh sure.” He said. I was immediately relieved and it must have shown because he smiled as he went on. “All we need is a large enough power source to activate the computer. Then the computer will do the repairs itself.”

  “You mean like an external power source?” Meerla snapped at the diminutive technician, who literally flinched away at Meerla's angry words.

  “Well, of course.” He said, stuttering. He would probably never get over being scared witless by a female, especially if the story followed him around. His fear had been obvious for everyone to see, even in the dim illumination cast by the portable computing devices which were our only light source, and these were the multi-galaxy conquerors? Jeez.

  I now had a fairly consequential decision to make. Did we stay barricaded in here and wherever else within Vengeance the surviving crewmen could find to hide, and hope and pray that our brethren were able to track us somehow, or did we set out upon the planet and begin our search for an industrial species we could steal a ship or power source from, or at least, I supposed, start a colonization process, in the chance we never got off here.

  I just didn’t know. What if the Kievors had tracked us but the Alartaw had been unable to. Or what if an indigenous species was even now bearing down on our site. I remembered the stories of how humans had treated the first alien species to visit Earth. I didn’t want that happening to us.

  “We have no choice but to abandon this ship. Maybe find a power source we can use to reinvigorate Vengeance. I just know we can’t stay here.” I said with finality. This statement was met with chilly stares, but it was the only logical conclusion. The only safe conclusion, no matter how risky it might seem at first glance.

  “I’m not leaving without my jewelry.” Meerla said dangerously, her eyes hooded, her fingers twitching, like a cornered rat that wouldn’t give up the piece of rotting meat it had stolen even though it couldn’t defend itself because its mouth was full.

  “Maybe your new friend will carry it for you.” I said sarcastically, glancing at the tech, who visibly shrank back into his skin. It was an amazing trick that you just had to see to appreciate. “Hopefully he can keep up under all that baggage.” I believe I grinned.

  “I’m not leaving it . . . Brune!” She growled. “You will not do this to me twice.”

  “I’m not going to do anything to you, dear.” I said cheerfully. “You’re wel
come to stay here and wait for us to return. If we ever do.” I really could have rubbed it in quite a bit more if I’d wanted, but I admit I couldn’t help sympathizing with her just the littlest bit. It was a hell of a fortune! “But the rest of us are going, and we’re going now.”

  We tore down the barricade and moved back out into Vengeance proper. Only forty meters down the corridor we found a blood soaked spot that was evidence of the carnage we would find all throughout the ship before we finally evacuated completely. All that was left of the pitiful crewman was his shredded, blood soaked clothing, and even though the incident had occurred right down the hall from us, we hadn’t heard a peep. Looks were passed around.

  “Maybe he was already dead.” A crewman I had never seen before last night suggested.

  “No.” I said bluntly. There was no point in softening the drama of what was occurring. We would all need to be hard to survive. “See the arterial spray.” I pointed out several obvious squirts that were in different, odd places, as if the lizard had shaken the crewman around while feeding, so that blood was all over. “He was alive when the lizard ate him. At least at the beginning.”

  “Lead out.” I ordered several heavily armed Troopers who were wearing satisfactorily grim expressions and who were obvious veterans. The lizard hadn’t even left the bones, signifying powerful jaws and a certain degree of hunger that could lead to reckless, irrational behavior. I knew I didn’t want to be out front. I took up position beside the now very heavily jeweled Meerla.

  We found scene after scene of bloody carnage, but mostly the Alartaw prefer the de-atomizer or blaster as their weapons of choice and neither left much behind, but we did find one full lizard carcass, though in two sections, which had been pared by a laser cutting device by a half mauled Trooper who had then spent the night curled up under his kill.