The Last Exodus

by Paul Tassi

  All around the room there were storage crates that had been fused to the floor. They wouldn’t provide much protection, but between them and the consoles, it would at least allow them some cover. Alpha imagined that they might need to make a stand in this room, and he was right.

  Lucas could feel sweat pouring down his face inside his helmet. His hands started to tremble, but the stability sensors of the suit didn’t allow that to translate to his aim. Alpha was behind the holotable in the mech, and Lucas and Asha were behind storage crates on either side of him. A bright cutting torch burst through the center of the first door. It was quickly removed, and a device was inserted into the opening. After a few seconds of silence, the item erupted and a huge hole was blown through the door. The Xalan forces began streaming in, shield troops in front. There were almost no gaps in the phalanx and it was nearly impossible to get a shot.

  Alpha let loose a blast from his cannon which jarred the front line. Lucas seized on the moment of instability and unloaded a stream of rounds into two soldiers whose shields were now ajar. Others behind them scrambled to pick up the fallen shields and fill the void, but Asha caught two of them in the head as they attempted to do so.

  Finally, the group broke formation and all of them began opening fire, abandoning the shields altogether. The storage crates and holotable were taking heavy damage and the air was filled with the smell of melting metal. Lucas watched as the central console sparked and eventually erupted in a cloud of smoke after it was decimated by round after round. His own crate was starting to be eaten away and plasma flew by, mere inches from his head. The second doorway exploded the way the first had, and another phalanx of shield-bearing troops marched inside in formation.

  “Screw this!” Lucas heard Asha yell. She banged on Alpha’s metal leg next to her.

  “Cover fire!” she said. Alpha responded by shooting a concussive blast at the scattered troops, which drew their fire to him. Lucas popped out of his own hiding spot and lined up a sniper shot which tore through two separate soldiers who were caught unaware.

  Asha, meanwhile, had leapt over her barricade and was full-on sprinting toward the shielded unit at the other side of the room.

  No way.

  As the Xalans turned their attention toward her, Lucas and Alpha hammered them for not recognizing the more immediate threat, and four more of them went down. Lucas looked back just in time to see Asha throw her sword at the middle shield bearer. It ripped through the metal and hit him square in the face as the shield slumped down to an angle. Continuing her sprint, she ran up the downed shield like a ramp and launched herself twelve feet in the air, aided by the mechanisms of her armor. She curled her wrist slightly and her sword shot up out of the dead Xalan below and into her hands, just in time for her to come crashing down and split another soldier in two. The phalanx shattered, and Asha was now whirling around in their midst. Black blood and limbs flew into the air.

  She’s insane, Lucas thought as he sprinted over behind Alpha on his way to aid her. When he reached the pile, the group was so focused on her they didn’t even hear Natalie fire as the rifle ripped through the backs of four of them. Lucas kicked one soldier away and slashed his knife across the throat of another. Finally he reached Asha, still swinging wildly with pieces of Xalan troops everywhere. She almost took his head clean off before she recognized him. Her armor was cracked, and bits of blackened skin shone through where she’d been hit. But whatever pain she was feeling, she kept fighting. Lucas wrestled with a soldier trying to take his rifle away, while she split another Xalan’s midsection open and then shot him in the head at point-blank range with her Magnum. Lucas flipped the switch on his gun to “carnage,” and fired a blast while the creature was still clutching it. The round hit a soldier to the left of them, and the recoil allowed Lucas to wrench it away from the creature. He spun it around and fired a second blast, which immediately caused the surrounding area to rain black blood. Asha stuck her blade in the center of one final soldier, and Lucas watched as, with a flick of her thumb, blue electricity surged through the creature and smoke poured out of the cracks of his armor.

  The second phalanx was now completely decimated, and Alpha had whittled the first wave down to almost nothing, despite taking heavy fire himself. His mech had blast marks all up and down it, and bits of machinery were spilling out in places. It was still moving and firing, though a bit slower than before.

  Natalie’s barrel elongated and Lucas took down a soldier from across the room with a single shot. Asha ran toward the last Xalan standing and threw her blade at his heart. It stuck straight through his chestplate, and as he slowly fell down to the ground, Asha recalled the sword back to her hand. When she reached him, she used it to cleave his helmeted head off in one quick slash.

  Lucas lowered his gun and winced in pain. He removed his helmet, and tried to look around at his back. He could see smoke rising from behind him, and the distinct smell of burning flesh indicated a shot or two in the frenetic firefight had made its way past the plating, though his organic suit had since sealed the wounds. Asha looked even worse for wear, her armor was missing huge chunks and her bodysuit was visibly mending itself around her bloody wounds and burns, closing them up until they could be further treated. She pulled off her dented helmet, which had fortunately kept her head free of serious injury.

  Lucas walked over to Alpha’s mech, and went around behind him. He opened the rear compartment, and found a very frightened-looking Noah with tears in his eyes. He dropped his holoball, which rolled down the charred floor away from them.

  “Hey buddy, it’s okay. We’re just playing a little game out here. We’ll be done soon.”

  Noah sniffled.

  “Can you be brave for just a little while longer?”

  Noah merely waved his hands around. Lucas walked a few steps away and picked up the ball. Noah blinked away his tears as he took it into his hands and it lit up with a rainbow spectrum of colors once again.

  Lucas walked around to the front of the mech. Alpha had opened the metal head so that his own face was visible.

  “How’d we do, Alpha?”

  Alpha shifted the mech slightly. It groaned.

  “Both the pair of you and the mech have sustained damage, but we are victorious.”

  Asha slowly approached, dripping blood in her wake.

  “Let’s get you patched up again,” Lucas said, and he needed her to return the favor. He reached for the medical tool once more, but as he did so, heard a familiar sound.

  Behind Asha, another phalanx approached, and similar noises could be heard coming from the other hallway.

  “Impossible,” Alpha stammered. “He should not have this many . . . It’s unheard of that he would travel with . . .” His thoughts kept breaking down midway through. He looked down at the pair of them. Lucas was in bad shape, Asha in worse.

  This is it, Lucas thought. This is the moment.

  Death had been both everywhere and nowhere these past few years of his life. He’d seen so much of it, yet it always escaped him. Until now. There was no way they’d survive another battle like the one they’d just fought. Natalie’s scope display flickered. The gun was as damaged as he was.

  Asha pivoted toward the phalanx, marching in unison down the hall. She turned her blade outward, and her Magnum was pointed at the ground in her other outstretched hand.

  Lucas walked up beside her, Natalie crackling in his hands, but still willing to fire. He looked at Asha. Her eyes were full of determination and tears as she stared straight ahead at the alien army ahead of them.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, as smoke billowed around them. He wasn’t sure if he was asking about fighting or dying.

  “Yes,” she said, an answer to both.

  He gripped her by the arm, turned her toward him, and stared into her brilliant, green eyes, burning with rage or passion, he couldn’t be sure.

  “Asha, I—”

  “Do you trust me?”

  The voice was not
hers, but Alpha’s, coming from behind them.

  “What?” Lucas asked.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Alpha, there’s no plan left. This is it.”

  “There is always a plan. That is the reason for the question.”

  What new insanity had been hatched inside that mind?

  “Yes, Alpha. I trust you.”

  “Why not?” Asha echoed.

  Alpha nodded, satisfied.

  “Then put your helmets on, and prepare yourselves.”

  Lucas and Asha obeyed, and the helmets hooked into their chestplates with a hiss.

  “Prepare for what?”

  The phalanxes were now both visible, and had almost reached the CIC.

  Alpha turned toward the viewscreen and pressed a button inside the mech. The metal barrier slid down as the armor closed around his head. A view of the stars and nearby ringed planet reappeared. It took Lucas a moment to process what was happening.

  No.

  Alpha charged up his cannon and let loose a blast at the viewscreen. It made a loud thud, but it remained intact.

  No.

  He shot another blast, and cracks began to form on the surface.

  No.

  Alpha started sprinting toward it as fast as his damaged mech would muster, and fired one more shot. The cracks expanded to the entire screen. He plowed headfirst into the damaged pane and the whole thing shattered as he flew out into space.

  The air was sucked out of the room instantaneously, and Lucas and Asha along with it. He could barely keep a grip on Natalie as he was flung out into the vacuum, and he saw Asha doing cartwheels next to him. In a second they were outside of the ship. He saw streams of Xalan soldiers flying out of the opening, each flailing wildly about. A metal shield shot past Lucas, almost colliding with him. The damaged holotable had ripped out of the floor and was spinning around next to Asha.

  A soldier drifted toward Lucas, unable to control his movements. Lucas tried to fire Natalie, but apparently the rifle wasn’t meant to shoot in a vacuum and remained dormant. Instead, the soldier merely drifted by him, struggling with his own weapon, which wouldn’t work either.

  Lucas wondered why he wasn’t dead. He remembered the holes that peppered his suit, but another thought occurred to him as he floated weightless through space. The bodysuit! The constant sealing also acted as pressurization, and between that and his still functional helmet, he was alive in the airless environment.

  And what an environment it was. Outside of the pirouetting soldiers and debris, he was suspended in deep space in complete silence. All around him shone the light of a billion stars, and the distant center of the Milky Way was more visible than ever. This system must have been quite a bit closer to it than Earth. To his right, which was a constantly changing identifier as he couldn’t stop spinning, was the great green gaseous planet he’d seen earlier, a fresh storm brewing on its surface in the form of a large spot visible between the two rings. Below him was the Ark, battered from their time together, and dwarfed by the ship attached to it. Omicron’s vessel was no longer cloaked, and Lucas could finally see it’s elongated form and true size, which was at least twice that of their own ship. It reflected the starlight and was far more elegant than the usual bulky, mechanical ships he’d seen throughout the course of the war.

  Lucas caught a glimpse of Asha, a hundred feet away. She was grappling with a large Xalan soldier that had been flung her way. His first instinct was to attempt to swim over to her, but the effort proved futile, as it was an ineffective way to move about in space. He lacked propulsion of any kind to come to her aid, but was relieved when she saw her plunge her sword into the creature’s thigh. His suit depressurized, and he clutched his neck as he shook violently. Soon he was still, and Asha removed her blade and let him float past her while she batted away crystals of frozen black blood.

  Lucas searched for Alpha, but couldn’t find the mech anywhere. How was this a plan? It seemed like a peaceful form of suicide if anything. Lucas was unsure of the air reserves his suit contained, but he knew there weren’t any large tanks attached to his back, so it couldn’t be long. Already his breath was starting to feel shallow, and he forced himself to remain calm before he hyperventilated and used all his remaining oxygen. At least the stars and nearby planet were a tranquil sight.

  23

  After admiring the enormity of deep space for several minutes while his breathing became increasingly shallow, Lucas jumped inside his armor when he felt three metal claws wrap around his waist. He looked around in surprise and saw that Alpha’s mech had snuck up on him in the silence. And they were . . . moving? There were jets shooting out wisps of white underneath each giant metal foot, and it was clear Alpha had designed his suit with an emergency propulsion mechanism for such an occasion.

  They soared through space toward Asha, and Lucas had to deflect an armored Xalan body part away from his head as they flew through lanes of debris still streaming out of their ship. Soon she was within range and Lucas reached out and grasped her hand while Alpha came to a halt as best he could. Lucas pulled her into his arms to ensure she wouldn’t float away when Alpha changed course. They were supposed to have comms inside their helmets, but Lucas’s was no longer working and he could only guess at Alpha’s intentions.

  They flew further away from the Ark and drifted closer to Omicron’s ship. Alpha wheeled around and Lucas had to tighten his grip on Asha to keep her from floating away. She was moving slightly, meaning she was still conscious, but it was getting harder to breathe for Lucas, and he imagined the same was true for her.

  Alpha jetted toward the black enemy craft, which was still sitting dormant, silhouetted against the nearby green planet. They moved closer and closer to the front, and Lucas realized their intended destination. The larger ship had a rather wide forward viewscreen of its own.

  Alpha began a barrage of cannon strikes as he rocketed toward the front of the ship. The artillery was silent, but the vibrations from the shots reverberated all the way through Lucas to his core. Alpha was focusing all his fire on one particular point in the viewscreen, and Lucas couldn’t tell if it was achieving its desired result. As they zoomed closer, he could see there did appear to be an area that was cracked, but it was far from destroyed. Alpha kept firing, and Lucas was starting to get dizzy as the air inside his suit was desperately thin. The cracks were starting to spread. Alpha fired one more round and turned himself so that he was diving head first at the weak point. Lucas braced himself as best he could.

  What happened next was complete chaos. Lucas felt an impact shake his whole body and he flew from Alpha’s grasp. They slammed through the screen and onto the bridge of Omicron’s ship. A metal curtain rocketed down to seal the shattered viewscreen. Pressurization returned, as did sound and gravity, and Lucas found himself rolling on the floor, Natalie tumbling out of his grasp.

  But that wasn’t a priority. Lucas’s first action before even standing was to rip off his helmet. Fresh air rushed into his lungs, and he could finally catch his breath, his chest heaving inside his breastplate. A second later, he managed to look around the vast command center and saw that a number of Xalans were getting to their feet as well. Lucas scrambled forward to grab Natalie and put two of them down before he even realized they were unarmed and unarmored. Two more shots from across the room and he saw that Asha had dealt with those on her side as well. Presumably they were navigators, comms officers, or maybe even pilots, but whatever role they had on the ship, they weren’t expecting combat.

  The room they were in was enormous. Holographic consoles lit up every wall, and there were three central chairs instead of the one they had onboard the Ark where Lucas had spent so much of his time. Their holotable was a bit further back, but it was colossal. There was no galaxy or planet floating above it, but rather a three-dimensional rendering of the Ark. Lucas scanned through the flurry of symbols surrounding it, and found that he was reading through KIA reports of the Xalan boarding party. It appea
red none remained.

  Lucas’s attention was snapped away from the display when he heard a loud metal groan. Alpha was struggling to right the mech, which was planted face first on the ground amidst the wreckage of a console it had plowed into. The suit was badly damaged, and Lucas saw that its metal claw was severed and lay a few yards away. Alpha was struggling to push himself up with his cannon arm, but the mech wouldn’t budge. Something was sizzling inside one of the leg mechanisms, and it contracted and expanded rapidly as if it was out of Alpha’s control. Asha came over to help Lucas push the mech’s head and torso upward, but the thing weighed as much as a semi truck, and even their enhanced armor couldn’t help them right it. Alpha wasn’t talking. Presumably his external communicator had been destroyed in the crash.

  The top of the suit opened, and Alpha had to crawl his way out of it onto the floor.

  “You alright?” Lucas asked cautiously, scanning his body for blood.

  “I am intact,” Alpha replied hoarsely, readjusting his translator collar.

  Lucas climbed up the shoulder and onto the back of the mech. The blue core’s light was flickering and seemed to be unstable after the trauma the suit had just endured. Lucas opened the black metal hatch and found Noah safely swaddled in the lining of the gelatinous pod, having endured the recent cataclysm without incident.

  “Leave him in there,” Alpha said as he reattached his mechanical claw. “It is not yet safe aboard this vessel.”

  He was at the holotable, rifling through menus and readouts. A display of Omicron’s ship floated up above him. He scanned through a number of pages of symbols and came to a conclusion.

  “Only one life-form remains onboard this vessel.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lucas jumped, as did Asha, who ripped off her helmet and looked around the empty room. The last voice was not any of their own, and sounded as if it had been spoken right beside his ear. His eyes darted around as the voice continued.