Invaders: Dreadnought Ocelot (Invaders Series Book 4)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Stop whispering with her,” Debby said, stamping a foot. “I thought you wanted to marry me, not her?”

  “I do want to marry you,” I said.

  “Who is he?” Jenna shouted, pointing at the Gigantopithecus. “What’s he doing here?”

  Debby glanced at the towering great ape.

  Maybe that was a signal. The Gigantopithecus straightened so he stood on two legs. His head almost reached the ceiling, while his knuckles almost reached the deck. It was unbelievable. The creature cleared his throat and reached up, clicking a device near his throat.

  Was that a translation unit?

  “I am Group Leader Joe,” he said in an unbelievably deep voice. “I have transferred from the Ocelot.”

  “Group Leader Joe?” I asked. “That’s on the level?”

  The Gigantopithecus scowled, glancing at Debby.

  “He’s asking if that’s really your name,” Debby explained.

  The Gigantopithecus stared at me. “Why would I lie?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why would you?”

  “My name is Group Leader Joe.”

  “How about I just call you Joe?”

  “No. You must address me as Group Leader Joe. I am the…” He glanced at Debby.

  She spoke to him quietly.

  The Gigantopithecus nodded. “I am the Cadet Testing Officer. I have come to take you, the woman behind you and Debby back to the Ocelot. There, if you pass my tests, you shall begin your stint as probationary Galactic Guard agents.”

  “Way to go, Logan,” Jenna said behind me. “You’ve just poisoned the Guard against us.”

  “Uh…” I said, realizing that there went my first impressions. Why had I been so confrontational? Was it the Group Leader’s fantastic size or…I don’t know, calling himself Joe?

  Debby spoke to him again, maybe telling the Group Leader I really was a good guy despite all this.

  “If your affairs are in order,” Joe said, “we shall make an immediate transfer.”

  “Uh…” I said again. This was happening too fast. I’d figured the Galactic Guard would be more orderly, the induction process more formal.

  Once more, Debby spoke to him, and there was something about her urgency and the way she kept glancing at Jenna and me that finally made me suspicious. Just what was she telling old Joe anyway? Why the rush to get us off the station? Then, a thought struck. The Gigantopithecus had called Jenna, “The woman behind you.” Didn’t Joe know her name?

  “Hey,” I said.

  Debby and big old Joe looked up.

  “What’s her name?” I said, jerking a thumb back at Jenna.

  Debby began to speak.

  “No!” I shouted. “Don’t tell him. I want him to tell me.”

  Debby fell silent.

  Group Leader Joe looked down at Debby and then stared at me.

  “Her name?” I insisted. “If you just came from the Ocelot to get us, surely you know each of our names.”

  The Gigantopithecus continued to stare at me. He was massively huge, as I’ve said, but that cranium didn’t match his size. Maybe the bruiser wasn’t that quick on his feet, that smart. He struck me as cannon fodder, a shock trooper, not a cadet-testing officer aboard a Galactic Guard dreadnought.

  The staring contest lasted a full three seconds. Finally, Joe growled low in his throat and drew his huge baton.

  “You will submit at once,” he said.

  “No,” Debby hissed. “That’s the wrong way to handle him.”

  Joe scowled down at her. “I am in charge. If you wish to gain your portion of the prize of war you will heed my words.”

  Debby glanced across the hangar bay at me.

  I blinked stupidly, not getting it. How could I? I loved her.

  Jenna must have understood. She grabbed one of my arms and whispered in an ear. “A prize of war is a privateer term. Is the GGS Dreadnought a privateering ship? Does it have letters of marque from the High Min Ve Council?”

  “Huh?” I sputtered. The Min Ve had invaded Earth the first time when I’d originally found Rax and my former Guard ship. Theirs had been a privateering vessel, although under Galactic law illegally coming to Earth.

  “The ape is talking like a pirate,” Jenna whispered. “He’s not talking like a Galactic Guard soldier.”

  I frowned at the Gigantopithecus.

  “Submit now!” the great ape shouted, losing his temper. “This is your last warning.”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt him,” Debby cried. “You promised.”

  “Silence!” the Gigantopithecus roared, backhanding her with the hand that held the baton.

  The effect was horrible and tragic. A Gigantopithecus supposedly had the strength of twenty men, not because his heart was pure, but because he was fantastically huge and needed such strength to move his limbs.

  The backhanded blow lifted Debby off the deck and hurled her against the nearest bulkhead. I heard snapping bones and watched in horror as she crumpled onto the floor. She twitched spasmodically in a dreadful manner and then lay utterly still as if dead.

  I heard myself gasp, and it felt as if my eyeballs popped outward. She couldn’t be dead, not in such an offhanded way, not my Debby.

  “Submit!” the Gigantopithecus roared. “I weary of your stubbornness.”

  I heard more growling, but this time it came from me as rage washed through me. The bastard from the stars had murdered my fiancée, my love. Debby lay unmoving like roadkill.

  “Bah!” Joe said, and he pressed a stud on his belt.

  At first, nothing happened. I glanced back at Jenna. She shrugged and gasped a second later as she stared over my shoulder.

  I faced forward again.

  There was shimmering, and two more massive Gigantopithecuses transferred from somewhere to our station. Each of them wore a black, tight-fitting uniform like Joe, although theirs lacked shoulder boards.

  I didn’t care. I lurched forward. I was going to tear out their hearts.

  “No, Logan!” Jenna screamed. “They’ll kill you!” She plucked at the back of my shirt. “Logan!”

  Dumbly, I looked over my shoulder.

  “We have to run,” Jenna said.

  It wasn’t her words, as they hardly registered. It was the pleading look, the desperation in her eyes. Something clicked in my mind.

  The Gigantopithecuses had not transferred from the GGS Dreadnought Ocelot. They must have transferred from a different spaceship, a pirate vessel, perhaps. Maybe the bright plume we had seen before had been a completely different spaceship decelerating. That would mean there was no Galactic Guard dreadnought coming to save us. We were on our own. I was still Earth’s only GG representative, even if I was so in an unofficial and unrecognized manner. If I didn’t enforce Galactic law, no one else on Earth would protect humanity from these space pirates.

  Dying fighting to avenge Debby would leave my planet defenseless against these alien bastards. As much as I wanted to bury my grief in a battle to the death against them, I knew Earth needed me.

  The two new Gigantopithecuses spoke gibberish to Group Leader Joe. Was that really his name?

  I nodded tightly. I had to remain free and think this through. The best way to avenge my woman was to kill every one of these alien savages.

  Whirling around, I grabbed one of Jenna’s arms and sprinted toward the hatch, dragging her along. We had to get out of here, regroup and then attack.

  -3-

  Beams flashed past us. The Gigantopithecuses had lousy aim. Jenna opened the hatch, and we dashed through, sprinting down the corridor. I passed her, put my boots on the outside of the metal ladder and slid down. My skin was tougher than it used to be, even my palms, although there was friction burn. I reached a landing and looked up as Jenna cried out. She fell trying to do the same thing I had. I caught her, setting her on the landing.

  “Now what?” she said.

  I shook my head and it really hit as I panted. I would never talk to Debby
again, never hold her, kiss her or do all the thousands of little things I had expected I would do for the rest of my life with her.

  My chest felt hollow. I tried to speak, to answer, but nothing came out.

  “I’m so sorry, Logan. I never…”

  I looked up at her.

  Jenna looked away, maybe not wanting to see the fire in my eyes.

  There were thuds and apish shouts from higher up.

  “We can’t stay here,” Jenna said.

  I opened and closed my hands, looking up, considering climbing the ladder and charging the mother—

  “Logan, are you listening to me?”

  I didn’t respond.

  Jenna grabbed my shirt, shaking me, or trying too. “The apes are pirates!” she shouted in my face.

  I stared at her.

  “Think, man,” she shouted. “Did they come from the GGS Ocelot?”

  I gave my head the barest of shakes. I knew they didn’t.

  “That means we’re trapped on the station.”

  I scowled. Jenna must be right. If a GGS dreadnought wasn’t out there…how was I going to get the Tosk prisoners home? What was I going to do about the robots in the vault? What would the Director and the CAU personnel do?

  “Do you want to die out here?” Jenna shouted in my face.

  I snarled.

  Jenna released my shirt, backing away, staring at me in dread.

  “That’s it,” I said in a voice I hardly recognized. “That’s the solution. We’ll destroy the station.”

  Jenna blinked several times. “How does that get us home?”

  “It’s the Samson option.”

  “What?”

  “Samson and Delilah,” I snarled. “Delilah clipped his hair. He lost his strength. The Philistines blinded him—”

  “Quit babbling,” Jenna pleaded. “I don’t want to die out here. The aliens are going to kill us unless we figure out a plan.”

  “I have a plan. We’ll trap them in the station and blow it up, taking them with us. That ends—”

  Jenna looked up as thudding sounds neared. With a squeak of terror, she turned and fled, sprinting faster than I’d ever seen her move.

  I looked up again, wishing she’d left her blaster.

  I didn’t climb the ladder and attack. Dying uselessly wouldn’t give me vengeance. I staggered away, almost too numb to think. Jenna was already out of sight. Maybe the idea of dying on an unmoored Antaran space station near Saturn had unhinged her normally keen nerves. I couldn’t blame her. It was weird being so far from Earth. Maybe she hadn’t mentally separated herself from home as I had, knowing that Sand waited back on Earth to abuse and kill me.

  I continued staggering. The robots I’d locked in a vault were nine-foot mechanical monstrosities. Might they be a match for the Gigantopithecuses?

  My pace lengthened and strengthened. I had to get a grip and deal with these alien shock troopers. The Gigantopithecuses had transferred here for a reason.

  Joe had tried to transfer Debby, Jenna and me onto their spaceship. It would appear that whoever was running the operation wanted me out of the way. That implied they knew something about us—and me. The information must have come from Debby.

  That made no sense, though. Why would Debby sell us out? I wasn’t buying the notion about a woman scorned. Firstly, I had not scorned Debby. But she had believed there at the end that I had been cheating on her. Why would she think that? Jenna couldn’t be right about Debby acting a part, could she?

  I couldn’t know that now, so I ignored it. I had to think tactically. How many Gigantopithecuses would the captain of a pirate ship send to the space station?

  I snapped my fingers.

  Had the pirate captain beamed something at Rax earlier that had shut down the little crystal? Is that why Rax had fallen silent some time ago?

  I grinded my teeth as rage seeped from my heart. I had to kill the Gigantopithecuses. I had to—I took a different turn than earlier, sprinting for the main control chamber.

  I’d taken more than fifty Tosks prisoner, giving the werewolf-like aliens my word that I’d get them home. I also had the CAU personnel to consider. If the Gigantopithecuses captured the station, they would either torture or kill us. The brutality I’d seen in the transfer bay—

  I shook my head, wanting to shout until my voice was hoarse. I had a saying. It was better to fight from your knees than to surrender. But it was far better to fight on your feet. Like one of my childhood heroes used to say, “It’s clobbering time.” For that to be true, I needed a weapon, I needed a plan—and to make a good plan, I had to know my enemy better than I did now.

  I lowered my head and sprinted in earnest. Time was running out for us. Whatever I was going to do, I had to do soon.

  I made a pit stop in my quarters, one that I’d been sharing with the men of CAU. There was no one in here, which I found strange. I rummaged under my sleeping mat and pulled out a blaster, this one of Antaran make.

  Holding the blaster changed my mind. This wasn’t the time to get fancy. Alien shock troopers had invaded the station. I didn’t have the luxury of watching them carefully and making a detailed plan. I had to fight fire with fire as fast as possible. That meant finding my own shock troopers.

  “The Tosks,” I whispered.

  I gripped the blaster even harder as I envisioned dead Gigantopithecuses.

  With a silent oath, I headed for the hatch. Would the Tosks fight for me? It was time to find out.

  -4-

  As I’d said earlier, the space station was a modular affair, made of many pieces fitted together, a few of them seemingly randomly. That meant plenty of hatches and ladders, making a station that was more of a maze. Had Debby given Joe a station map? I hoped not. I still couldn’t fathom the idea that Debby had sold us out. There had to be a different explanation.

  I wasn’t in the same shape as when I’d first gotten here. Sure, there was Earth normal gravity. But I hadn’t run for a month. I hadn’t lifted either. I’d been taking it easy, having a break. I had been getting ready for married life and mentally steeling myself for leaving Earth forever.

  I heard screams from ahead.

  I was exhausted, halting in surprise, putting a hand on a bulkhead and breathing hard, trying to catch my breath. The screams continued until I heard thudding and crunching. The number of screams dwindled. Those that continued did so louder and with more agony.

  I swore, pushing off the bulkhead, lurching in that direction.

  By the time I reached a turn in the corridor, the screaming had quit. I flattened onto my belly and peered around the corner.

  Three Gigantopithecuses were cleaning bloody, gore-spattered batons, using shirts torn off dead CAU personnel. I counted four men and three women, all clubbed to death, some of them with their skulls staved in. I silently berated myself as sweat soaked my garments. I shouldn’t have stopped to catch my breath. I should have remained in better shape.

  As I wiped sweat out of my eyes, I wondered why the apes had killed the people instead of taking them prisoner.

  I noticed a blaster burn on one of the apes. He had already applied some kind of patch to it. He had scorched hair or fur and reddened skin around the patch. Had one of the CAU people fired at the ape and all of them been butchered in retaliation?

  From the floor, I raised my blaster and took careful aim. I deliberately squeezed the trigger instead of yanking back as I wanted to. There was a hum, and a red beam shot from the blaster and struck the nearest Gigantopithecus in the left eye. The eye exploded as the beam drilled into its brain.

  At that point, a blue nimbus snapped on, a personal force field like Lord Beran used to possess.

  The great monster sagged back, striking one of his brethren in the process. The blaster-shot Gigantopithecus slumped onto the deck, while the other fellow staggered and struck a bulkhead.

  The blue nimbus faded from the dead ape. Two new force fields snapped on around the living aliens.

 
The untouched Gigantopithecus roared with rage, and he charged in my direction.

  I re-aimed the blaster and pulled the trigger, beaming him as he moved with astonishing speed. The red beam struck his blue nimbus, but it did not penetrate.

  I cursed, scrambling to my feet.

  There was a circular clicker on my blaster, the setting for the beam intensity. I had already set my weapon for full power. Now, hardly knowing I did it, I rotated the dial to overload. Then, I dropped my blaster and sprinted away like crazy.

  The Gigantopithecus moved with astonishing speed as I said. Fortunately, they had all been far down the corridor when I had begun the attack.

  I’d already killed one of the three, and that kill felt intensely gratifying. In that moment, I wanted to wipe out all of the murdering Gigantopithecuses and watch their pirate ship explode. Was that an atavistic feeling? Had humans warred against Gigantopithecuses in some dim primeval era? Did our legends of giants come from some bygone eon when humans fought large intelligent hominoids?

  A horrible whine sounded behind me. I did not look back. I didn’t think I had time to do so.

  A beam slashed past me.

  I ducked my head and sprinted harder, straining to reach a nearing hatch. I presumed the batons acted as beam weapons, but I had not yet seen a baton do that. I hadn’t seen any blasters or holsters on a Gigantopithecus either, just those nasty metal batons.

  The whine grew louder. Another beam flashed past me, this one grazing the top of my shoulder so my clothes smoldered.

  I looked back then.

  The lead Gigantopithecus had halted in an all-fours stance, a baton gripped in his right hand. He stared back at the source of the whine—the overloaded blaster lying on the deck. He still had a protective nimbus around him, but it looked less blue than earlier.

  I made a quick assumption because of that. The hairy giant apes had lots of mass. I did not think their personal force-field generators were as effective as Lord Beran of Antares had used. He had been a dominie of the Antaran Institute, a wealthy individual. The Gigantopithecuses were shock troopers, or so I assumed. There must be a reason why their fields snapped on instead of staying permanently on. A generator surely used lots of power to protect such a monster. If batteries powered the force fields, they would quickly run dry if used too long.