Invaders: Dreadnought Ocelot (Invaders Series Book 4)

by Vaughn Heppner

  The second Gigantopithecus charged around the corner and slid to a halt, staring down at the horribly whining blaster. The great apes did not strike me as highly intelligent.

  I barely faced forward again in time—I’d continued running while looking back. I slammed against the closed hatch. As I bounced off it, the blaster detonated with a terrific explosion.

  If I was going to survive, I had to get out of the corridor now. I lunged forward as the blast threw me against the hatch a second time. My chin struck the hatch, dazing me as I crumpled back onto the deck.

  Woozy, I scrambled off the deck and staggered to the hatch control. I pressed it, and nothing happened.

  I heard harsh whooshing behind me—the sound of corridor atmosphere rushing into space.

  As I’d explained earlier, the space station was of flimsy construction. This was proof of it.

  The hatch opened. With a strangled laugh, I dove through and rolled. Standing, lunging back, I pressed the hatch control.

  At that point, I finally saw the situation. The blaster explosion had torn a huge hole in the bulkhead. Corridor atmosphere rushed into space as one of the Gigantopithecuses staggered toward the opening. He braced himself, stopping, as it wasn’t a gale-force wind. The second Gigantopithecus lay on the deck as his force field flickered and quit. A splinter of bulkhead was sticking out of his side as blood flowed.

  That was interesting. The force field had stopped my beam and the blast force, but not a heavy piece of matter.

  The hatch closed at that point, and the wind rushing past me stopped.

  Here was the reason for having so many hatches, protection from accidents.

  I panted as I slammed to my knees. I was shaken from the blast and from striking the hatch twice. My mouth hurt, too, but that was okay. My mouth hurt because I was smiling so hard. I had just killed three of the savages. I’d shot one and opened the other two to space. I doubted the last one’s force field would save his air for long.

  Climbing to my feet, resting a sore shoulder against a bulkhead, I closed my eyes so I could envision the space station’s layout better. Then, I headed deeper into the corridor.

  It was time to free and arm the Tosks.

  -5-

  The modular maze of the space station was big. I felt like a scurrying rat, hating the sensation as I avoided the Gigantopithecuses who seemed to be marching everywhere. Down various corridors, I heard beam fire, clubbing, shots and human screams.

  It galled me knowing that others were fighting and dying in the corridors. I should join them, but then I would most likely die uselessly. I had to defeat the enemy, not just fight bravely. Defeating the Gigantopithecuses meant superior tactics and weaponry than the resisters were presently employing.

  As I said, I felt like a rat in one of those science mazes as I tried to figure out the best route to the prison cells. I was too damn weary for this. Maybe some vacuum had reached my lungs earlier.

  Ignoring my fatigue, I climbed a ladder and cocked my head at a landing—I swore under my breath. There were Gigantopithecus ahead. The giant apes had blocked the back route to the prison cells.

  This was the third time I’d found my way blocked.

  Did the apes know my plan? Was this blind dumb luck on their part? How long could I keep trying to slip to the cells?

  I bared my teeth and started climbing down. It was time to change plans. I couldn’t get to the cells just yet. It was time to go down to the vault. It was at the bottom of the space station, the area that used to anchor onto Titan.

  I’d trapped Sand’s nine-foot robots in the vault. Maybe I could reason with them. That meant releasing them and doing some fast-talking.

  I jumped onto a landing and ran through a corridor. I panted and sweated, skidded to a halt and listened. Finally, tiptoeing, I reached a main ladder and started climbing down into the darkness.

  The ladder was long. As I descended, I remembered over a month ago the long trek into the guts of the subterranean realm that Sand ruled under the Utah salt flats. Fortunately, this climb was not even a tenth as long.

  I soon found myself moving through a dimly lit corridor. I half remembered having ordered the dimming in order to save on station energy. It was cold down here. I shivered and found it hard to stop. I should have worn a jacket. My stomach felt shriveled and tight, and would soon begin to hurt, as I was ravenously hungry.

  I’d said before that I had undergone gene therapy. That had been long ago when I’d first found Rax and the Guard shuttle deep underground in Greenland. The therapy had made me stronger and toughened my skin. It also allowed me to heal faster. But that healing took energy, food and water and lots of it. I’d been injured today, and the bodily process had gone to work despite the lack of nutrients in my stomach. That meant the process ate up my fat reserves. Now, under normal circumstances, that was just fine. But not after becoming too skinny from the food rationing.

  The cold got to me more than it should have.

  I rubbed my shoulders as I trudged toward the vault. Would the robots simply take me captive, ruining my plans? Would they enact revenge against me for my earlier trickery?

  I reached and studied the control panel. The blinking lights on it seemed brighter due to the otherwise dim corridor. I took a deep breath, silently giving myself a pep talk. I was Earth’s sheriff. Sand protected the planet from the evil Shadow Dimension. We had something in common. The robots had to help me.

  With a here-goes-nothing attitude, I tapped in the code.

  A huge and dented steel door slid up. The robots had made the dents after I’d first trapped them.

  I blinked with astonishment, spying six nine-foot tall crudely made bronze-colored robots. Like all of Sand’s robots, these had bolts or rivets upon their metal skin. The box-like design had a 1930s vibe. Given that most of the robots were ancient, the original design must have been quite futuristic-seeming at the time.

  “Uh…” I said.

  Lights activated in each optic sensor, their eyes. Several twisted their heads from side to side, looking in one direction and then another. Two clanked a step forward. One of the middle robots took three steps toward me.

  “Logan,” it said.

  “Hello, Talus.”

  He was the only one that talked, and so far, it was his single identifying feature. Sand had given him the name, saying it was from the Faerie Queen, an old epic poem by Edmund Spenser. In the poem, Talus had been an iron, mechanical robot-man helping to dispense cold, ruthless justice.

  The other robots looked at me and started out of the vault, beginning to flank me.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said.

  “Excellent,” Talus said. “Then, you understand the reason why we must injure you.”

  “Just a minute.” I held up my hands, backing away.

  Two robots clanked faster in their ungainly manner. They reached out with crude metal gloves for hands, no doubt about to grab me.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “What is this? I need your help against the invaders.”

  Talus’s eyes flashed, and the two reaching robots lowered their hands. They kept clanking, though, moving behind me. The other three with Talus moved forward, boxing me in a circle of bronze.

  “Speak, Logan,” Talus said. “Tell us more of your lies.”

  “Did I lie about needing your help to defeat the Tosks of this station four weeks ago?”

  “No.”

  “Did I lie about needing help on the moon station before that?”

  “No.”

  Talus had lost robots in each take-over attempt. Their presence and actions had gone a long way to our successfully defeating the Tosks each time.

  “Then I’m not lying now,” I said triumphantly.

  “You did, however, lie to us about needing help repairing the bottom area down here,” Talus said. “This proved to be a high-security storage vault. You sprinted out and trapped us, leaving us to malfunction.”

  “Wrong. I needed tim
e to think things through.”

  “Another lie,” Talus said.

  “Ask Sand, then.”

  I had the sensation of Talus studying me. He finally said, “Sand is presently out of communication range.”

  “Oh,” I said, glad to hear that but trying not to show it.

  “Now, Logan—”

  “Aren’t you curious about why I just opened the vault?”

  “Your action does not compute,” he admitted. “The most reasonable answer is that you made an error.”

  “I know you think that,” I said. “But it’s false. You want me to return to Sand, correct?”

  “Ensuring that is my prime directive.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “But you know what? Giant intelligent apes have invaded the space station and are killing everyone. They’ve tried to kill me.”

  “I begin to perceive your motivation. You desire us to act as combat units against these alien creatures.”

  “You got that right. We need to work together against them.”

  “By that, you undoubtedly mean you want us to do the dying for you.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said. “Robots don’t die.”

  “I spoke in a metaphorical manner, which you surely knew. Logan, here is the—”

  “Hey, Talus, are you hard of hearing? Giant alien apes are killing everyone in the station, right now, even as we speak. They almost killed me.”

  “That would obstruct my prime directive, although it would fulfill my secondary directive, given that the first is impossible.”

  I didn’t like hearing that. Sooner or later, Sand wanted me dead.

  “Uh,” I said, “I want to go to Earth.”

  “I know that is a lie.”

  Talus was right about that, as a new idea had blossomed as we spoke. But I wasn’t going to tell him the idea. “Look, Talus, I need your help so I can survive. How about pitching in with us, huh?”

  “Assuming you are speaking the truth about matters, help how?”

  I nodded, beginning to explain what I needed from him.

  -6-

  I had a simple, daring plan: first, increase our fighting force like a snowball rolling down a hill. The enemy had separated us and was defeating us in detail. I wanted to free and arm the Tosks, gather all the CAU personnel left and take the fight to the enemy. By that, I meant transferring into their spaceship and making it mine. To start the process, I meant to hit the prison cells.

  As I saw it, the critical problem was that robots had a severe limitation. They could not use the station ladders. That obviously hindered our operational mobility and would, in time, make our attack routes obvious—once the enemy divined our destinations. The elevators were the only way for the robots to change levels. If that wasn’t bad enough, only three robots could ride in a smaller lift at a time.

  After a quick debate, Talus and I agreed on the best route to the prison cells. I had not told him yet about the transfer to the enemy spaceship idea. I would broach the subject at the right psychological moment. For now, I let Talus believe that I wanted to get back to Earth.

  As we headed for an elevator, Talus said, “It would be wise to know the number and location of the enemy combatants.”

  “That’s an excellent point,” I said. “Can you contact anyone to find out?”

  “Since our release, I have tried and failed. I presume the enemy is jamming all communications.”

  We reached a lift, and I ferried the first group of three and then the second. Afterward, the robots clanked along a new level of otherwise eerily silent corridors. We found three dead CAU people in one location and five more in another. The corpses were sprawled randomly, as if the Gigantopithecuses had let them lie where they’d died.

  “The invaders are indeed killing the humans,” Talus said.

  I said nothing, although my jaw muscles kept clenching.

  “Logan.”

  “Huh?” I said, my eyes focusing on Talus.

  “Why are the invaders killing everyone?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You said they were primitive apes.”

  “Gigantopithecuses,” I said.

  “Did you recognize the species from earlier-observed tube-held specimens?”

  Talus meant stasis-frozen hominids I’d seen before deep in an ancient alien complex in Greenland. The Starcore or its Polarion creator had used Neanderthals and other so-called proto-humans like Homo habilises in its army of long ago. Two of those creatures had won free in our era: a Neanderthal named Kazz, and a Homo habilis by the name of Philemon. Philemon had died over a year ago in a weird side dimension. Kazz could still be loose on Earth, although I’d seen his clone explode.

  “Do you think the Gigantopithecuses are related to the other hominids I saw in stasis in Greenland?” I asked.

  “I am attempting to divine the link to Earth with this new threat,” Talus said.

  “There’s a supposed evolutionary link to Earth.”

  “Explain.”

  “There are fossil remains of Gigantopithecuses, giant molars,” I said. “Scientists figure the Gigantopithecuses were animals, though, not intelligent beings. I’ll admit, the Gigantopithecuses I’ve seen are quite brutish and cruel.”

  “I would deem cruelty a sign of higher intelligence, not animalistic natures.”

  I glanced at the nine-foot robot.

  “Does the idea upset you?” Talus asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t care, just as long as we killed all the Gigantopithecuses and their leaders.

  As we hurried toward the prison cells, I reconsidered the idea. Scientists said ancient Gigantopithecuses had lived in southern China and other jungle areas in that part of the world. What if instead of evolutionary great apes, the ancient bones belonged to some kind of alien invaders. Did the alien ship have something to do with the Polarions?

  It seemed probable, as everyone else alien I’d dealt with so far had been interested in Polarion science or artifacts like the Starcore. Could the latest aliens be another group headed to our planet to uncover the ancient godlike Polarions?

  Earth, I had discovered, was like the Bermuda Triangle to the rest of the Orion Spiral Arm. There were openings on Earth that led to different dimensions. The Lord Beran I’d mentioned before had found himself trapped in some Shadow Dimension. The Polarions had thought they had found Eden there. Instead, they had discovered a Hell Dimension and had likely perished hideously in it.

  I shrugged. None of that mattered here. What did matter—

  “The Gigantopithecuses killed Debby.”

  “Who?” Talus asked.

  “Debby—my woman.”

  Talus did not respond.

  “You’re a robot,” I muttered. “So, you wouldn’t understand the significance of that.”

  The robot studied me. “You are agitated.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Yes. That explains your harebrained expedient of blowing open a corridor to space earlier. What if you had destroyed the entire station doing that?”

  “Then I would have killed them all.”

  “Wrong. You would have only killed those on the station.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “That is illogical. Is that what you were referring to a moment ago when you said I would not understand?”

  “Not quite,” I said.

  “Are you going to suggest we attempt more harebrained expedients?”

  “Was releasing you from the vault harebrained?” I asked.

  “From your perspective, I believe it might have been. If that were so, it would mean you are no longer completely rational. I must rethink this.”

  “Too late,” I whispered.

  I heard thuds and heavy grunting from ahead. To my ear, it sounded like approaching Gigantopithecuses. Maybe they’d heard the robots and were coming to investigate.

  Talus perked up, perhaps hearing the enemy sounds as well. “We must retreat.”

  “No,” I sai
d. “Charge them, kill them.”

  “They will have advanced weaponry.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “That’s why I freed you. You can face such weaponry longer than a human could.”

  “Beams—”

  I pivoted as the first Gigantopithecus rounded a corner. I raced away from the giant apes, weaving between the nine-foot robots.

  “Attack them!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Reaching them is your only hope of surviving.”

  Another Gigantopithecus rounded the corner. The first one glowed as a force-field nimbus outlined his apish form. He wore a black uniform with blood splashed on it. I think the blood was from CAU people he’d butchered.

  Just then, the ape drew his baton. For the first time, I noticed buttons or studs along the bottom third of the metal rod.

  I slowed my sprint so I could watch better.

  A tiny slot on the front of the baton clicked open. The giant ape aimed the baton at the clacking, attacking robots, and a red beam rayed one of the bronze constructs.

  The second ape did likewise and a third appeared, reaching for his belted baton. All three shone with an outlining blue nimbus.

  Chest plates swung open on Talus’s bronze torso. A cannon sprouted from inside as a red laser light targeted the lead Gigantopithecus. It wasn’t a killing beam, but a target acquisition beam.

  “Surrender,” Talus boomed.

  The great apes noticed the chest cannon. One of Gigantopithecus bellowed with fear and backed away, dropping his baton.

  That astonished me. I had not thought the giant apes capable of fear.

  The other two were made of sterner stuff. Their baton-beams focused on Talus. I knew from experience that those were hot rays, but they seemed to have no effect on Talus so far.