Alien Alliance Box Set

by Chris Turner

  “Sweep done, Delta Force. Only Mewas is dead, head crushed, neck snapped, and Jaan is in a tank with a locust.” The soldier touched the glass and the trapped man’s hand reached out, his mouth opening in a wordless rush.

  “They appear to be alive. Shall I kill the alien and pull him out?”

  “Negative, Lander 6! Keep everything intact. I want to see this mess for myself back in the lab.”

  “Roger, Delta Force. Whatever it is that killed Mewas, is gone.”

  “What do you mean ‘gone’? For Deltair’s sake, there has to be a source!”

  “It must have been the locust that killed him.”

  “How? It’s in the tank—with Jaan. And there’s another I see floating in the tank beside it.”

  “Don’t know, sir. One or both of them must have put themselves back in there. Kind of like a back to the womb scenario. How the fuck do I know?”

  A startled pause.

  Audra slunk out of the window well. Tucking in by the amalgamator-transporter device, she was a killing leap from him.

  She debated taking the man in a flurry of tentacles. No. Wrong move. Why alert these humans to her presence? An even more desperate plan unfolded in her mind. Let them winch her and her hijacked Doraxu vessel inside their cargo hauler.

  The air hauler set down and the soldier departed with visible relief. The Doraxu shuddered to more clamps and cables as the hauler pulled it across the stone and rubble and into the landing bay. The heavy-duty twin panel hatches lowered shut. Darkness came over the ports and Audra’s world too. A thud indicated the sealing of the door, and then there was silence.

  The roar of engines shuddered without; a sudden shifting of weights, knocking her sideways. The ship was rocketing airborne and a vindictive smirk curled Audra’s smug, blooded visage. She acted fast, unstoppered the tank, latching tentacles onto the single locust occupant to thrust it toward the pilot’s chair. The ends of her sinister cilia sent electric shocks through the quivering insect’s nerve centres, an indication of the necessity of a hasty departure. The locust understood and started up the thrusters in earnest and activated the viewport, while she herself manned the blaster station.

  The view on the screen revealed that they were headed back toward the human city, at a point east on the outskirts—likely a military installation. They would not mop up the mess here, thought Audra, but in a controlled environment on ground.

  They would not make it there, if she could help it.

  She aimed the rear cannon, blasting twin lasers at the Skullrox ship’s cargo doors. The metal buckled and gave way to a jagged hole showing a patch of yellow sky. Audra emptied the lasers into the scorched, smoking metal, searing an even larger hole. She chirped a note of triumph as her ship’s engines roared to life and shuddered ahead on impulse power.

  The locust needed no urging. Breaking free from the airbus, the ship snapped the cables as if they were string. The Skullrox vessel, smoking and burning, tailfinned, plummetted toward the city while the L-Doraxu rocketed out into the atmosphere, its exhaust burning the holding bay and anything in it. The doomed Skullrox craft frantically tried to steer away from the city to avoid killing the thousands of people below.

  A Skullrox attack vessel, a Bleson Mark V, came looming out of the sky into view, but the locust’s pincers were already clacking over luminous dials on the console. The hull rocked to enemy fire, yet held. The ship flared into light oblivion, its sublight trails creating a cone of escape through the clouds beyond Demen’s dead moon and into the blackness of space. The dreadnought raged after, weaving fishtails of light, following at light velocity, firing forward cannons. Photon beams smashed into the hull, and Audra whined in exultation, remembering the wild chases she and Miko had shared for months on end, eluding Zikri and NAVO craft in the old days. They had been the most feared renegades of the galaxy! There was no way that Bleson skulker would catch them, provided this ship held up, which it would if she could keep the pilot focussed, and it didn’t try anything stupid.

  Gibbering a feisty chitter, Audra looked about the command centre, her tentacles twitching. Her side throbbed. She pulled off a panel to a ventilation system, exposed some lead wires that she clacked together to generate a spark. She began to cauterize the pus-oozing wound of her excised tentacle. Zikri flesh sizzled, permeating the already stale cabin air with the smell of old leather and moss and ammonia. The trapped human looked on aghast through the glass. The locust pilot stirred, shivering beneath its carapace in restless unease, as if wondering what tortures the tentacled monster would inflict next. Audra cauterized some more flesh.

  * * *

  The enemy ship had dropped out of the fleeing Doraxu’s light cone. Likely given up, or the Doraxu’s jumps through the black gulfs were untraceable.

  Audra stared at the dead trooper sprawled in an ungainly heap at the back loading dock, wondering what to do with the human. A rare hunger was on her, despite having consumed the salty meat of the two-headed human back on the desert planet. She contemplated eating the spare locust. No, better to save it. Ordinarily she would have felt quite sated, even kept such a specimen for experimental amusements when the mood came on her, but the violent nature of the last two-headed creature and the warlike circumstances of late had spoiled such a mood. All these aggressive creatures... Everywhere she went, they were trying to kill her. They did not recognize her physical strength or mental prowess.

  Her eyes took in the Skullrox guard. His glare of hate and horror at his situation was palpable. Her polyped face curled in a grin. At the very least, he would become a source of food in the immediate future. Life had become dull of late. Her creative mind churned over some interesting innovations. The tank even could prove an interesting sexual arena for her and Miko, if she could lay tentacles on him, and provided she removed the filthy locust from its midst. All in good time. A chitter of anticipation rose from her mottled gullet, which the guard seemed to hear through the glass and shivered fitfully in his liquid prison. The locust pawed at the man, resenting being crowded in his private aquarium.

  Audra loosed another chitter.

  Blackish green blood dripped on the floor where she hovered. The wound had not fully healed. She regarded the tentacle stub with critical attention. Still four healthy ones intact.

  Audra dragged the dead soldier across the floor and up into the remaining tank. Perhaps the body could come back to life. A sneer touched her wormy lips. Only a slight ripple caressed the man’s body as it touched the water. He floated limp with eyes staring and rank blood fouling the greenish water.

  She decided the human would serve as food when the locusts ran out.

  She gave up trying to cauterize her wound. But she recalled the healing power of the locust fluid, and shoved her half shorn tentacle into the water with the dead man. The flesh immediately began to knit back together. At least this act seemed to accomplish more than her last crude attempts. The scientist that she was, pulled the near-healed member out of the fluid with a complacent chortle.

  * * *

  While the ship bounded beyond a nameless binary star in the Menanese system, she thought to force the quivering pilot to better aquaint her with the weapons’ panel.

  The locust was more than obliging and its claws moved deftly over the pullsticks and heat-seek trackers, movements which Audra mimicked with unsurprising ease. Twin laser cannons trained out into space with reaches up to ten miles at 100 megathrusts of arc-push at near warp flyby capability. Not shabby for a primitive locust craft. She did not doubt that she would have further use for this weaponry.

  A questing tentacle curled around the locust’s neck, pressing a sensitive spot between ear and thorax. In this way the Zikri communicated the urgency of tracking the fleeing Jakru vessel. The locust punched in some communication sequences. The holo view came to life.

  A video log of activity played back in fast motion. Audra saw the last most significant events: the Skullrox freighter grappling the locust vessel, then the whi
te trail of the sleek, silver-gunmetal Jakru fighter escaping the ridge under enemy fire. Audra stabbed out a feeler showing a last imprint of the Jakru’s escape vector. The locust backtraced the light signature, and tapping keys, pulled up a far world with an orbiting fleet of ships. A hiss of vindication came to Audra’s otherwise triumphant chitter. She would follow Miko to the end of the galaxy, and his new band of allies. The ungrateful human would not escape...

  * * *

  “Damn it, Zaul,” cried Lexia, slapping her palm on the bridge’s console. “Who was it that sold me to the Mentera?”

  “I have my suspicions,” said Zaul.

  “Last I remember was sipping that cursed Drusian wine. I fell into a swoon. The next thing I knew, cruel arms were whisking me out of the Peace Conference.”

  The Empress’s catlike eyes gleamed and Zaul stroked his stubbled chin, admiring the extensive curve of Lexia’s ram horns, unusual in a young Jakru female, giving her an aura of power. She was tall, almost as tall as himself.

  “You were drugged by Klushniz kidnappers is all we know. Ever since you spoke out against the radicals on the arms movements and the forced sterilization of the lower-caste Gants, they’ve been after your blood.”

  Lexia winced. “They hate me, but I won’t let them manipulate the Council.”

  Zaul stared grimly for a few seconds at the half dozen crew members on the bridge. The stars had stabilized; the ship had dropped out of hyperlight and the Jakru rebel craft Kestrel lay to with its flotilla of warships, armed and ready in deep space. These were huge gunships with enough firepower to destroy any space station and level a city. He looked with pride on such a fleet fit for a king that had beaten the Mentera. A shame they hadn’t time to destroy the station completely. The Empress’s life was worth more than that.

  The Skullroxers would never trace them to these remote coordinates on the other side of Belzar’s Star. Not that they were strong enough to take on his armada. He was glad Miko and his gang of blood-spattered rebels had been confined to Sick Bay. If he had his way he would have both Fenli and Miko executed for the part they played in allowing Lexia to fall into the hands of the depraved hermaphrodite, B & D. He needed to impress certain things on the Empress’s mind and wanted no distractions. It was a wonder she was as lucid as she was, having been confined in that foul locust brine for so long. She had not spoken of her experience on Demen II, but her near-naked, disheveled appearance at her time of rescue had told him all he needed to know. While Jakru intel was at best infallible, the evil reputation of B & D preceded itself.

  “A lot has happened in my absence,” the Empress murmured.

  “Lucky that I commandeered these battle vessels when I did,” Zaul grunted. “We lost three battleships during the assault on the Mentera station.”

  “But you crippled the station?”

  “We raked its stern to pieces—tore it out of its orbit, but couldn’t finish the work. Our special ops advance guard radioed word from the landing bay that those vermin had you in that filthy Doraxu craft.”

  Lexia sucked in a breath. “The memories are painful—and yet if Miko, Fenli and the rebel locust hadn’t pulled me aboard, who knows what fate would have befallen me?”

  “Do not be deceived. That Fenli is a shark who would sell his own mother for a profit. The girl’s a light-skirt, a nobody. The locust—it should be executed like every one of those vile insects. The outcast, this Sket’s just some two-bit smuggler who ended up getting on the wrong side of the mutant B & D. The only one I have any respect for is Miko, the NAVO man. But even him I don’t trust. Something about him doesn’t quite sit right, as if he’s half mutant himself, mixed up with these bloodsucking aliens in some queer way.”

  Lexia’s eyes flashed, as if remembering the strange actions of Miko, the mysterious ghost-like avenger who strove to save her from locusts and bots. “For now, they are our allies, Zaul, and I trust you to treat them as such.”

  Zaul’s lips parted and showed white teeth. “So you say. I sense they will thwart our mission, like the rest of their rabble. In fact, I do not know who is worse, these ragtag rebels, the Mentera, or our own backstabbers on Chrysalis. As for those Jakru who sold you into the locust hands. When I find them—” His fingers curled into fists.

  “Easy, Zaul.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s keep our wits about us. We’ll return homeward to Chrysalis and make things right.”

  “Nay, Your Highness. They will rise to retaliate against you. I did not leave on good terms with the nobility, though I spoke in your favour. I reminded them of the urgency of the mission to rescue you, but they did not listen! Fools! Our intelligence ferreted out that you were captive of the Mentera. No ransom, just a straight kidnapping. Somebody wanted to get rid of you. The Council’s policy was to sit back and negotiate, realizing that a fight with the Mentera would bring ruin to our smaller world.”

  “Thank the Virgin Stars I have you, Zaul,” said Lexia with fierce pride. “You’re my one faithful ally.”

  Zaul grunted, abashed. He twisted aside. “A hothead according to common opinion...but I’ll kill them, all of the filthy cowards. They have jeopardized your life and put me on their black list for taking the fleet behind their backs. I have been slated for court-martial. Court-martial! Can you believe it?” He huffed out a breath. “Let them try to take me. Imbeciles!”

  “I’ll deal with the Mentera and the traitors in due time, but first I must stabilize the situation at home. You said earlier there were riots in the streets—even the canal ways in Quandria’s centre.”

  “Aye, Empress, they broke—”

  “Colonel, Empress,” interrupted Commander Deral at the bridge. “We’ve intercepted a transmission from rogue BA2 base, and our long range scanners report locust activity at sublight in sector 3.4.”

  “Not cloaking their heat signature?”

  “Maybe they can’t, or don’t care to, sir? The Mark Evlon 9 that we detected—no, wait, new information—” she touched a finger to her headset “—a Zikri war orb is heading towards one of their bases!—to far Altair.”

  “Zikri? Altair? As in the foul creature that assaulted us back on Demen II?”

  “Affirmative, Colonel. And there are more of them, full Class A war orbs. Converging on a remote world on similar course as the locusts.”

  “Visual!” barked Zaul. A spiked mostrosity, streamed with light trailers, appeared on the holo view with convex, knob-studded plates, com towers, hurtling at supralight. It disappeared off the edge of the horizon, and fled into the depths of space.

  Zaul’s lips worked in amazement. “Keep monitoring them. I’ll set my tactics team—”

  “No, Colonel,” said Lexia. “We’ll set an immediate course to follow. Engage cloaking. Let locusts and Zikri collude with each other. We’ll spy and figure a way to penetrate their defenses and strike them where they are weakest. I’ll cut off all their heads, after the indignity I’ve suffered, not to mention the countless Jakru souls they’ve snatched. We have a score to settle with those foul insects.”

  “Cloak level, red,” Zaul ordered the helmsman. “Shields up. What of the traitors and the home situation, Your Highness?”

  Lexia waved off the question. “This reconaissance is more important. A hunch. I feel it! I want to know what the insectoids are up to. A minor delay in our itinerary.” She clapped her hands. “Hear now, all. Course correction to far Altair. The traitors and weasels back home can wait.”

  Zaul grinned. “That’s why I like you, Empress—craftier than a serpent, and you never turn your back on a challenge.”

  “Take the Kestrel and the fleet to these coordinates.” Lexia’s voice rang with authority. “I want to know what they’re planning...”

  * * *

  Miko’s body shuddered under the jar of light drive. He sat on the med table, muscles clenched, his cuts aching. Despite the Jakru medicine and the aromatic balms, he was in rough shape. Star was hunched at his side, wincing, her left arm weighted
with a bulky bandage and temporary splint. The Jakru medical science was no worse than any he had encountered in his days as a NAVO man. All things considered, it had taken the dull edge off his pain. But there were so many wounds—

  Sket, Berlast and Fenli were in no better condition, sprawled on beds opposite him. Bright lights shone from opaque ceiling panels. Miko turned away. Usk was not with them. The last he had seen, the locust was being trundled down a dim corridor by Zaul’s troopers, weak from hunger and peppered with wounds. The Colonel had not trusted the insect, despite the fearless part he had played.

  Surgical instruments hung from pegs on the back wall, along with a diagnosis station, radiology and MRI equipment somewhat akin to the old NAVO technology. A robot eye, the size of a large pomegranate, flitted and buzzed about, scanning patients, monitoring their progress and movements, sending updates on to medical doctors. It might also be a clever spy, thought Miko. Some ten critical patients stretched out at the back, and the eye seemed able to administer drugs to them via other standing equipment, communicating with remote staff as necessary. As for the orb’s means of locomotion, he was at a loss.

  “Someone get rid of that thing, puh-lease,” growled Fenli.

  “Ignore it, it’s harmless,” Sket advised, rubbing his jaw, examining the cuts on his ribs and upper thigh. He hunched in a gloomy daze, muttering and cursing.

  “Where are we?” croaked Berlast.

  “Who knows?” Miko peered about. “We seemed to have jumped to light speed.”

  Ever since Zaul had shuttled them to his main battleship, the Kestrel, upon rendezvousing with the main armada, the dark, sinking feeling in Miko’s gut had only grown.

  “Whatever, I don’t like being put in irons here,” grumbled Fenli. “Zaul seems at best a grudging host.” His complaints were louder than necessary, in the absence of orderlies.

  “You’re lucky to be alive, considering,” said Sket.

  “Considering what?”

  “The dressing down we got from her Highness.”