The Apex Warriors

by Marc Stevens

  The Apex Warriors

  Marc Stevens

  MSJ Publishing

  Copyright © 2021 Marc Stevens

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: CoverMint Designs

  Printed in the United States of America

  I dedicate this book to the Warriors of the United States of America, past and present. You have my heart felt gratitude. Thank you for your service.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  First of my Kind Series

  1

  I had once dreamt I was the Oolaran beast erroneously imprinted into my brain. I roamed the torrid chasms of hell and malevolently destroyed all who I encountered there. When I awoke from the nightmare, I was relieved that I was not truly in that unenviable situation. Now, however, I was reliving that horror in real-time. What was left of a once large strike team, was precariously close to an impromptu visit with our maker. I had also lost a member of my clan. It was something that had never happened before. We were always better equipped and better prepared than most of our adversaries. Our use of advanced technology as well as stealth, shock, and surprise, enabled us to prevail in the direst of circumstances. There were countless narrow escapes, and we suffered our share of wounds, but the members of my clan always managed to walk away, until now.

  Xul was a Grawl and a member of my clan. He was the science officer of my ship the Legacy. He also took it upon himself to be our backup assault shuttle pilot. When Xul made the decision to involve himself in our current predicament, he selflessly stayed to our rear in a massive firefight. I did not know it at the time, but he was drawing fire onto his position so the rest of us could move to a somewhat safer location. He was doing a fair job until the Prule forces that were making an all-out effort to destroy us, added a gunship to the battle. Xul was killed instantly by the main battery of the hostile ship as it tried to take my team under fire. If it were not for his gallant stand, we might all have died before we could make good our escape. The only surviving members of my strike team were those who wore our most advanced Oolaran AI-designed armor system. Xul was not equipped for the battle we found ourselves in, or he would have been outfitted with the latest generation of our battle suits. He actually should not have been there at all. He made the ill-fated decision to go against my orders and fly into the scat hole we found ourselves in. It was a failed attempt to evacuate us to safety. I knew it was wishful thinking to speculate on his survival if he was wearing the proper kit. The reality of the situation was the hit Xul took, would have killed him regardless of what armor he was wearing.

  I did not have any more time to contemplate the past, because any future I hoped we had, was very much in doubt. Myself and the remaining members of my strike team, Tria my Chaalt first officer, Klutch my Tibor Troop Master, and Coonts of the Grawl race, along with Sael Nalen the Principal Investigator of the Chaalt people, were running hard for our lives. In a desperate last-ditch effort to extend our conspicuously thin lifeline, we stowed away on the Principal Investigator’s highjacked ship, the Fury. At the time of our unwelcome boarding, the Fury was being sucked into an interdimensional portal of unknown origin. We had no idea where it was going, but knew when it got to its destination, we would not be greeted with open arms by the enemy of all biological races.

  The first thing I noticed when we ported into the rear spaces of the Fury, it was dark as a tomb.

  Sael Nalen commed us on our secure group link. Her voice came out as a whisper. “The power is at minimal settings and the gravity generators are operating on emergency power. The atmospheric machinery has been compromised and the air is toxic. The Prule must have intentionally shut down life support and pulled the disconnects on the anti-matter generators powering the ship’s critical systems.”

  Although my Grawl scientists had a hand in the design of Sael’s ship, the Chaalt council ordered Sael to remove the Fury from our base before it was complete. They feared that my Oolaran AI would infect the ship’s systems and give us access to classified equipment. What they didn’t know was that Justice inserted a subsystem of himself into the Fury. Sael knew Justice well enough to suspect the truth but has never mentioned her suspicions to us. I wasn’t going to let the cat out of the bag unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Coonts called Sael. “If the crew willingly turned over the ship to the Prule, why bother to turn off the power?”

  “The Fury’s artificial intelligence would resist all attempts at subjugation. The Prule probably feared the AI would destroy the ship and them along with it.” Sael replied.

  Tria changed subjects to a more pressing topic. “Principal Investigator, our expendable munitions are dangerously low. Relying on our beam weapons to defend ourselves in the close confines of this ship could lead to further casualties. We need to find out if the armory is still intact.”

  Tria was correct, our munition packs and nanite reservoirs were empty. My suit HUD showed that I was down to three ballistic spikes in the launcher magazine on my left forearm. That left me with only my beam weapon, and I knew how my crew felt about me making use of it in tight quarters. My suit AI gave me a quick sitrep on my team’s ordnance. Tria had somehow retained her shotgun and had a single penetrator slug. Klutch was empty on his suit ammo but had two charges left in his Plasma launcher. That weapon was a nightmare in the best of conditions, let alone inside of a ship’s spaces. If he started a fire with the damn thing, we would have to abandon the ship and take our chances in interdimensional space. That risky proposition could lead to us being lost and drifting for eternity. Coonts was our rearguard and had a shotgun that my suit confirmed once belonged to Xul. It was all that we had left of his remains. It had four rounds of explosive buckshot in its magazine. Sael had zip for expendable munitions.

  Before Sael could reply to Tria’s comment, Klutch called out a warning. “Contact!”

  When we had made our escape and ported into the rear spaces of the Fury, our location was a roll of the dice. My no-light sensors showed we were in some of the crew’s quarters. Most probably the star drive techs. There were eight bunks stacked four high on opposing walls and a small common area in between. We spread out and crouched low after the Troop Master’s alert. Our armor’s cloaking systems were almost nonexistent from the battle damage we took while fleeing to our current location. If the lights were to suddenly come on, there would be no hiding. Even if we were able to cloak, the Prule have already shown they have the capability of detecting our presence. We braced ourselves for another confrontation.

  The strike team got a view from Klutch’s HUD cam. There was a Prule maintenance drone walking in the pitch-black corridor that leads to the crew quarters. The four-legged Bio-machine was coming directly at us but showed no signs of alarm. Klutch was just inside of the crew quarter’s entrance and extended his climbing hooks. The powered edge on the hooks could slice into almost any surface. They made exc
ellent close-quarters combat weapons. The weak point on this particular Bio-machine, was the relatively soft armor at the base of the machine's hulk, just between its four legs. The problem with this was you had to be under it, or knock it over to get a good kill with our edged weapons.

  The Bio-machine suddenly stopped at the open hatch. A small light on its exterior flashed once then ceased. The Bio-machine jerked sideways as if to leave. The Troop Master’s patience was at an end and he threw himself down on the deck at the Prule’s feet. The Bio-machine swung back around to face the sudden noise and movement. Klutch jammed one of his hooks upwards into it with such force he lifted it off the deck and sent it crashing onto its side. It was not a clean kill. What made matters worse, is it appeared that Klutch’s hook and armored gauntlet were stuck in the Bio-machine’s guts. The Prule started thrashing around in the corridor like a blender gone wild, dragging Klutch with it. The noise was like a train wreck complete with sparks and smoke. Tria leaped forward onto the bucking Prule’s torso and shoved her shotgun against the sensor array on its upper dome. She pulled the trigger and blew a sizable hole through it that ended the violent death throes. Klutch jerked his arm free of the Bio-machine’s carcass and slowly stood up. I didn’t think we were going to get away with blatantly announcing to anything with audio sensors, there was something seriously wrong going on in the tomb quiet ship. We could always hope.

  Klutch threw his arms up, but before he could say anything redeeming, two more of the Prule maintenance machines came scurrying out of the darkness. So much for hope. Coonts must have decided our covert activities were officially over. He boosted over the top of us and gave each of the Bio-machines a single round of explosive buckshot. Our previous version of the munition would have knocked the machines over and gave them a really bad rash. The newest generation developed by Justice was a lot more lethal. The rippling strobe-like detonations blasted appendages and torso parts off of the Bio-machines, sending them crashing to the deck and sliding up the corridor. Tria and Sael boosted onto the prone machines and drove their fighting hooks into their biomass containment vessels, putting a permanent end to the engagement.

  Klutch regained his dignity and boosted to the intersection of the corridor. He leaned around the corner to take a quick scan and was violently ripped off his feet by a heavy glowing cable. We knew what was on the other end of the tentacle. A Prule Hunter just made its presence known. I had no idea if the deadly Bio-machine was there all along or came running in response to our raucous engagement. It made no difference now that Klutch had sprung the Bio-machine’s ambush, all we could do was react to the threat.

  Coonts yelled Klutch’s name and boosted out into the passage. He managed to fire his last two rounds of buckshot in the direction the Prule came from. The reward for his retaliation was getting freight trained by Klutch’s armored body. The Hunter used the Tibor as a projectile against the offending Grawl. Tria, Sael, and I boosted to the junction and readied our weapons of last resort. Judging by the endless swearing coming from my comms, both Coonts and Klutch were still alive. I also heard the telltale whine of a Hunter’s energy weapon spooling up for a discharge. Things were happening way too fast, and we needed a short breather to turn this goat rope around in our favor. I stole a look at Tria’s avatar in my HUD to see if she was about to move without me. It was only a sideways glance, because the next thing that happened turned up the heat another notch, and my faltering intestinal fortitude to imminent discharge.

  A pinkish glow lit up the adjoining corridor and it was accompanied by the Troop Master’s loud gravelly voice. “You back-stabbing suckling Throgg!”

  I was going to boost out into the passage, but Sael Nalen beat me to it. “No Klutch!” She yelled as she rolled into the corridor, opening fire with her beam weapon.

  The bright arc-light-like flash momentarily blacked out our HUDs and was immediately followed by a tremendous thunderclap of a detonation. Sael was blasted backward in the direction Coonts and Klutch were. Tria wasn’t going to leave anything to chance and stuck her arm around the corner in time for her targeting scanner to bullseye the partially shielded Hunter trying to right itself. She triggered the weapon and the beam lanced through the Bio-machine’s faltering shield. The shot blasted it into several large pieces of brightly glowing slag. The detonation added even more damage to the already devasted passage.

  I wasn’t correct in thinking nothing good came out of the battle. There were three positives not going into my negative’s column. Number one would be that Sael was the first to use her beam weapon onboard her former command. The second was the fact that Tria’s beam blast cut short the multi-lingual swearing blanketing our comms. The third was the quiet that returned to the ship if you could ignore the hissing of cooling slag and the popping of warped bulkheads. To be honest with myself, I went ahead and added a fourth positive to the list. Klutch did not burn the ship down with us in it.

  Tria and I went out to check on the welfare of our strike team. My HUD AI gave me a quick run-down on everyone’s health. It showed that none of us were in the green but still combat effective and holding firmly in the yellow cautionary warning zone. We all suffered from blunt force trauma and numerous contusions. Sael’s life signs gave me a single flash to alert me she was now showing signs of a moderate concussion.

  It wasn’t a stretch to place the blame for her newest injury on the backblast from her beam weapon attack. There was a distinct possibility she was going to be even more irritable than her usual norm. A look to the opposite end of the corridor proved me right. The three displaced members of my strike team were on their knees in a pile of rubble. I could tell by their body language and the fact Sael was jerking on the barrel of Klutch’s plasma caster, they were having a heated argument on a private channel. By the looks of it, Coonts was siding with Sael. My suit AI opened the channel and I heard Sael not so politely telling Klutch to fork over the plasma weapon before he incinerated us all. Klutch responded by telling her if she wanted one, she should ask permission to go to our storage depot and dig through the mountains of scat piled up there until she could find one of her own.

  Tria and I closed the distance between our groups and I put a halt to the conversation. “Can that crap! We have enough problems without the three of you brawling like infant siblings. Sael, we need to get to the armory and we are going to go there with or without you. What’s it going to be?”

  Sael let go of Klutch’s weapon like it was still on fire. She turned to me with a look on her face I had seen many times. She was getting ready to pop her cork and I was in no mood for it. I held a finger up in front of her face shield and pushed my face close to hers shaking my head negative. To her credit, she managed an acknowledging nod of her head. Her expression conveyed something entirely different.

  Sael sounded seriously stressed when she finally spoke. “Commander, if we can restore partial power to the ship, I have access codes that can activate special anti-boarding systems you are unaware of. Because of the missions this ship was designed to accomplish, Chaalt engineers anticipated the possibility of this scenario. If the systems can be brought online, I can assure you they will be lethal to the Prule forces.”

  It was a no-brainer. If Sael could do what she was proposing, I was all for it. The thought of fighting a pitched battle with Prule Hunters in the confines of the ship, with our most lethal weapons, was downright frightening. The damage behind us was a testament to the outcome.

  Tria and I looked at each other. There were only a few weapons that we knew of that could take down the Prule. Most of them would destroy the ship in the process. Only one stood out in my mind that could get the job done without the normal collateral damage associated with killing Prule, weaponized nanites.

  “Okay Sael, we will follow your lead. Let’s get this done as fast as possible. We have no idea how long we are going to be traveling in hyperspace to our intended destination. It would be extremely useful if we had time to prep for that eventuality.”


  I could tell she wanted to discuss Klutch’s plasma weapon. I turned to the Troop Master. “Klutch, hang onto the last of your plasma charges until I tell you otherwise. I have a feeling we are going to need them when our joyride comes to an end.”

  The Troop Master squinted his eyes at Sael, but turned back to me and nodded. “Affirmative Commander.”

  We formed up behind the Principal Investigator. “Move out Sael.”

  Sael led us up the passage and through the remains of the Prule Hunter and the devastation we had inflicted on her former flagship. The hatches and a portion of the deck where the Prule had made its last stand was a ragged gaping hole. We boosted past the mess and came to another junction. Cautiously scanning in both directions, I breathed a sigh of relief when I got no contacts. Turning right took us into the main corridor that ran the length of the deck. Sael led us back in the direction we had entered the ship. There were no signs or remains of her former crew, just eerie vacant passages. Somehow, I knew that whatever their fate turned out to be, it was not pleasant.

  Our trip ended at the massive blast doors that were inherently designed into most starships. They were the last line of defense for the star drives and more importantly, a shield to the anti-matter power cells that powered the ship. A breach of the heavily armored containment vessels would spell doom to the ship and everyone aboard. If a ship sustained heavy enough damage, it was the standard operating procedure to jettison the vessels to avoid catastrophic detonation.

  Sael signaled the Troop Master up and pointed to a section of the gigantic door left of center and a few feet off the deck. Klutch turned back to me in a display that implied he only took orders from his normal chain of command. I saw Sael physically stiffen and turn her head away so I could not see the look on her face, but she did not comment. My response to the Troop Master made her relax ever so slightly.