The Apex Warriors

by Marc Stevens

  “Commander,” Justice called. “Do you require assistance?”

  “Negative, Justice. We are ready to reengage targets when they transition back from hyperspace.”

  “Commander, your battlesuit telemetry is reporting otherwise. I recommend you board the Legacy and all crew members report to the med bay for further evaluation.”

  I guess our latest exploits were far too similar to our previous adventures, and our caretaker was calling us home for his protection. We were passing close to the planet we just escaped and I decided to take Justice’s advice and rendezvous with the Legacy when my Dagger’s HUD flashed a warning. My sensors were detecting large-scale movement on the planet’s surface. The mountainous terrain close to the volcano that accessed the Prule facility was collapsing in what looked like a giant landslide. Klutch was turning us back around so we could see what the hell was going on, when the Prule ships that had jumped to hyperspace, transitioned back to normal spacetime between us and the planet. We were forced to scatter to avoid colliding with them. I pushed the nose of my Dagger down toward the planet and was making a close pass. The large surface disturbance that triggered my HUD warnings was to my left. I pulled hard around to align with it when a large triangle-shaped vessel emerged from the area. It tipped up away from the planet and started glowing brightly as it accelerated away. The Prule formation dove in behind the fleeing vessel but were quickly falling behind. The ship was fast and I engaged my phase drive at maximum power to close the distance. I fired my beam weapon at the fleeing ship and saw a lightening like flash near the rear of the ship but it failed to slow. The other Prule ships launched a wall of missiles at our Daggers. Tria was the closest to the ship and fired her main weapon. It only registered as another bright flash but did bring a sudden course change to the fleeing ship. Coonts, Klutch, and Sael were engaging the Prule ships that were firing everything they had at us. Their comms banter told me they were making quick work of them. I was making another turn to cut the ship off as it started maneuvering wildly to shake us off. The Legacy suddenly appeared ahead of the ship and uncloaked. Justice turned directly into the vessel’s path. The ship made an insanely hard turn to avoid a collision. Justice hit the ship with the Legacy’s main beam weapons at less than a thousand yards. One of the corners exploded off the ship and it went cartwheeling end over end spewing white-hot shards of its hull. It was no longer glowing and under its own power. Justice closed with the ship and a red beam of energy lanced out from the tumbling ship and hit the Legacy with a glancing blow. The Legacy’s shield flared and Justice jinxed the Legacy hard over. I rapidly closed with the tumbling ship as it made a wobbly correction and righted itself. The ship was streaming sparkling fire from the edge of its hull. I didn’t know if that was its stardrive trying to come back online or what. I sent a beam shot into the fireworks display. The result was an impressive blast that sent the ship tumbling once again. My HUD gave me a closeup of the ship. There was a giant hole in its hull and it was weeping atmosphere and all kinds of debris, some of which looked like humanoid bodies.

  My strike team converged on my position. Klutch reported no hostile ships maneuvering under their own power. My HUD alerted me that fifty of our attack drones were converging on us as well. The drones were making intersystem jumps that put them in close proximity to the unknown ship. That left five unaccounted for. My HUD located the remaining drones. They were not far from the gate and had the first ship that tried to escape the underground base surrounded.

  We moved in close to the wounded mystery ship and Justice started arresting its tumble with the Legacy’s tow beam. The ship was almost twice the size of the Legacy. It took Justice four attempts to get the ship stationary.

  Justice hailed us. “Commander, I have no additional targets to report. I am scanning the unidentified ship and am getting some unusual power source reading. I suspect my scans are from breaches in the ship's internal shielding. I am not getting life form readings and surmise they are being shielded from my scans as well.”

  Klutch called to Justice. “We need to make sure their weapons are no longer a factor.”

  “I am working on contingencies Troop Master.”

  Justice’s contingencies amounted to the Legacy systematically burning the armaments off the ship’s hull with our point defense weapons. It led to a lot of atmospheric breaches but I wasn’t going to cry over a little spilled milk.

  I questioned my strike team about the alien ship. None of them had ever seen a ship of this unique configuration. The chances were good it was technology the Prule had stumbled across and was making use of. The effort the Prule made to help the ship try to escape, said loads about what might be aboard. The vessel was fast and had some good weapons tech. It had me worried. There was a possibility they still had some tech that might be better than ours.

  “Justice, I need our backup armor optimized for boarding operations.”

  Justice moved the Legacy in between us and the damaged ship. The hangar bay doors opened and he latched onto our Daggers with the tow beam. He rapidly pulled us in one at a time. We climbed out of our Daggers and headed for the ready room. When we climbed down out of our damaged armor, I looked over at Klutch. He seemed to shrug off his injuries, but the swelling and bruising on his face and head made his skin look black. His eyes were also discolored. They were now similar in tint to his ocher-colored blood.

  “You good to go Troop Master?”

  He hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Coonts. “I am fine Commander, you should worry about that Throgg behind me. He must have suffered a blow more severe than the little tap I received. He seems to believe I owe him one hundred thousand credits when it is he who owes me.”

  The Tibor was feeding me a load of scat. There was no way he was fine. I have seen him in this condition before and knew he was ignoring the pain that came with it. The meds his armor administered were not strong enough to completely block pain. If they were any more potent, they could impair his combat skills. I looked over at Coonts and he gave me a thumbs up. I wasn’t sure if that meant he was good to go or he thought Klutch was. Either way, I doubted if I could keep them from going even if I tried. Justice extruded two arms from the ceiling and used them to remove the portal device from Klutch’s wrecked armor. The device looked surprisingly good considering what it went through. Justice secured it onto the harness of Klutch’s backup armor. Klutch yanked on it several times and then Coonts came over and did the same. They both seemed satisfied and went to the weapons rack for new shotguns. Klutch looked longingly at his prized plasma caster sitting on the rack. It was one of the few times I would have welcomed it along with us. Unfortunately, we would have to go back to the salvage depot to find more of the exotic charge packs for the weapon.

  Tria and Sael were having a quiet conversation. When they saw me looking, Sael gave me a raised eyebrow and a slow shake of her head. I had no idea what that was all about, so I gave them a thumbs up. That got me smiles from both of them and they climbed up into their armor.

  When I had my armor secured and was done with my checklist, I opened a private channel to Tria. “Anything you care to share with me?”

  “Sael had questions about our last engagement.”

  “Let me guess, she would have done something differently?”

  “No, that was not what she had questions about?” Tria replied.

  “Oh really, then what was she questioning?”

  Tria paused before answering and it had me wondering why. “It seems that when we were in battle, the two of you were nearly struck by a bolt from a Stalker’s energy weapon.”

  I threw my hands up wondering where this was going. “Okay, I vaguely remember that. What did she want to know about it?”

  “She said she found herself sitting on your faceplate. She also said you made some unusual remarks.”

  I frowned trying to remember what I said. My eyes widened when my memory finally caught up to me. “You know I have the damndest time keeping my Earthman
mouth shut when things are going to scat around me. I hope you didn’t tell her what I meant?”

  “Of course I did.” She laughed.

  Justice interrupted the awkwardness of the moment. “Commander, I have retrieved one of the bodies jettisoned from the unknown spacecraft after our attack. It appears to be alive.”

  “Can you identify its species?”

  “Negative Commander.”

  “Can you bring it aboard so we could get a look at it?” Coonts asked.

  “Inadvisable Engineer Coonts. My scans of the lifeform have detected devices attached to its cranium that are emitting signals that mimic Prule machine communications. Some of the signals are Prule machine language while others are unknown. It is speculation on my part, but it may be trying to communicate with the disabled ship.”

  Sael was frowning. Apparently, she wanted to take a look at the alien as well. “Have you been able to locate any others? We can compare the signals to determine if they are the same. It might be a way to communicate directly with them.”

  “I have located two additional bodies that resemble the one I am currently holding outside of our shield bubble. They are both missing a large portion of the upper abdomens. My scans concluded the bodies exploded from some internal means. I cannot establish a logical reason why this alien has not unless it was intentionally spared in hopes we would bring it aboard.”

  Coonts wasn’t going to give up. “Justice, the shielding on the Legacy should be able to block any signal from the alien’s mothership. We just have to get it aboard and close the Legacy up before it can explode.”

  “I have considered that option among others, but was not going to take the risk without a direct order from command personnel.”

  “What other options Justice?” I asked.

  “We should attempt to open a dialog with the alien. If it is terminated, we will know the Prule do not want us to speak to them. If it isn’t, it may be an opening to communicate with us.”

  14

  I liked that idea better than any others at the moment. There was always the chance, even though it was a small one, we could get the aliens to admit defeat, and surrender themselves and their ship to us.

  “Okay Justice, how can we communicate with it?”

  “If the alien is a surrogate of the Prule, it will have an understanding of their language or a translater for that purpose. Our contact with the Prule has allowed me to decipher general knowledge of the machine dialect. I propose you initiate a conversation in Prule to see if we get a response. If that fails, we will start with the better-known languages and hope for a response.”

  “I am willing to give it a shot. If he explodes, we will board his ship and find someone else to question.”

  “The spacecraft is emanating a large number of signals. I have acquired one that appears to be a two-way communication channel Commander. I advise that you refrain from using Earth slang or other less than… clear means of communication.”

  I heard my two favorite lunkheads snicker at Justice’s remark. Tria and Sael both turned away before I could see how it registered on their faces. I was going to reply to the barb, but the sardonic AI interrupted my retort.”

  “Comms are open Commander.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then composed my thoughts. I was slightly irritated and finally threw something together. It may not have been what some of my crew may have asked, but it sounded to me like it was sanitized of any emotional baggage they seemed to think I carried around with me.

  “Are you the slave of the Bio-machines?”

  To our surprise, the alien answered. Justice was correct, it was able to converse in the Prule dialect.

  “I am the servant of my Masters. You are not the voice of the Masters.”

  “We have killed your Masters. You are free to speak without fear.”

  “You are the Apex Warrior of the ancient enemy. It is forbidden to speak to our enemies. Your communications have sealed my fate.” The alien replied.

  “We have freed you from the Bio-machines. You no longer have to fear their retribution.”

  I only got silence after declaring the creature’s independence from the Prule. It may not have thought being jettisoned out the hull, a proper freeing from its Masters. I was going to ask another question to see if I could get it talking again, but it was unnecessary. It made the decision to respond.

  “You cannot protect me from punishment. My Masters will seek me out and end my life.”

  As far as I was concerned, the Prule were having technical difficulties terminating the alien. I was not going to give them the chance to correct the problem.

  “Justice, bring the alien aboard and isolate him in the brig.”

  We closed our helmets and Justice opened a hole in the Legacy’s shields. He was going to bring the alien through the atmospheric retention field with the tow beam when his head exploded. The detonation blew a large portion of the alien’s upper torso to pieces. The Prule weren’t having problems after all. They may have been monitoring the alien’s comms to see what we had to say and decided they had heard enough. Justice brought the remains of the alien’s torso aboard. He brought a med pod to the hangar deck and quickly stowed the remains in it.

  I shook my head in disgust at the way the Prule treated their own troops and thought about the limited conversation I had with the alien. He called me the Apex Warrior of the ancient enemies. We knew the ancient enemy was all the Sentinal races that stood against the Prule when they first tried to conquer our galaxy. The title of Apex Warrior had a nice ring to it. I liked it much better than the Demon Warrior label our other adversaries hung around my neck. I hoped the moniker established just how much our bona fides were feared by the Prule. I looked at my strike team. They were weaponed up and waiting. They were serious ass-kickers and the Apex Warriors title was fitting.

  “Justice, we are ready to board that ship.”

  “Affirmative Commander, moving now. I will attempt to alert you if additional Prule forces attempt to intervene.”

  Justice moved the Legacy over the disabled ship. We boosted out of the boarding hatch to limit the detection envelope of the Legacy. As far as we knew it was undetectable to the hostile ship. If their sensors were still operating, they would get a ten-second sniff that something bad was about to happen.

  Klutch stopped us just above the ship’s hull. There were a lot of holes in the hull where the ship’s weapons turrets used to be. It gave us a lot of entry points to choose from.

  I was going to leave it up to Klutch as to how we would make our entrance. “Take your pick Troop Master.”

  He pointed to a large hole to our left. It was one of the first that Justice targeted because it was the source of the beam weapon that had fired on the Legacy.

  The ragged opening was not weeping smoke and atmospheric pollutants as much as some of the others he could have chosen from. We moved to the edge of the pitch-black hole and Klutch did a quick sensor sweep. There was a passage near the bottom of the crater. We activated our no-light sensors and went down quickly. We found ourselves surrounded by the floating bodies of several aliens. Some were like our captive, and some weren’t. There were a lot of unidentifiable chunks floating around as well. We came to a large pressure door and Klutch pointed to the portal device. I gave him a thumbs up and we stacked behind him. He made a hole and we went through fast. There was an atmosphere present that was surprisingly high in oxygen. If it weren’t for all the toxic smoke, it would have been breathable. It was just as dark on this side of the door as the other. We were in an open corridor and it appeared to be vacant. There was very little in the way of cover and Klutch didn’t like what he was seeing. Even though we had excellent cloaking and negation capabilities, he led us to the sidewall and we crouched low.

  I didn’t like being bunched up with no place to shelter if things went down the crapper. “Coonts, Sael, take the other side.” I commed.

  They quickly peeled off and went to the o
ther wall about fifty feet away. Even with the special padding on the bottoms of our armored boots they still made faint sounds on the deck as the two scurried to the far side of the passage. We heard an audible click and a round protrusion bulged from the overhead. With a loud hiss, a beam lanced out from it just missing Sael as she and Coonts dropped low to the sidewall. The anti-boarding device could not detect our cloaked armor but could take directional cues from the noise we generated while moving. It's hard to say what effect the beam would have had on Sael’s armor, but it made a molten puddle of metal where it struck the deck behind her. Both Coonts and Klutch hit the device with a double-tap of penetrator slugs. Two would have got the job done. The explosive blasts wrecked the device and ripped panels from the overhead. The noise and falling wreckage triggered another of the devices at the far end of the passage. It opened fire ripping more of the overhead panels from the ceiling. The weapon wasn’t satisfied until it blasted the panels into molten pieces. A return volley from Klutch put an end to the pyrotechnics display.