The Apex Warriors

by Marc Stevens

  “Commander, I don’t know if they will trigger a detection, but we are going to have to use our gravity boosters if we don’t want to activate more of the devices.”

  “Roger that Klutch. We will follow your lead.”

  We boosted up off the deck about a foot and moved slowly down the corridor. Klutch called a halt when we reached the far end. I saw his avatar point to the wrecked ceiling where the device once was. I looked up and saw there was a partial ring where the weapon was.

  “We need to keep a lookout for that telltale ring,” Klutch commented.

  Before I could reply to his statement, the hatch to our front opened. We didn’t hesitate and boosted to the overhead as weapons fire poured through the opening. I pointed my arm down and bounced a five-round burst of high explosives through the doorway. The bulkhead around the opening blew outwards knocking Klutch, Tria, and me backward with flying debris. One good thing came from getting knocked around by my weapons fire. We got a good look at what was taking place on the other side of the hatch. Twelve shielded mechs were righting themselves. There were three on the deck in front of them with serious damage. Tria and Klutch didn’t like any of the scenarios they were coming up with and opened fire with their beam weapons. The tremendous thunderclaps from the strikes violently shook our armor and rattled my brain. I blinked several times to clear my vision and saw four of the machines were mangled junk and the rest were laying in piles against the bulging bulkheads. My HUD started throwing out various warnings. Mostly about the toxic environment and the sudden high temperatures. The oxygen-rich atmosphere flared into a burning inferno and filled the entire corridor. Coonts and Sael fired several high explosive rounds into the mechs as they attempted to target us. We were showered with molten spalls and the blasts extinguished the atmospheric fires. The majority of oxygen was burnt up and replaced with clouds of toxic smoke. We weren’t getting any shield readings on the opposition, so we gathered at the ragged opening and put penetrator slugs into anything that even resembled a target. After the second magazine change, Klutch called a ceasefire.

  We boosted into the debris and searched for movement from the machines. All were useless scrap. I was going to tell the Troop Master to get moving when a bright flash and booming report washed over us from our rear. Coonts and Sael both called a warning at the same time. A large part of the overhead came crashing down and several seeker grenades dropped down into the passage. They oriented on us and came flying up the wrecked corridor. Sael and Coonts put out a wall of explosive buckshot in their flight path causing a chain reaction of detonations. All but one of the grenades exploded. A follow-up shot from Tria detonated the device before it could reacquire our position. Coonts called out another warning. The aliens finally decided to join the battle. They dropped down out of the hole like rain. Sael opened up with her minigun and knocked a wave of them off of their feet. Their comrades landed awkwardly among them and toppled to the cratered deck. They were wearing black armor that looked a lot like our first-generation Zaen armor. The minigun rounds may have been an uncomfortable distraction, but failed to stem the flow of combatants from the breach in the overhead. We started taking fire from handheld beam weapons. Sael was getting to her feet and was hit in the hip. There was a flashing report and she was sent spinning to the deck swearing venomously. Our cloaking emitters were taking a beating.

  Coonts ran to Sael and kneeled in front of her prone body. “H-E out!” He yelled over our comms.

  We all hit the deck as he fired a ten-round burst into the flood of oncoming troops. The rippling explosions reverberated off our armor and bounced us around on the deck. My HUD lit up with another temperature warning. My vision was screwed, but it wasn’t hard to see the flames churning all around us. The atmosphere was burning with a vengeance, and the temperature rapidly rose to a thousand plus degrees. The hole in the overhead was feeding the inferno with a fresh supply of oxygen. The flames and high temperatures did have one redeeming factor, it was burning the gore off of our armor and restoring our cloaking capability.

  There was a blast from somewhere above us that violently shook the entire ship. I hoped whatever caused the event could somehow help us out. Tria and Coonts sent a hail of penetrator slugs and grenades into the ranks of downed soldiers. Pieces and parts of their bodies were flying in all directions. Their armor was not nearly as good as what the Zaens manufactured. Even the smallest breach in their battlesuits could spell death for any that survived my strike team’s attack. The flames, heat, and toxic smoke turned out to be our allies.

  Klutch called a warning over our comms, he had movement in the passage to our front. A flash from his beam weapon whited out our HUDs and was accompanied by a blastwave that hammered us back to the deck. I spent my next several seconds facedown in the wreckage and debris trying to see what my HUD could tell me about Sael’s condition. Her life signs were good and her armor was still operational. She was just knocked on her ass, and as it turned out, that was the best position to be in. Another bright flash from behind me sent shrapnel banging off my butt and ammo pack. My minigun feed tube took a bad hit that rolled me none too gently over on my side. The jarring impact made my shoulder ache and permanently put the weapon out of action.

  “Clear!” Klutch commed us.

  My HUD gave me another warning that was not entirely unexpected. The atmosphere was dropping to zero. On the plus side, the flames and smoke rapidly dissipated with it. Whatever went boom upstairs, must have been a doozy. That or Klutch shot a hole through the hull with his beam weapon. Either way, the sudden silence was eerie. I rolled off the deck and took a knee next to Klutch. As the smoke and fire disappeared, he pointed to what he had been shooting at with his beam weapon. There was a large twin-barrelled weapon lying on its side. The ends of the weapon’s projectors were melted and twisted. The mutilated bodies of the gun crew were scattered about the deck.

  “Nice shooting Troop Master,” I commented.

  “Better than the alternative Commander,” He calmly replied.

  Tria, Coonts, and Sael got off the deck and cautiously walked among the alien bodies, looking for survivors. When they found none, Tria called all clear. Sael reached down and picked up one of the weapons that were used against us. She examined it and then stowed it in her munitions pouch.

  We put fresh magazines in our weapons and I pointed to the opening the aliens had cut through the deck above us. “Klutch, let’s take a look on the deck above us.”

  We formed up behind the Troop Master and boosted up out of the piles of bodies. As we got next to the opening, Klutch held up a grenade. I nodded and we threw four up onto the next deck and waited to see if they found live targets. None of them detonated so we boosted up through the hole. Fire had ravaged the compartment and there were two large cylindrical tanks against a wrecked bulkhead that had blown open. Whatever they contained, obviously didn’t like heat or flames. There were several burnt and mutilated bodies scattered around the large room.

  Coonts was examining them and pointed out his findings. “Commander, most of these bodies are missing their upper torsos, and show evidence of internal detonation. It is only a theory, but I would say they were killed in the same manner as the ones Justice retrieved outside of the ship.”

  Tria was looking around at the damage to the area. “Nathan, I think when the aliens were killed, it caused the damage to this compartment.”

  I looked around and decided Tria had a valid point. There was always a chance we had something to do with the explosion that wrecked the deck, but it was looking more and more like it was self-inflicted. If the idiotic Prule were stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot, I wasn’t going to bitch about it. That didn’t mean I wasn’t having trouble trying to making sense of it. If the aliens were trying to defend their masters, why would they help us out by killing them?

  Sael voiced her opinion. “The Prule must have thought their surrogates were not making a proper effort, or their failure to stop us was not an option.”<
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  I just shook my head. The poor bastards only got two choices, death or death.

  Klutch pointed to a bulkhead at the far end of the deck. “Commander, what do you make of that?”

  The wall was unusual looking. Everything else around us looked burn and wrecked. The wall still looked shiny and unscorched. We boosted over the carnage and landed near it.

  Tria turned to me. “The last time we saw a metal wall like that, we were aboard a Prule salvage ship and there was a Hivemind on the other side.”

  Her comment got nods of agreement from everyone. That was a long time ago and I remembered we had to shoot our way in. That would not be the case this time.

  Coonts was looking the wall over carefully and pointed at the base of it. “Commander, it looks like this is sitting on the deck and not part of the ship’s internal structure. It might be an enclosure or capsule of some kind.”

  I thought about or past experience. We had shot a hole in the enclosure and crawled inside only to have the Hivemind run us back out. If this turned out to be the same scenario, the Hivemind was armed with an energy weapon that probably came off one of their starships. The same kind of weapon that had killed Xul.

  “Troop Master, I want a hole in the hull big enough to bring one of our drones in here.”

  That put a big smile on Klutch’s face. He slapped Coonts on the shoulder and they both went to the rear of the passage near the hole where we came up through the deck. They both started pointing in different directions. I knew that they were having a hard time agreeing as to where they were going to make the hole. They started gesturing and slapping at each other.

  I put an end to their decision process. “Now, Troop Master. Not tomorrow!”

  Klutch took the guesswork out of the process by firing in the direction he had previously pointed to. The shot momentarily whited out my HUD. The ship vibrated with the detonation and when my view reset, both Coonts and Klutch were picking themselves up off the deck. Coonts smacked Klutch on the shoulder. I suspect it may have been an “I told you so.” moment. Not to be outdone, Coonts fired into the same location showering the two with more hot molten slag.

  The second shot rewarded us with the voice of Justice over our comms. “Do you require assistance Commander?”

  “Yes, Justice I want to bring one of the drones to our location.”

  “Wait one, I am uploading your battlesuit data.” He replied.

  We didn’t have to wait more than twenty seconds before the AI made his recommendation. “Commander, rather than make an attempt to enter the capsule, I recommend we remove it from the ship and send it back through the gateway. There will be nothing the occupants of the capsule can do during the transit time, and the respite will give us time to repair the damage to your armor.”

  I looked at my strike team and they all nodded in agreement. “Roger that Justice, how would you like to handle the situation?”

  “I first recommend that all crewmembers return to the safety of the Legacy before I attempt to remove the capsule.”

  Sael waved to me to get my attention. She held up a data siphon module with a questioning look on her face. The thought had crossed my mind as well. There was a chance all the inhabitants of the ship were now dead, and we would have no one to question about its origins.

  “Justice, we are going to deploy a date siphon before we leave the ship.”

  “Affirmative Commander, I will increase the size of the hull breach created by Coonts and Klutch so you can bring drones aboard. Please find cover near the capsule’s location.”

  “Roger that, we are moving now.”

  We boosted to the far end of the passage against the capsule wall and took a knee. “We are ready when you are Justice,” I called.

  Rather than reply, a rail cannon round flashed through the hull leaving brightly glowing sparks in its wake. The bone-jarring impact was quickly followed by another.

  “Commander, I am sending drones into the openings. One will stay at the location of the breach to relay your real-time data back to me if you enter shielded areas. The circumference of the capsule will not allow further investigation of the deck you are currently on. I suggest you use the cavity created by the rail cannon to explore the other decks.”

  We boosted back to the opening Justice created. We looked up and saw a starfield. Two of the oversized drones uncloaked at the opening and slowly dropped to meet us. Tria pointed down into the hole blasted through the hull. Three hundred feet below us there was another matching hole. There was a magnificent view of the endless starfield on the other end as well. Two more drones uncloaked at the other end. Justice was going to make sure if we ran into trouble, we would have plenty of backup.

  Justice gave us another heads up now that he had reliable sensors within the hull that could relay their data back to the Legacy.

  “Commander, The capsule is emanating signals that are invasive to unprotected equipment. While we are protected against signals of that nature, the aliens that once operated this ship are not. The occupants of the capsule have control of all operational equipment aboard this vessel. I recommend you follow the drone closely so you will be within the protection of its shield bubble. You will have direct control of the drone’s weapons. I caution you against using them while still aboard the vessel.”

  I would take Justice’s advice. The drones were designed to shoot down hostile spacecraft. The weapons on them were almost as powerful as the Legacy’s. It would be extremely hazardous to unleash them on the remains of the ship. We went down two decks and moved aside to let the drone float past us. The high ceilings on this deck would allow the drone to move within the corridor we occupied. We didn’t know if all the passages were the same size. There could be others that were smaller and we would have to go it alone. The layout of the ship’s passages was predominantly fore and aft. The side passages were much smaller and could not accommodate the drones. We went toward what we thought was the triangular ship's other pointy end, thinking it had to be the location of the bridge. The scans from the drones and our armor were not picking up lifeform readings. That’s not to say we weren’t getting some unusual background readings, we just didn’t know what to make of them. It was almost like the ship was alive and we were getting a read on its erratic pulse. The absence of alien bodies on this deck made me wonder if we were going in the right direction. It was an empty dark corridor and was lacking any signs that it was for the habitation of the crew. My scans showed we were far enough forward that we were under the capsule that dominated the upper decks. I looked up at the overhead and there were only large pipes and conduits. They too went forward and aft. The distinct lack of side passages indicated we were close to the nose of the ship. Our journey came to an end at a bulkhead. There was no door just a wall. I looked up and verified that the piping and conduits also terminated into the wall. Whatever was on the other side was also protected by some very good shielding. The drone was not giving us a read, other than the wall was radiating a much warmer temperature than the minus two hundred plus of the void.

  There was only one way to find out. “Klutch, make a hole.”

  “What about the drone? Will it fit into the portal.” Sael asked.

  It was a good question. We had never anticipated using one in this manner. There was a possibility if it went through longways it just might fit. The downside to giving that a go, was if it got stuck and blocked the passage, it would be destroyed when the portal terminated.

  “Don’t worry Sael, if we step into a Throgg pile too deep to wade through, we can always come back out.”

  I heard her grumble something about not being worried, we always had one foot in the grave anyway. Klutch pointed at a spot on the wall and I nodded. We stacked behind him and he activated the device and got a good hole. I slapped him on the shoulder and we went through. To our surprise, it was a balmy one hundred and one on this side of the wall. There was a mist raining down on us that was interfering with our cloaking capabilities. It made li
ttle difference because it was dark and our no-light sensors gave us a surreal view of the surroundings. We were in a large verticle shaft that went from the bottom hull to the top. The view was startling and I drew in a sharp breath. The bottom of the shaft was filled with bodies of every description. They were laying in some kind of grotesque fluid. Prule maintenance machines were roaming around the perimeter. They would snatch up two aliens at a time from the pile, and climb up the sidewall like a spider with its prey. My eyes naturally went upward to see where they were going. Above us, were rows of aliens circling the enclosure. They were hanging like ornaments on a tree from tentacles protruding from the walls. My HUD showed seventy-two circles. The Prule machines were working their way down on row seventy-three. The mist on our armor was the mess dripping off of the bodies. I had seen a lot of barbarisms since coming to the stars, but this was a step above anything I ever witnessed. The underground labs were bad, but this was downright horrifying.