The Final Battle

by Anna Wu

  Chapter 38: Making Ultralord Proud

  Sheen slowly advanced across the asteroid, hiding behind every few boulders, listening intently for the slightest sound. He didn't like how things were going. It shouldn't have been this easy.

  Sheen paused behind a rock and coughed violently. He was sweating bullets from his ordeal, wasting the last few drops of water left in his body. "Even if I get the ship, where am I going to get water?" he nervously wondered.

  Sheen drummed his shaking fingers against the ground and closed his eyes. He may have gotten off to a good start in the battle against the Yolkians, but he was losing the battle against time. He needed a drink, and fast.

  Focus, one thing at a time, he reminded himself. Water won't do me a bit of good if those Yolkians electrocute me first. Sheen nodded at his thinking and checked his rifle. He had only spent four shots. He thought about switching magazines, but decided to wait until his had emptied a little more. He didn't have time to replace them after every shot.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then ran across a small clearing. This was the final dash to the Yolkian ship. If nobody spotted him as he ran through the open wasteland, he would have a chance of sneaking inside.

  Sheen tried to clear his mind as his feet pounded the ground over and over again. He was running as fast as he could, but it was nowhere near as fast as he had run the day of the crash. His right leg was screaming pain. It may not be broken, but it wasn't in tip-top shape either.

  Sheen dove the last few feet and skidded across the sandy ground. Small pebbles breached his mouth and nose. The ground tore at the weak flesh of his stomach. When he stood up he felt fresh, warm blood flowing down his chest from his nose.

  He ignored the red liquid and braced himself against the rocket. He waited a moment, expecting the thirteen Yolkians to come pouring out the hatch. He remained perfectly still, his hands resting on his rifle. After two full minutes of standing completely still, he began inching his way toward the hatch.

  Sheen inspected the vessel as he slowly made his way across it. He guessed that it was around two hundred meters across. There didn't seem to be any weapons systems on the exterior of the rocket, but they could possibly be concealed. Just like that level four cruiser in Ultralord: The Video Game, he happily thought.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Sheen reached the door to the ship. He was about to reach for the handle, but immediately withdrew his hand. "Could it really be this easy?" he whispered.

  He plastered himself against the metallic hull and thought about that question. Jimmy had said on several occasions that the Yolkians were millions of years ahead of humans. Surely they would know if someone opened the front door to their ship. But by the same logic, wouldn't they know if he sneaked in another way? How could he get onto the ship without them noticing?

  He let go of the rifle with his left hand and stroked his chin. He imagined him entering the ship a dozen different ways. The door, the windows, the exhaust pipe, every orifice the ship had. But each time he imagined a swarm of Yolkian soldiers ambushing him. After five minutes of thinking, he gave up.

  "They're probably going to get worried about their dead friends soon," he muttered to himself. "I've got to act fast." He reached for the door, grabbed the handle, and paused. "Just gotta hope for the best," he nervously mumbled while pushing the door open.

  The door swung inside the Yolkian cruiser. Sheen slowly and quietly closed it behind him before grabbing his rifle and aiming it down the corridor to his left. He was out in the open. There were no walls or cover to hide behind. It would be an old-fashioned shootout if any Yolkians came.

  A moment went by, and nothing happened. No blaring alarms, no trigger-happy aliens. Just silence. Sheen ever so slightly took his finger off of the rifle's trigger. He braced himself against the nearby wall and began creeping down the hallway.

  He tried to keep alert, but he couldn't help but let his mind wander as he slowly inched his way down the dark corridor. It wasn't a completely bad thing, at least his mind stayed focused on the job at hand. Instead of dreaming about Libby or Ultralord, he pondered what the Yolkians were doing on his asteroid. He had been too far away from them to hear their discussion about the rubies.

  They didn't pull out their weapons until I shot one of them. And this ship doesn't exactly look like a war cruiser. Plus there are only four soldiers on the ship, if I am to believe that egghead. So they probably didn't know that I was here. Maybe this is some kind of vacation ship? Or a scientific mission, like how we go to the moon?

  Sheen shook these thoughts out of his head as he realized that he was finally coming up to the end of the hallway. He gripped his rifle in both hands and set his finger on the trigger. He'd prefer to have a small pistol in his hands right now instead of the cumbersome rifle, but he had no place to store the large gun that lay in his hands. He wasn't going to leave it behind. It had served well as a sniper rifle in his trained hands.

  Sheen cautiously peeked his head around the hallway. Three Yolkians emerged from a door to his right and began to walk down the corridor. Sheen instantly hid back behind his wall. He could easily have taken three Yolkians out with the element of surprise, but he didn't want to give away his position just yet.

  Sheen waited until the sounds of the Yolkian's hovering shells disappeared down another passageway. He risked another peek around the corner and saw no signs of the enemy. He gathered his courage and stepped into the next hallway.

  On both sides of him were doors. He quietly grabbed the handle to the door on his left and tried to lightly turn it, but it was locked. He then looked to the entrance at his right. There was a window in the top center of the door. Sheen ducked down and waddled over to it. He quickly popped his head up and looked inside. There was a lone Yolkian hovering near a table, staring at some machinery and touching a computer monitor by his side.

  Sheen turned the rifle over in his hands so that he gripped the barrel of the gun. He wrapped both fists around it and gauged its weight. He gave a slight grin. It would do the job.

  Sheen reached up with one hand and opened the door a crack. He listened intently, but the Yolkian didn't seem to have heard him. Sheen slowly pushed the door open with his head and walked inside, still crouching down to half his height.

  The room was small, no larger than his bedroom at home. There was a table in the middle of the room and several beeping machines along the back wall. The Yolkian stood there, his back facing Sheen. The alien was running his hands along a pumping piston and then touched a few alien symbols shown on his computer's monitor.

  Sheen closed the door as much as could without it clicking into place. He advanced towards the alien and stood up. As he got up, however, he knocked the table over a few inches. It made just enough noise for the Yolkian to turn around.

  "Damn," Sheen angrily whispered while swinging the rifle into the Yolkian like a baseball bat. The Yolkian let out a shrill cry before his shell cracked and wobbled in the air. As the rifle finished its swing and came up to Sheen's shoulders, he picked it up over his head and slammed it down onto the exposed Yolkian's head. The shell loudly slammed into the floor. Globs of green slime stuck to the rifle and spewed onto the walls. The alien was still alive, however.

  Sheen could tell that this was not one of the soldiers Jakar had described. The pathetic heap of slime at his feet crawled away as fast as it could, screaming in its alien tongue. He guessed that it was one of the crewmen. Sheen reached for its brain so that he could shut the damn thing up, but he accidentally grabbed the Yolkian's eye. He yanked it off of the Yolkian's body.

  This only caused the alien to scream even louder. Sheen jumped onto the pile of goo and reached his hand deep inside the struggling Yolkian's body. He felt around near the remaining eye and finally found the brain. He dug his fingernails into the dense ball, making the Yolkian writhe around even more frantically. He yanked it out of his enemy's head and ripped the brain in half with his other hand. The Yolkian immedi
ately turned grey and fell silent.

  "What goes on in there?" he heard a voice shout from down the hall.

  "Grab the weapons!" another voice screamed, this one closer.

  Sheen acted fast. He dropped his rifle to the ground and pulled a Glock .22 pistol out from his waistband. He spun it around his index finger while jumping up in the air and kicking the table as hard as he could. Stacks of paper and bottles of glowing liquid spilled onto the floor. Sheen shoved the table against the door and hid behind it.

  He braced his back against it and grabbed onto a nearby counter with his empty hand, praying that the table would hold. Several Yolkians tried to push the door open, but to no avail. Sheen tried to dig his feet into the floor, but the spilled liquid made him slip and flail about. He tried to hold the table in place, but the Yolkians were quickly overpowering him.

  Sheen realized that they would file in in a matter of seconds. He'd have to attack first. He let go of the counter and pulled another pistol out of his waistband. He held the two guns up to his head, pointing up towards the ceiling. He took a deep breath, turned around, bent his feet against the table, and pushed off as hard as he could.

  The Yolkians quickly opened the door, sending the table sliding across the room. There were five of them. A crewman led the way, and four soldiers hovered behind him. Sheen slid across the slippery floor towards the back wall. As soon as the door opened, he began pulling the triggers on his guns as fast as he could.

  The Yolkians had never experienced guns before. Most of their weapons were melee based. The few ranged weapons that they had used plasma, not bullets. But they were incredibly smart and adaptive. After the crewmen in front of the soldiers went down, the remaining four Yolkians immediately formulated a strategy.

  The four soldiers stared for a quick second at the fallen crewman beneath them. One of the soldiers stood in front of the other three and covered them as best he could. He was sacrificing himself to provide the others a shield. The other three Yolkians hid behind him in a straight line.

  Sheen saw that he was not going to get through them this way. He dropped one of his pistols and pulled the spear out of his pocket. It was his only surprise left. The Yolkians didn't know that he had taken one of their own weapons.

  Sheen pressed the first three buttons of the spear's activation sequence as he fired the last shots in his remaining pistol. Once it was empty, he tossed it to the ground and held down the red button on the spear while running forward.

  He only got a quick glance at the damage he had done. The first Yolkian that he had shot was down on the floor, a heap of goo. The soldier that had served as a shield was also on the floor, bullets trapped inside him. The Yolkian that had stood behind the poor soul had its glass visor cracked, but was still able to fight. The two Yolkians behind him were unharmed.

  The two Yolkians standing behind the damaged alien had their spears ready. So did Sheen. He charged at the line of enemies just as his spear fully extended, He saw the shocked expressions on his enemies' faces. He banked left and held the spear out to his right. It slammed right through the first two Yolkians' shells and began electrocuting the second one. The third soldier that stood last in the line stabbed Sheen.

  It was now a one-on-one fight. The crew members lay on the floor. One was missing an eye and had its brain pulled out, the other was simply immobilized, having had his shell shot. The soldier that had served as a shield lay in a puddle on the ground. The two other soldiers had fallen to the floor, still connected by the spear. The spear sent continuing waves of electricity through its tip, thoroughly burning the second Yolkian. The one in front of it had had its brain pierced by the spear.

  Sheen fell to the ground and began writhing in pain as the spear began electrocuting him. His entire body felt like it was on fire. Blackness swirled over him and began to envelop him. He could see his enemy's angry face as he was about to shove the spear in further.

  Sheen had one shot, and he knew it. He reared back his legs and kicked the Yolkian as hard as he could. The alien flew backwards. The glass shield cracked, but didn't break. The Yolkian had hung onto the spear. The deadly device was yanked out of a screaming Sheen's side.

  Sheen didn't have much time to waste. He quickly stared down at his right side. There was a hole near his ribcage, and blood was spilling out. Surprisingly, it wasn't bleeding too badly. The electricity had created enough heat to somewhat cauterize his wound. It was mostly superficial, actually. The spear hadn't penetrated too deeply. He doubted that any of his organs were hit. Luck was still on his side. At least for the moment.

  Sheen ducked as the fierce alien flew towards him and thrust the spear where his chest had been. He punched the alien as hard as he could, but only managed to make it wobble back a few feet. He took this opportunity to dash out of the room.

  Sheen ran as fast as he could, but the Yolkian could fly much faster. He only had a few seconds before the Yolkian regained its balance and caught up to him. He pulled another pistol out of his waistband and made sure a round was in the chamber.

  Suddenly a crackling sound quickly overcame him. A spear covered in green goo went flying past him, only centimeters from his head. The one remaining soldier had yanked the spear out of the two pierced Yolkians and hurled it at him.

  Sheen turned around and fired two shots at the Yolkian. Both hit his glass visor, but it still didn't break. Sheen couldn't believe it. The alien was either extremely lucky or had better armor than the others.

  Sheen rounded a corner as a knife slammed into his leg. He screamed in agony and fell onto the ground. The Yolkian silently and swiftly hovered over Sheen, poised its spear, and thrust it downwards. Sheen rolled out of the way in the nick of time.

  Sheen had had enough of this. He steadied his gun and aimed it pointblank at the Yolkian's control panel. He emptied the entire clip into it. The Yolkian's shell began to spew sparks. It fell onto the ground, shook for a few seconds, and then became still. The spear fell from his hands and retracted itself as it clanged onto the ground.

  Sheen prayed to god that that had been the last soldier. There was no way he could take down another of those. Sheen struggled to climb to his feet. The knife was still stuck inside his right leg. He removed it, and blood poured out from the wound. He felt a little woozy. He had nothing to wrap it with. Even if he could bandage it up, he was nervous about the amount of blood being lost.

  The Yolkian stared on in hatred as Sheen picked up its spear and held it to his leg. He initiated the activation sequence and watched as the three feet of metal extended. He held the flat part of the spear's tip to his wound. He gritted his teeth in pain as the electricity scorched his skin. Soon it enveloped his whole body, and he pulled the spear away just before he passed out.

  He collapsed onto the ground, struggling to keep his eyes open. He looked down at his leg and gave a weak smile. The bleeding had nearly stopped. The electricity had cauterized the wound. He wouldn't die of blood loss. Not yet, at least. He crawled towards the fallen Yolkian and held the spear above it.

  The alien's eyes held no fear. It was the polar opposite of the first crewman that he had killed just a few moments ago. Sheen wasn't impressed. He slammed the spear through the glass shield. It finally broke. He let out a sigh of satisfaction as he heard the Yolkian's body sizzle and burn up.

  Sheen leaned back against the wall and breathed deeply. The soldiers were dead. Those were his main threat. But he didn't know how tough the rest of them would be. Were they all as frightened and cowardly as the first crewman? Or would they rush into battle like the one that had led the soldiers?

  There was no more time to sit and think. He struggled to get to his feet. The world swirled around him and he bent over and threw up. He dropped his pistol and pulled another out of his waistband. He tossed it into his left hand and pulled his spear out of the Yolkian with his right. There were still seven more Yolkians to kill. He wasn't even halfway done.