by Tristan Vick
“GRAAH!” GRENDOK ROARED, ripping his battle axe out of the chest of a fallen Nephilim soldier.
Off to his right were several of his men and women, mostly scientists, doing their best to hold their ground. But the enemy forces kept advancing. That’s when golden beams of light manifested all around them and a battalion of soldiers, courtesy of the Shard, appeared all around them. Several of the Dagon forces drew up their plasma rifles and began laying down cover fire for the battered scientists to retreat to a safer distance and regroup.
A blue Dagon officer scanned the battlefield and spotted Grendok a short distance away. Since she recognized him, he assumed she must be familiar with one of his doppelgängers.
“My name’s Lieutenant Brei’Alas Kusagara,” she said in a rather chipper voice.
“You couldn’t have come at a better time, Lieutenant,” Grendok said smiling at the girl with his yellow teeth and strange slatted goat pupils. His face drained of any relief, however, when a Nephilim soldier reared up behind Brei with a Nyctan-forged flamberge blade.
“Watch out!” Grendok warned as the solder brought the wavy blade down onto the unsuspecting girl with all his strength.
Miraculously, the giant soldier and his sword froze mere centimeters above Brei’Alas’s head. That’s when she winked at the satyr, who raised a surprised eyebrow.
Brei drew out her sword and, holding it in both hands, swung around, her blade arching high and wide. She swiped at his neck and then came full around where she paused, holding her sword out to the side as cobalt blood dripped off it.
The deed done, she stepped to the side, time un-froze, and the big lug staggered forward, clasping at the slit upon his neck which spewed forth an azure mist. Then, gurgling some indiscernible gibberish, he toppled to the ground.
“By Pan’s beard! I’ve never seen such an impressive trick, my dear. You have truly been blessed by the gods.”
She smiled at him and then turned to face the oncoming wave of soldiers. As she beheld the intimidating numbers, her hand began to tremble. She took a breath and locked down her nerves.
You’re a goddamn soldier, Brei, she reminded herself. You’ve trained for this. Holding her sword at the ready, she took a deep breath and prepared to meet the onslaught head on.
Grendok merely grinned, hoisted his battle axe up and, gripping it tightly in both hands, leaped and bounded across the terrain. He bounded over Brei and crashed down on three soldiers at once, knocking them over like bowling pins. Then, spinning like a top, he sliced into another six soldiers.
No matter how many he cut down, though, more soldiers seemed to appear in their place. Upon the ridge, another dozen had surrounded him. He took wild swipes with the axe and bleated at them menacingly, but they held their distance. Instead of using their blades, they drew their plasma rifles and aimed them squarely on the satyr.
“Cowards!” he shouted.
Just as it seemed they were about to fire, everything around them slowed to a crawl. The explosions in the distance, the surrounding plasma fire, even the Dagon security troops all froze. Brei’Alas sidled up to him and he looked over at her. They were the only two on the whole battlefield still moving fluidly through time.
“Shall we?” Brei asked, finally catching up to Grendok’s position. This time he winked at her.
They moved swiftly, each of them making sure every laceration was a lethal hit to the enemy. After they’d gone around like a couple of dancers doing dual pirouettes, Brei released her hold on time and a spray of blood erupted all around them as arteries tore open and spurted gallons of blood, drenching them in the blue blood of the Nephilim.
“I haven’t seen a Time-Walker since the campaigns, girl. Out of curiosity, who were your parents?”
Brei turned to the satyr, her face hard as stone. “I never knew my parents. I was adopted,” she said.
“I see,” he replied. With yet another battalion of enemy troops marching toward them, he turned around, his back to the girl, and said in a low voice, “In that case, we shall make a name for ourselves here. Right here upon this battlefield.”
Unexpectedly a horn blew, and the battalion that was marching toward them fanned out. It seemed as though every soldier had split into two. That’s when Brei realized they weren’t facing just a few hundred, but closer to several thousand enemy combatants.
She gulped hard and then drew up her plasma rifle in one hand and her sword in the other.
“Stay close, Lieutenant. As long as we keep a tight perimeter, we’ll do fine.”
She nodded but didn’t speak. The truth was, she was so scared she thought she might piss herself. But she grunted a few times and then hopped up and down all the while taking in deep breathes as she got herself amped up for the fight.
“That’s the spirit, lassie,” Grendok said, appreciating her get up and go. Preparing himself for the fight, he crouched low, holding his trusty battle axe tightly in his hands.
The wall of soldiers seemed to keep widening with no end in sight. Then, about four hundred meters into the heart of the horde, something from the sky crashed down like a flaming comet and a massive explosion erupted.
Screams rang out as soldiers flew into the air in all directions. It looked like a small nuclear warhead had gone off, and a dust cloud rose up from the impact site.
When the dust had dissipated, rising up from the crater of bones and death was none other than the empress herself—Jegra Alakandra, Gladiatrix of the Galaxy.
“Yes!” Brei, shouted, raising her blaster into the air and firing off a few shots out of the overwhelming excitement of having the cavalry arrive.
Jegra’s space suit was all but demolished from the massive impact and only small pieces of cloth and warped metal clung to her. She tore off the fragments and tossed them aside, her trademark metal bikini making its grand appearance.
She looked back and smiled at Brei and Grendok and then threw out both hands. A massive battle axe, twice as big as Grendok’s, manifested as if out of thin air in Jegra’s hands. She wheeled around and faced the soldiers, who were only just beginning to regroup.
Roughly two dozen soldiers turned, their black and golden armor shining even in the haze of the dust that lingered in the air around the crash site. They slowly tightened their perimeter and surrounded her. As they encroached, blasters trained on the empress, one of them got up enough gumption to shout, “Surrender yourself! You’re completely surrounded!”
“All I’m surrounded by,” she snarled, “is fear and dead men.”
Jegra blurred out of focus. She moved so fast, and one by one she cut them down. Not a single warrior on the field seemed to have strength, speed, or agility that could match hers. Instead, Jegra made a mockery of the Nephilim forces by showing them what a real warrior was capable of.
Spartacus, an ancient Earth gladiator, led a rebellion that began with just a couple hundred well-trained gladiators and slaves, and these browbeaten men and women went up against the superior forces of the entire Roman army who were legend. And they won confrontation after confrontation, reminding all they faced off against that the title of Gladiator was earned, and meant something far more than an expendable, battling slave. The title of Gladiator was one of honor and dignity, and it was earned.
In his final battle against Crassus, Spartacus and two-thousand warrior slaves met forty-thousand Roman soldiers upon the battlefield. And while Crassus defeated Spartacus’s rebels and crucified six-thousand of his men and women warriors, the man himself slipped away into the sands of time, only to grow into the legend that he’s remembered as today.
As the bodies of Nephilim and Nyctan soldiers piled up all around them, Brei and Grendok shared a look that acknowledged it was now or never. Charging forward, they picked off the stragglers and the scraps that Jegra left behind in her destructive wake.
As Brei and Grendok engaged the enemy, they heard a familiar voice. “Mind if we join you?”
Brei turned in time to see the emperor
and Callestra touch down beside them. Their EV suit thrusters fired blue as they set foot upon the battlefield.
“Your Excellency,” Brei said, bowing reverently.
Dakroth smiled at her and then pulled out a side pistol and began firing off precisely aimed shots. Brei looked over at Callestra and offered her sword. “Vice Admiral Van Morgan, please, take this.”
She smiled at Brei and then drew out a blade from the sheath attached to the small of her back. She then took the weapon in both hands and pulled it apart, revealing it to be two blades. “No, thanks, luv. I brought my own.”
With that Callestra raced into the battle screaming like a banshee. Brei turned and stood still, watching the chaos unfold around her as if in slow motion. She hadn’t realized she’d triggered a time wind-down. Looking up at the sky, the Shard was taking on a swarm of fighters, while the Nephilim cruiser had a gaping hole in its hull as it lingered motionless in the sky above them.
All around her, Dagons and satyrs fought side by side as they struggled against the Nyctan and Nephilim forces. But she knew that no matter how hard they fought, they were severely outnumbered and that before the day’s end, there’d be more than enough death and bloodshed on both sides to make the rivers of Aldebaran run red.
20
Each gasping breath scraped along the walls of her throat with dryness as Jegra stood in the clearing she’d carved out. Smoke and dust created a uniform haze that surrounded her. In the thick of the murkiness, she could hear the cries of some injured soul whimpering with pain.
Jegra set down her massive, double-headed axe, blue blood smeared across the blade. She had but a few cuts and bruises, yet they were already shrinking away as her hyper healing abilities constantly mended the damage she endured.
Her chest heaved as she took in another breath. The trails of sweat that trickled down her chest and thighs left narrow, clear tracks through the grime of blue Nephilim blood that glazed her skin.
She looked up and saw Dakroth standing in the distance. Callestra, his loyal...whatever she was...by his side. Grendok and Brei’Alas stood a few meters beyond them and were looking about as exhausted as she felt. In her defense, though, she’d killed nearly seven times as many enemy combatants as anyone else on the battlefield.
The first forty-five minutes of the battle had been utterly brutal. Almost as soon as she’d crashed down and joined the fray, another one-hundred and twenty security officers from her ship teleported down along with three Centurion battle robots. Two of the machines survived the fight; one did not. The crippled machine lay thirty meters off to the side, its battered husk still sparking about every ten seconds or so.
Luckily, before they’d lost too many lives, Jegra had managed to get as many of the scientists and civilians into the main research facility—the only building made of proper concrete—and had posted Centurions, along with a dozen security guards, out front to protect those inside.
Dark motes of ash fluttered to the ground all around her after the firefight. Dakroth had vaporized his fair share of enemy soldiers and the Centurions did a hell of a lot of the lifting too. What really surprised her, however, was that Brei’Alas had killed nearly as many enemies as Callestra. She wasn’t expecting that level of ferocity to be present in such a timorous woman.
“Brei’Alas,” Jegra called out across the distance between them, panting. “Good work.”
Brei opened her mouth to speak, but all she could do was take in more air. Her arms felt like lead weights at her sides and she could barely raise her plasma rifle, let alone a heavy metal sword. Instead of speaking, she merely smiled at Jegra and gave a thumbs up. Then, using her hip, hoisted her gun up and fired off a shot.
The blast hit near Jegra and she startled and pivoted to see what Brei was shooting at. It happened to be a Nyctan soldier who’d been crawling toward the empress, hiding behind the carnage and dead bodies, to try and sneak up on her. But Brei’Alas had seen and dealt with him, and now he lay dead among the heap of his fallen comrades.
Brei let the rifle fall back down and she stood hunched over, still trying to catch her breath.
The attacks came in waves, and Jegra had a feeling that this lull was nearly over. The next torrent would soon be upon them.
She turned to find that the Nephilim and Nyctan forces had pulled back to a safe distance. They still had a solid eight hundred warriors, and she was down to about eighty or ninety of her fighters, but her small band of soldiers had wiped out over six hundred enemies in the first engagement.
By the first hour and a half mark of the battle, the enemy soldiers had tried to flank Jegra’s forces from the north and the west. Luckily, they had the emperor on their side and Dakroth had turned them into cinders, wiping out an entire battalion in the blink of an eye.
Dakroth’s help had given them the edge they needed to actually win against seemingly impossible odds. And even Jegra had to admit that he was quite impressive on the battlefield.
The emperor moved so elegantly when he fought, like a dancer. It was amazing to her that he always managed to evade each and every little attack so effortlessly; nobody could lay a finger on him. Jegra knew that to fight like that, well, you had to be leagues above everyone else in both skill and strength.
And Callestra wasn’t half bad either. She fought with a kind of rage Jegra had rarely seen on or off the battlefield. Although, the fact that it seemed as though she had been trying to keep with Jegra’s kills for the first thirty minutes of the fight was, admittedly, a little bit strange. But Jegra chocked it up to a bit of friendly rivalry, and eventually Callestra began to tire, just as Jegra got her second wind.
Still standing in the clearing by herself, Jegra closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, inhaling deeply. She exhaled, expelling any remaining tension and then craned her neck upward and gazed with smoldering brown eyes at the Nephilim battlecruiser hanging over them. The Shard lingered further out and the crescent arc of the ring world loomed in the distance, far beyond either of them.
If Azra’il Nun had wanted to blast the ground forces into smithereens, all she had to do was aim those giant plasma cannons down at the surface. The fact that she hadn’t done so suggested to Jegra that she was gathering intel on battle. In all likelihood, she was probably recording the fight, studying patterns and techniques, perchance to discover any potential weaknesses in her opponents that she could later exploit.
Honestly, Jegra couldn’t blame her. She would have done the exact same thing. Watching your opponents’ fights gave you a clear insight into their offensive and defensive strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, it helped you formulate counter attacks as well as give you an edge over the enemy, allowing you to predictably evade anything they might throw at you.
It was because of this that Jegra had ordered the Shard to keep the enemy fighters distracted. She’d studied the invasion footage. She had watched hours upon hours of holovid recordings of how the Nephilim consistently used their fighters to bomb cities and communities to rubble, sowing chaos and crippling infrastructure, only to teleport down with ground forces that swept through the streets, taking prisoners and killing insurgents.
She’d seen how they operated with blitzkrieg style attacks, always destroying their enemies’ least protected areas at the same time they crippled their military and defensive positions. Because of the sheer number of Nephilim forces, it was impossible to match them head on, and so one was forced to engage in more guerrilla style warfare.
Even though Sun Tzu never had to worry about high-yield explosives raining down from the sky, his words of advice still rang true. Give the enemy no rest and when they are distracted, attack with deception. That’s why she’d boarded Azra’il’s ship. It was completely unexpected during a ship to ship collision.
Right now, though, Jegra knew that the last thing they needed were bombing raids. They simply weren’t equipped to take on fighters from above. Which was why she was so thankful for the new, much-improved, and heavily ar
med Shard.
Fortunately, the Shard now had an entire battery of plasma cannons and high-velocity rail guns which could fire projectiles so incredibly fast that they’d shred an enemy vessel, leaving nothing but particle dust. And Lianica was keeping those fighters more than busy with her fierce and relentless volley of firepower. Although the Shard was only a fraction of the size of the Nephilim cruiser, it matched it in armaments, making it a fierce and formidable opponent.
After having caught her breath, Jegra plucked her axe out of the ground and turned and gazed across the clearing to the area where the enemy soldiers had pulled back. She could now make out the gray figures of the Nephilim and Nyctan soldiers working to re-form a front line as they readied themselves to push for another attack.
Then, to her surprise, the troops began to part in large numbers, making way for a tall central figure decked out in golden armor. He swayed through the throng of soldiers, his white skin glowing under the sunlight, his muscles bulging with raw power. His obsidian eyes with golden halos that encircled the iris turned their gaze to her and flashed hot with disdain.
Jegra remembered those eyes and the smug grin that came with them. Of the three avatars, it was this fucking asshole, Nodengoth, that Jegra would relish killing the most. He was the one who’d taken her son from her. He was the one who’d taken Dani’s arm. And he was the one who’d left her for dead. Now, she was about to return the favor.
Nodengoth stepped out onto the field and his warriors began banging their armor with their fists and chanting “Et’vat Nodengoth! Et’vat Nodengoth! Et’vat Nodengoth!”
Et’vat, Jegra knew, was Nyctan for Great One. She’d heard it chanted incessantly for H’aaztre; now, they cheered on their great warrior.
