The Expanding Universe

by Craig Martelle

  As the transports approached their landing point, a few contrails of missiles leaped out of the underbrush and raced toward the approaching craft. Most were swatted out of the sky by the quick-thinking computers controlling the gun platforms, but two managed to break through both the laser defense and shielding, cracking against the sides of the tough landers.

  One managed to keep itself going enough to make a very rough landing, but the other split open like a melon, sending fire, smoke, and pieces of itself cascading out over the landing site. He could see several troopers scattered amongst the wreckage, and only a few were moving.

  “Thank goodness for personal shields,” he muttered. First blood to the aliens and it told him they were a species who would not just wait for death to come for them.

  Several of the troop transports fired off some explosives into the jungle where the missiles had come from, detonating and shaking the earth. It would serve to kill anyone who remained there and send up a thick cloud of specially-crafted smoke that should interfere with most sensors. There was no way they could tell if some of the humanoids had remained or not. Life filled the jungle too thoroughly to make life-sensors worthwhile.

  He quickly sent several of his nanoscouts down into the trees where the attack had come, searching and flying alongside the larger and more cumbersome drones the transports had dispatched. His picked up nothing, and he suspected whoever had fired off the attack had quickly and wisely vacated the area as soon as the missiles were away.

  He knew they were not finished. This race was aggressive, at least in defending its own territory. He remembered the fierce looks on the aliens’ faces as they’d taken down the large creature on the earlier holo and he suspected they held grudges as well. That particular holo had been subtly different from the rest of the vid he’d seen from the planet. Those aliens had been wearing armor and carrying lethal looking weapons. On a hunch, he sent a query to the AI of the Bastion’s Reach.

  When the query came back, he grunted and scowled. The footage had come from the Northwest of the colony, right in the middle of where the warriors had been herded. He was just about to alert the Captain when something pulled at the base of his skull and stopped him from proceeding. It was the Warp and Weave speaking to him again, and though his consciousness screamed at him to tell the troops things were not as they appeared, he was being told by the universe at large not to do so.

  Krelth sighed. To most, it would be only the faintest of sensations, but in his thousand-plus years, he had honed his senses and could no more ignore it than a stone falling toward his head. He let his hand drop, and the tingling ceased, replaced with a profound sense of rightness. Something needed the warriors streaming out of their troop transports to stumble into whatever trap was waiting, and he looked on with a weary heart as several squads took off into the jungle and away from the colony.

  Instead, he had his ship’s AI dig into that holo image to see if there was anything more to it. Specifically, he wanted to detect any other oddities or differences from the other alien recordings they had received. Knowing it would run in the background, he turned his attention back to his own approach.

  “By the Warp and Weave, so be it,” he said and pushed his craft down towards the canopy. Bringing it to rest just a few meters above the dense green and purple jungle, he pushed the hatch aside and leaped. His shield, unlike the other warriors currently running through the undergrowth, served as a chameleon suit as well as having a small, and incredibly expensive, grav field which let him drift gently to the ground. He paused for only a few moments before slipping quietly into the darkness and heading toward that soft yet insistent pull.

  Chapter 3

  As he suspected it would be, life was incredibly abundant. It was also incredibly dangerous. In under ten minutes, he’d passed several creatures he would have been hesitant to tangle with on a good day. Everything on this planet was made of teeth, claws, and very observant eyes, which wanted to eat anything else that moved. Even the plant life was decidedly unwelcoming.

  It took him only a little longer to catch up to the units that pursued their attackers though he did not join them. At least this close to a larger column, most of the wildlife was staying a safe distance, though he didn’t doubt they would creep back in quickly if given the opportunity. He was just about to com the troop leaders and close with the group when he again received the same tingling sensation that told him not to do so.

  Dammit, he thought to himself, this is not good news for the warriors. He could tell now the Warp and Weave were sacrificing them for his quest, whatever it was. He shook his head and pushed on, maintaining a ghosting presence high in the canopy. Between his grav belt and stealth package, it would be exceedingly hard to find him.

  They almost immediately picked up a trail leading further into the jungle and taken up the hunt. Krelth growled but kept his pace fifty meters to their flank. It was far too obvious. If whoever had attacked them had been clumsy enough to leave so obvious a trail, they would have stayed to die in the counter attack. The warriors did not have enough respect for the unknown, and he wondered how their lesson would go about asserting itself. He planned to have a serious talk with their trainers, at the very least.

  Just as he thought it, the forward elements of the warriors began crossing a large, overgrown field. The troop was keeping to a tightly-disciplined line with several outriders and drones, but there was just too much dense foliage and they stumbled onto the edge of a herd of huge, aggressive animals before they knew it. Large, armored, tri-horned beasts suddenly reared up in front of them and charged on six thick legs.

  Almost immediately, the well-trained troops scattered and sought cover in the tree line. Most made it, but a few were unlucky enough to be caught on the open ground. Not even their shields could save them from several metric tons of ravening beast. In addition to the chaos caused by the herd of local fauna, he noted several of his people were taking almost-silent fire from across the field. Most of the attacks were not making it through their shields but after a few probing attacks, the shots began to drift lower, tripping the warriors and making them easy targets for the enraged herbivores.

  However, a few shots were making it through. Krelth watched in amazement as first one, and then another of the men looking out from behind trees simply had their heads turned into fine blue mist. Whatever those specific bullets were, they were tearing through their shielding like fine paper. Krelth sent several of his nanoscouts into the trees across the field, and almost immediately, he received his own surprise. The enemy had nanotech as well, but instead of individual machines, they floated in expansive clouds.

  He lost two of his own nanoscouts before he could pull the rest back. The alien clouds aggressively tried to override his own control, and he had to detonate two before he lost control of them. After pulling his nanoscounts out of range, he crept them back and quickly acquired several samples. He sent them back to his ship, and his own AI confirmed the samples’ deactivation before putting them in stasis. Another surprise, along with such a successful ambush. He began to wonder if the sacrifice of these troops was for his own education instead of theirs. Forty-one determined Devlothen troopers regrouped and continued their pursuit.

  It was not long before several thumps erupted throughout the jungle, proof of explosives powerful enough to send a few more warriors down. He nodded in approval as the troop leaders continued to move forward aggressively. It took time the enemy didn’t have to set these traps, and their real reason for being placed was to slow the warriors down. Instead, they separated out and began making sidetracks along the main trail, pursuing their quarry with ever-increasing speed.

  It was the right move, even though it created greater risk. Devlothen warriors were not only exceedingly skilled in combat and group tactics, but recognized the aggressiveness necessary for this constrained environment. It was their only hope of foiling their opponents from setting further deadly traps.

  A small beep intruded on
his thoughts, pulling his attention to a data packet received from his ship. He pulled himself up short onto a large branch and shifted a fraction of his consciousness, wondering what the AI had found out. It surprised, and angered him.

  Trel and the science team had slowed the image down by a small amount to match the other holo-images. He could understand why they did it because compared to all of the other aliens they had been studying, the ones that had attacked that creature were moving too fast. Obviously, they had assumed there was something wrong with the recordings. Krelth wished he had Trel’s scrawny neck in his hands now. He would let the idiot scientist observe the results of her action before snapping her neck. These aliens were faster than the others were, and if they were faster, they could have other augmentations.

  Krelth moved closer when his sensors tracked the first real encounter. Several of the Devlothens had flanked a group of the alien combatants who had been withdrawing from the rush but not fast enough. The warriors, intent on getting some payback for the troops they had already lost, moved in quickly and created a running battle, which let other elements finish encircling the trapped aliens.

  The Devlothen lived for hand-to-hand combat, and they were decidedly deadly with their chosen weapons. The plasma blades that formed and held their weapon’s shape crackled and popped as they met with the alien’s equally violent combat. Combined with the tireless speed and strength of his people, it was a lethal combination. Krelth had rarely seen its equal from the numerous races they had encountered and tested, but today he was impressed.

  The alien warriors moved as fast, if not faster, and were equally adept at using terrain to their advantage. They also had close combat weapons, which proved more effective against shields than most of their guns had. The vicious battle that took place was settled not only on the ground but up along the trunks and lower branches of the massive trees. To the untrained eye, it would have been nothing but blurs punctuated by the occasional crackle of a shield being penetrated or the splash of blue or, oddly, red blood that erupted and painted the ground below.

  To Krelth’s trained eye, it was simply beautiful to watch. None of the warriors on either side gave or asked for quarter, and despite being outnumbered by their attackers, the aliens killed seven of their opponents before being brought low. Amazingly, they were not only faster, but also stronger, despite their body weight. The word augmented flashed through his mind once again. He watched on a few occasions where one of the Devlothen had tried to initiate a brute force attack and failed miserably, and in one case spectacularly, when the warrior had lost his arm entirely by having it ripped out of its socket. It had not taken more than a few moments for the rest of the warriors to learn from this attack, but it was a costly mistake. Once again, he cursed Trel under his breath. She would have much to answer for when he returned to the ship.

  Even as the battle took place, Krelth could hear the crack and zing of projectiles being fired from further in the brush. It was clear these were meant to distract the larger body and stave off reinforcements but they did not last for long. The Devlothen were moving too fast, and the remaining aliens wisely fled before being brought to heel themselves.

  Krelth moved in after the battle had passed, slipping down to the jungle floor and inspecting the bodies of both the aliens and his own troops. Their weapons had indeed been effective, and while not quite as varied as his own people, they looked every bit as lethal. He picked a dagger up, turning it over in his hand and watched as the blue-green light flashed along the edges. He could feel the handle vibrating lightly and pushed the blade against a nearby tree. It sank in without any resistance, and he could smell burnt wood immediately. Plasma blades as well. Impressive if reliant on an energy source. Powerful enough to cut through shields as well as armor, and he could see from the nasty cuts on some of his fallen men that they were quite effective.

  Then something truly odd caught his eye. A patch on the alien’s combat suits showing a grinning figure holding an odd, three-pronged weapon. He blinked in astonishment and ripped it off to take a closer look. They had never seen this race before, yet here was a cartoonish representation of one of his people. A middle-aged one by the red color of his skin and length of horns. There was something significant about this, but he did not know what it could be.

  He let go of the weapon and patch, letting the nanoscouts whisk them up to his ship along with several blood and tissue samples of the fallen aliens. Still, this was not what his primary purpose was and he could waste no more time wondering at the odd patch. He needed to find what had drawn him here. A low-level pressure was pushing him on that he couldn’t ignore if he tried.

  Chapter 4

  There were far fewer sounds of explosives going off as Krelth pushed himself back up and into the chase. With his own people moving quickly, the aliens no longer had the breathing room to set traps but he sensed they almost immediately moved into a counter tactic using speed themselves. They were circling back on their own tracks and striking at weak points, moving as quickly as the Devlothen but in an area where they knew the terrain. The alien’s nano cloud was playing merry havoc with the quickly dwindling drones used by the warriors. They were either deactivating them or compromising their communication algorithms and providing false battlefield information.

  His own nanoscouts were having more luck, but that was because his ship’s AI was providing direction and cautious support from a much closer location. The Devlothen warriors did not sway from their duty but continued the punishing harassment of the remaining ten aliens. With pride, he noted how quickly his own people learned and evolved to the Alien’s obvious combat experience. In the end, it simply came down to numbers.

  Two aliens were left, with one of them obviously injured. Surrounding them were the oldest and most efficient fourteen remaining warriors of the small battle group which had been sent to kill them. Krelth settled in the trees and focused. His quest was close, but each time he focused on either of the remaining aliens, he did not get a positive response from the Warp and Weave. Either they were too close together, or he was missing something.

  The senior remaining lieutenant of his people stepped forward and stopped, pointing towards the injured, smaller of the two remaining aliens. Once he had the two alien’s attention, he dropped one of his grav steel daggers and then gestured off into the forest. The other he held onto and pointed to the uninjured male.

  It was clear. One had to stay and fight but the other was allowed to leave. Krelth nodded, pleased at this display of honor and he would make sure that no matter what happened, this lieutenant would be named in the temples.

  The two aliens conversed and he could tell they were agitated. Despite the injuries, the smaller one wished to stay and it was equally obvious the taller one was against that. Finally, they seemed to come to some sort of agreement. The injured one finally nodded and waited as the other removed a large, hard-shelled container from his back and handed it to the other.

  Krelth’s senses spiked; whatever he came for on this thrice forsaken planet was in that container. His eyes narrowed as he watched the injured one secure the container to her back and limp into the jungle, disappearing from view. He frowned, realizing he had to break the deal the Lieutenant had offered the aliens. They would never know, but he would and it ate at his soul.

  He paused for only a moment longer, watching as the first warrior and the alien squared off within the center of the circle. It would be single combat. Another honorable act. Even if the impossible happened and the alien managed to triumph against all fourteen of them, it was still invaluable as their suit recordings would be sent up to the Bastion’s Reach. He would be curious to watch the results when he returned, but for now, he couldn’t spend any more time on the combat below. He needed to acquire that package.

  Smoothly he lifted from the large branch he had been perched on and sailed into the darkness after the second alien. It made stealth so much easier when he didn’t have to deal with the jungle floor, an
d despite the high reaching flora, it still allowed him to move silently and almost unseen. He was amazed at how quickly the sounds of fighting died behind him as the forest closed in.

  Krelth slowed as he finally came upon the injured alien. If he were to guess, it was a female due to the larger mammary glands on her chest though that was indeed an assumption. Much of this race felt familiar and he growled at himself for the thought. That damn patch had him spooked. He was reading too much into it just because they had two arms, two legs, a head, and an upright torso.

  He paused and forced his thoughts away from daydreaming and back to the present. Something had moved on a tree bole the alien was just about to pass under. He only saw it himself because he was at an upward angle and the well-camouflaged predator was preparing to lunge.

  Krelth froze, weighing his options. This creature was about to set him free from his own dishonorable act. It would attack, most likely dispatching the already weakened alien and he could simply collect the package after it was finished. The moment stretched and his mind turned over on itself, trying desperately to feel the Warp and Weave, but in this moment it was silent.

  He cursed. It was the Fo-quantel. The moment of decision when the Warp and Weave purposefully retreated and forced the practitioner to decide for their own soul what was to happen. These moments in time were legendary and more than one song had been sung in the temples of how they could create an opportunity or leave utter devastation. Now it was his turn.