Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  I nodded. “Who dragged me off that frigate?” I asked. I tried to push the fact that I had not been in combat since that mission had gone sideways.

  Kelis hesitated. “Major Noku landed the evacuation shuttle, sir, and he insisted that all night stalkers were aboard before we departed. He and Vearse pulled you to safety.”

  Now it made sense and I felt a deep pang of anguish deep in my chest. Ivata and David had charged head first into heavy enemy fire, while reinforcements landed to take the ship, and David had died pulling me to safety. Mallory had not told me that and neither had Ivata. I nodded once and Kelis stopped speaking. I let this news reverberate around my brain and then fade away with the knowledge that I had a mission to complete.

  “Ready?” The pilot called. “Too bad if you aren’t.”

  The dropship lifted off the deck and rocketed into open space. I felt the gravity generator take over from Eternity’s artificial gravity, and my stomach settled as the smaller dropship couldn’t create the one-point-eight G pull that Vandorians were used to.

  “Time to drop?” Kelis asked me. I transmitted the orders over the communication channel without speaking, sending a four-minute countdown. My comm crackled to life in my ear again.

  “Our new communications suite is pretty cool too.” Mallory said, almost absently. As we came around the top of the carrier, we saw the battle raging in the middle distance between the Gilbaglians and Vandorian dreadnoughts. We were winning this battle, and I knew Mallory wanted it won and then to regroup in case the avians had reinforcements. “I can see your helmet camera feed in real time.”

  I reached up and broke the camera off my helmet.

  “Hey!” She said. “How am I supposed to know what’s going to happen?”

  “Enjoy the suspense.” I replied. My wife did not have a delicate constitution, but I knew that the chaotic, harrowing drop into a hole barely larger than a human body into a hostile environment would probably be overwhelming. “This isn’t something you need to see right now.” I chuckled. “You’ll probably be pretty sick just from the jump.”

  She sighed. “I’m staying right here on the line.”

  “Don’t you have a battle to fight?”

  “There are three hundred ships in our fleet.” Mallory replied, sounding bored. “We only engage with around ten ships at a time, on average. Most of the fleet is holding back as reinforcements and resupply if we need it. We’ve already beaten them back, we’re literally waiting on you to board those two ships. We have them in a pincer move.”

  “Well we’re on our way.” I said, shifting in my armor. I had my external speakers off and the comm channel isolated. “But there may be shouting and a lot of noise.”

  “There always is with you, Colonel.” She laughed. “I just feel like it will be easier to assist in recovery if we have a direct link to your forces.”

  “So, you don’t plan to listen to my personal channel the entire battle?” I asked with relief.

  “No, I just want to talk to you before you jump out of a spaceship to attack a superior force of angry, hateful alien birds.”

  “Fair enough.” I paused. “Since you brought that up, did we discover any weaknesses in our guest before he died? Anything we can exploit in combat?”

  The guest I mentioned was the avian I’d tortured. We’d conducted an autopsy on him and literally dissected the alien to discover any weakness in their biology. So far, other than finding they had hollow bones much like small avian species on Earth, there was very little that was a weakness. That was to be expected from an advanced, highly evolved species though.

  “No,” She said with a sigh. “We did find a strange genetic marker in their code that was really weird, but it looks like it was glossed over with time.”

  Genetic markers were usually leftovers from evolution that made little or no sense, like the human appendix or the redundant eyelid on some reptiles.

  “Well, then I guess we’ll just have to kill them the old-fashioned way then, won’t we?” She chuckled, and the jump light on the wall of the dropship turned from red to amber. “Listen…” I said.

  “I know.” She said with a sigh. “We’re going to watch all the action on Kelis’s camera since the Colonel decided to break his.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “I love you.” She said, her voice beginning to sound strained.

  “I love you too.” I said, then switched channels. “Everyone ready to go?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir!” Came the loud reply.

  “All right, twenty seconds. Remember your combat protocols, if you overshoot the target, get clear of the blast radius, switch thrusters to station keeping and turn on your encrypted beacons. Don’t waste your lives, live to fight another day.” This was a training phrase from one of our instructors. Void jumping was extremely risky, it was like trying to hit a needle from a million miles away with a needle and only a vague idea of where the target needle was. Everything had to be perfect or else we would end up flying off in space endlessly.

  The light turned green and the rear ramp opened, evacuating the small amount of air left inside. I jumped first, my stomach flipping as I pointed my head down relative to the target. There was no up or down in space, without gravity as a signal to where we would be heading, but my human brain still needed a concept of where things were, so I didn’t lose my mind. My thruster pack fired, and I accelerated down, and saw on the motion radar of my head up display that Kelis and the five other soldiers in my squad were dropping in behind me in formation, perfectly according to plan. There were ten squads in all, five in all except for mine.

  The Gilbaglian ships were still firing back at the Vandorian dreadnoughts, but they were now arranged in a tight cluster and fighting to defend their damaged companions. A marker appeared on one of the ships as my suit’s computer tagged it as target alpha. I could see the gaping hole in the nose of the ship where the particle cannons had ripped through is armor and down into the deck below. Perfect opening for attacking night stalkers.

  The distance readout on the display was blurring so fast I couldn’t even keep up with it. Then it began to slow as my thruster pack worked with my onboard computer to slow and adjust our flight. We were only about four feet out of position, which was almost as textbook as a space dive got. I watched the hole in the Gilbaglian hull appear and then swell from the size of my fingertip to the size of my palm and then the scale of it hit me. The entire dropship could have flown into the hole left by our cannons. Impressive.

  “Ten seconds.” The genderless computer voice intoned, informing me that the braking burn would begin in a moment.

  “Night stalkers…” I said into my comm. “Brace for combat!”

  Five seconds later, the burn was halfway through and wouldn’t stop until we touched down on the deck of the destroyer. We shot through the hole and smashed through floating debris and then hit the deck, hard, landing on our feet. My head snapped up as gravity settled my body into position. We were in a corridor, probably a passageway between sections. My weapon came up and I swept the immediate area for threats, then spotted and shot two security recorders from their mounts on the bulkheads. “They know we’re here.” Kelis said as he rose to his feet as well.

  Second, third and fifth squads touched down as we moved towards the doors on both ends of the corridor, readying frame charges to blow the doors open. “Wait!” A voice came over the comm. “Night stalkers, go to the exit at the other end.” Mallory said. “Scans are showing the medical centers are that way.”

  “Roger that.” I replied, my voice calm and cool. I was in my zone again, on the field of combat, ready to fight the enemy. We blew the door at the end as the final squad landed, which had surprised me. Not one of my soldiers had been lost in the jump, which was a better rate than we’d ever accomplished in training.

  The door crashed to the floor and I sighted down the barrel of my carbine. Two Gilbaglians lay dead under the heavy door and I glanced down at
them with a smirk. They looked like they’d been in ambush position and they had been smashed flat. “They know we’re here.” I said.

  “Form up,” Kelis ordered. We formed a loose attack line and advanced down the passage. I changed channels to my wife’s.

  “Any idea on enemy disposition?” I asked.

  “Gosh, you know, if someone hadn’t torn their helmet camera off I could probably tell you with the advanced sensors we installed in the Colonel’s helmet feed, but, you know, someone decided to break their fancy new toy. Any idea who that might have been, Destota my love?”

  “Look, I said I was good at fighting. I never said I was good at thinking.”

  She chuckled. “All right, our scans are showing that many of the crew is dead. Advance another hundred fifty meters forward, and there is a large infirmary on that deck.”

  “That’s a stroke of luck,” I admitted. “Or did your crew place the penetration shot that close on purpose?”

  “Remember when I said we were testing to see how accurate we could be?”

  “Right. Amazing shooting, Admiral. We’re on the move.”

  I broke into a trot. The lighter gravity on Gilbaglian ships was very useful for a quick advance, and we encountered light resistance. I knew they knew that we were onboard, but they were also dealing with a tremendous assault from the Vandorian fleet at the same time.

  “There.” Mallory said in my ear. “Turn right, Colonel.” I skidded to a stop, and looked around rapidly, the flashlights on the weapons of the Vandorian squads flickering around the area and on the door. I found the control pad and slapped it open, then dove to one side as disrupter fire exploded through the opening. “Oh.” Mallory said over my headset. “Watch out for enemy fire.” She said lamely.

  “Open fire!” I shouted over the comm, rolling onto my stomach into a prone position and firing controlled three-round bursts into the room, unsure if I hit anything. There was a pause in the energy bolts flying out of the doorway, and I jumped to my feet and dove into the opening, rolling and coming up on my feet. I let my vision sweep left and right and I found six Gilbaglians facing me, all with the long menacing looking swords in their hands. The door ground shut behind me, trapping my squad outside, except for Lieutenant Kelis. He stood straighter beside me and we looked at the aliens.

  “Well,” He said.

  “Shit.” I finished. I slapped my hand onto my side and grasped the hilt of the sword that Kelis had placed there. The Lieutenant had his own sword in hand a moment later as an impossibly tall Gilbaglian strode out from an adjacent compartment, holding a longer and fluid silver sword in his hand.

  He was huge. Gilbaglians are, on average, roughly as tall as me. Evolving on a low-gravity planet made them tall and slim, not overly muscled. And, like Mallory had said, hollow-boned due to their bird ancestors. But this one was beyond massive, and I stared in surprised awe as he approached me. And then it dawned on me.

  “They used our gene therapy!” I shouted, and shoved Kelis away with both hands as the massive alien swung his sword towards us. We both went down, and I threw myself onto my back, watching the blade pass through the air an inch from my faceplate. I kicked myself upright by snapping my legs down and pulling my body upright.

  “Destota, get out of there!” Mallory cried into my headset. Like I could have, even if I’d wanted to.

  And I didn’t.

  Fortunately, the doors exploded inward at that moment and the night stalkers poured into the room, some brandishing sword, others opening fire on Gilbaglians whenever they presented a target. I felt something bump into my shoulder and nearly cut Kelis in half.

  “Big one?” He asked.

  “Yep,” I replied, then turned and charged the large avian. It…roared. Literally, roared, and swung the weapon at us again. I threw the blade up in a defensive posture and dropped to my knees, sliding on my armor plates and under the massive arm. I raised my weapon once I was past his guard and brought the blade up and around in an underhand slash, aimed at his underarm. The steel sword split flesh and bit into bone. The massively tall creature roared again and brought his arm towards me, splashing me with purple-blue blood. I ducked the limp arm, spun on my boot heels and slashed through the creature’s throat. It gurgled and splashed my visor with foamy blood. I stepped aside as it fell and drove my sword down through its brain once it hit the deck, ending the creature’s life for good.

  I looked up and searched for a new target, but the night stalkers had the situation well in hand, killing the remaining Gilbaglians and looking at me to see if I’d needed assistance.

  “We good?” I asked, breathless for a moment.

  “All accounted for, sir, only one injury.” Kelis replied, holding up his arm which was broken.

  “What,” Mallory said quietly. “Was that thing, Destota?”

  “A really, really, really big Gilbaglian.” I said, nudging it with my boot to make sure it was dead. “I think they’re after our genetic therapy, trying to create more of these things.”

  “Sir?” A new voice crackled on the line.

  “MacKenzie, go ahead.” I replied.

  “Nothing like that here, sir. There are a lot of cloning tanks, however, and a lot of machinery. We have removed the samples, two casualties at the hangar.” The Major replied, sounding slightly bitter. “But we have recovered the genetic material. It appears it came from a Phelb woman, one who had not received genetic adjustments.

  “Understood, Major.” I said, then thought for a moment. “Find the samples.” I ordered the squad, then switched back to Mallory. “Okay, I think I get it, Admiral.” I said. “They’re looking for something in human genes, and they only found it in us. They used it for this guy here,” I looked down at the monster, then remembered I’d broken my camera off. “And I think they were working on cloning him. They’re not really much of a match for us in terms of hand to hand fighting.”

  “Yeah, well you better just get out of there.” She replied. “We’re not capturing any more ships, and we need to destroy those two to prevent any information slipping out.”

  “Copy that.” I replied, then switched channels. “Let’s get out of here.” I said, stepping over the creature towards the wrecked doors.

  Chapter Five

  ---

  Gilbaglian destroyer Kingfisher

  Oort cloud, Sol system, outer boundary

  We left much the same way we came in. We used our thruster packs to leave through the hole the particle cannon had left, then boosted away from the destroyer until we exhausted the fuel in our thrusters. Once we were far enough away, the fleet launched missiles and destroyed the last two ships in their task force. Shadow of Eternity picked up both the Marauder dropship, and the night stalkers, and then jumped away with the rest of the fleet towards Vandor.

  I was toweling my hair dry, just stepping out of our bathroom when the doors to our quarters opened and Mallory walked through, she sighed explosively and tossed her jacket over the back of a chair.

  “Problem?” I asked, my voice light.

  “I don’t want to go to Vandor.” She said with real anger. “I know it’s gone, I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to go to the Cetoplin home planet and I definitely don’t want to go to Novela!”

  I paused, blinking at her. “I understand completely. I don’t want to go to Vandor either.”

  She looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “You’re the one that said we should go.”

  “I said we should, I didn’t say I wanted to. I said we should, so we can find the Gilbaglian battle fleet. And, my love, for the record, I don’t give orders to the fleet. Only you can do that. Even the council has no authority over that.” I replied as calmly as possible. She frowned at me.

  “Well, of course I gave the orders, but I hate them. I just want to go get this over with and go…” She trailed off.

  “Home?” I finished with a grin. I laid my towel over my shoulder, wearing only a pair of loose-fitting lounge pants and no shirt
. I stepped closer to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know how you feel, my love.”

  She sighed again. “We don’t even have a home anymore.”

  “We have Eternity?” I suggested with a shrug. “Or, when this is over, we could go find a spot on the beach in Puerto Rico.”

  “Retirement?” She laughed. “You won’t ever retire from the Night stalkers.” She smirked at me, some of her good humor restored.

  “I have to do something in my old age,” I said, holding out my hands. “I’m already almost twenty-six, I only have another four hundred seventy-five years to live!”

  She burst out laughing and I smiled at her. “I know,” I said again, uselessly. “I really don’t want to go back where we lost everything. But we must find them, or at least figure out where to start looking.”

  “I think we should scour the Phelb database.” She said. “They did a lot of exploration looking for us a couple thousand years ago. Some of their ships never even came back, and rescue missions only found debris.”

  I nodded slowly. “Okay, that sounds good. I’m glad to see that our fleet was more than a match for the Gilbaglian ships this time.”

  She chuckled. “Those were just destroyers, darling.” She sank down onto the bed next to me. “Their carriers and heavy battleships are more than enough to gut us. And remember, we’re down a dreadnought and a few of my big cruisers.”

  I frowned. “I don’t suppose using the night stalkers as a weapon is really an option?”

  “Not in space combat.” She sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Unfortunately, you stretched the limit of your thruster packs and space suits on the last mission, and it was supported by the entire fleet.”

  “Yeah…” I scratched at my cheek. “I was afraid that the bulk of work would be handled by the fleet in these future engagements.”

  She looked thoughtful. “Does that bother you?”

  “Yes,” I replied automatically. “A lot. I have a massive army embarked with these ships, and they’re itching to fight. I don’t know how an infantry is supposed to fight in space combat.”