by Tom Chattle
"Wait." Chen's eyes widened. "There's a matriarch aboard?"
Sina looked puzzled. "Of course, every Syrax ship is commanded by a matriarch. The more important and powerful the ship or planet, the older and more mature the matriarch is."
"Well, that would have been nice to know," Chen snapped. She instantly regretted taking such a tone with Sina. "Sorry, I just haven't had good experiences with those huge bitches."
"Understandable." Sina nodded. "I should have made the Syrax command structure clearer. I apologize."
"No apologies necessary," Chen said. "You can't remember every single detail of theirs." She straightened stiffly and followed the Marines already pushed forward into the dimly lit hallway. A central passageway, it ran forward along the spine of the Syrax ship. Ribbed supports curved down from the ceiling in regular intervals and smooth, rectangular holes opened up where they met the deck. The middle path was raised up from the surrounding deck, only adding to the shadowy recesses around them.
"I don't like this," Scott muttered from up ahead. "There's no cover in this place."
Sina consulted her map of the ship. "It does not go on for long. The door at the far end should lead us directly to their bridge."
Chen carefully made her way down the raised walkway that ran along the center of the passage. She paused when something tugged at the dull ache that enveloped her mind. "Be careful," she warned. "I don't think we're alone here."
The Marines scanned their surroundings, but there was nothing. Sina motioned for quiet, her head to one side in concentration. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Wilde's eyes darted around.
"Do you not hear it?" Sina frowned.
Everyone stopped and moments later, Chen heard what she was talking about. A faint rustle echoed through the chamber like rodents scratching and scurrying their way through an old building. The Talamar's large, curved ears must have allowed her to hear it first. "What is it?"
"I don't know, but I think it's coming from the holes on either side of us," Wilde said, worry etched on her face.
Chen held her pistol ready and jumped off the walkway. She edged over to the nearest hole and peered over the side into the tunnel below. It was dark, but there was just enough reflected light to see a dart of movement. She raised her weapon and clicked on the flashlight built into it. "Oh, shit!"
A roar screeched from every hole around them moments before a husk leaped up at Chen, claws extended. She fired off a quick shot that missed and staggered backward. More husks rose from the darkness, clambering their way up the vertical passages that must run between decks. Weapons fire erupted all around, the noise brutal in the confined quarters.
Chen scrambled to get her footing, but the curved floor had a slick texture and the bulky armor made it harder to stand up than she was used to. The first husk sniffed the air, and its head snapped around to locate her. It snarled and bound in her direction, the long, distended arms and claws clacking against the deck. Chen thrust her arms up when it pounced at her, and the beast's jaw snapped furiously in her face. She held on to its arms and tried to bring her pistol to bear, but the thing was far stronger than it looked—even with the enhanced strength of the Marine exo-suit, it slowly forced her arms back, ever closer to Chen's face.
- 46 -
2208.10.23 // 15:14
Syrax Carrier
Suddenly, the beast's head departed from its neck and spun lazily across the deck while the body collapsed on top of Chen. She shoved it off and saw Sina ahead of her, blades singing when they sliced through the bodies of those that were once her own kin.
Chen pushed herself to her feet and raised her weapon. She snapped off a quick succession of shots that blew apart the head of a husk that advanced on Sina from behind. Gunfire rained down from up on the walkway—the Marines advanced to the edges to target the sources of the alien horde. Chen sensed something behind her and spun to smash a husk in the face with an armored elbow. Its face exploded in a mist of gore, and it slid back with a scream, arms flailing until two rounds in the chest put it down for good.
A thunder of fire came from above, and Chen saw one of the mechs on the edge of the platform. Its heavy guns ripped through the horde of husks, and they fell to the deck in shreds. For a moment, Chen thought they were through the worst of it, but the husks just kept coming. They poured up through the openings in waves, the mindless beasts eager to engage the humans in furious combat.
A shape dropped down beside her, and she whirled to face it, her finger on the trigger. "Damnit, Katrina!" she yelled. "I almost shot you!"
Wilde held her hands up. "Sorry, I just thought you could use some help down here!"
"Just be careful!" Chen called and blasted away at more incoming enemies. Wilde joined in, both of them edging backward while the alien cannon fodder advanced on them from all sides. There were so many that Chen could barely even see Sina anymore. Only the flash when her blades streaked the air let her know she was still alive and fighting.
A hand slammed into Chen from the side, and the gun flew from her grip. It clattered away across the deck, out of reach. Chen raised an arm to block the next blow, but the creature's other hand slashed down her side, screeching off the reactive armor. She twisted and flung the husk off her. The creature flew away and crashed into another pair. "There's too many of them," she gasped, ducking when another clawed hand reached for her head.
Two husks disintegrated before them, and Sina strode through, hair a mess, a trickle of blood marking her cheek. "We must leave. There is no end to them."
"How do you suggest we do that?" Chen punched a husk in the throat, the super-powered suit smashing through the weak flesh.
With no obvious answer, the three women fought back to back as best they could, but even Sina's swords couldn't overcome the never-ending swarm of Syrax husks. Out of the corner of her eye, Chen saw Wilde go down under a pile of alien bodies. She tried to turn and help, but a husk jumped on her back and she was pushed forward to her knees. More piled on, and Chen was pushed down further. Brutal claws hacked and slashed at the back of her armor.
"No!" Chen screamed and thrust her hands forward. A pulse of amethyst energy rippled through the air and husks disintegrated into explosions of ash when it washed over them. Within moments, there were none of the alien attackers alive around them, and the few that remained at a distance turned tail and scurried back into the bowels of the ship as one, leaving the humans alone once again. Weapons barrels smoked, and an eerie silence reigned over the chamber. When it became apparent the aliens had truly left, the Marines began to tend to their wounded.
"Where the hell did they go?" Scott called from up above. His head appeared over the edge of the walkway. "Everyone okay down there?"
Chen nodded dumbly and stared at her hands. Sina stood next to her, her gaze on Chen, but she avoided the Talamar's searching eyes, trying to understand what had happened. A cough spluttered from behind her, and Chen snapped her attention back to their surroundings. Wilde pushed her way out of a pile of dust and spat out gray phlegm on the deck.
"What the fuck happened?" she rasped before she sat up on the deck, panting.
"I'm not sure," Chen mumbled. She glanced down at her fists. "All that matters is they are gone."
The three of them clambered back up to the walkway, Scott helping to haul up Chen. She flexed sore muscles and surveyed the damage. Several Marines nursed wounds, and one of the mechs had a large section of armor plate hanging loosely from its torso. She pursed her lips at the last sight—a handful of mounds covered in thin emergency blankets. Not all the Marines had survived the assault.
"I'm sorry, Scott," Chen sighed. "I should have sensed them coming."
"Not your fault, Lieutenant. They came out of nowhere."
Chen could see the grief in his eyes at the loss of his troops. The same look she'd seen in Alex. She patted him on the shoulder. "They will be remembered."
"That they will." Scott nodded. "But there's still a lon
g way to go yet." He cast a wary gaze toward the openings the husks had retreated into. "Do you have any idea why they left so suddenly?"
Chen hesitated and looked away. Bennett stood further down the hallway, and his hard eyes bored into her. She wanted to tell him it was her, but she didn't understand it herself. If she voiced the words out loud, Bennett would eventually learn of it. He might already suspect. With all that he and the scientists at the Naval Intelligence facility had put her through, it was quite possible he knew more about her powers than Chen did. The last thing she needed was more ammunition for him to use against her. She turned back to Scott and shook her head. "No idea. Perhaps we were doing more damage to them than we thought."
"Perhaps..." Scott frowned. "Regardless, we need to keep moving."
The pair strode forward toward the far door. Sina had her blades powered down and wiped them off with a decorated cloth. Several Marines were gathered nearby watching. "Are they afraid of her?" Chen asked.
"No." Scott let out a dry chuckle. "They're admiring her." When Chen raised an eyebrow, he shrugged. "She's a striking lady. That and her swords. They're a lot more efficient at killing these things at close range than our rifles. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one myself."
Chen shook her head and tapped Sina's arm. "Come on."
It was a short walk to the next door. Just the same as the last, it loomed above them, and its dull sheen reflected the approaching humans. Chen chewed on her lip and stood before the access panel. She placed her hand on the pad and winced. The discomfort grew in her mind, but she swallowed down the bile in her throat and sifted through the Syrax commands. A swell of foreboding rose within her, but she pushed it away and opened the door.
- 47 -
2208.10.23 // 15:24
Syrax Carrier
The Marines fanned out into a dark room that was broad and round. Thick, ribbed supports arced up from the smooth, shiny deck into the darkness above. No sooner had she entered the room than Chen's head began to throb; she shook it to try to clear the pressure. A huge, alien stalactite hung down from the center and terminated several meters above a recessed pit in the floor. The view ahead was visible through a wide, curved bank of windows. They reminded Chen distinctly of spiderwebs, their frames twisted across the crystal-clear panes between.
The room appeared empty, so Chen crossed it. She skirted the pit in the center and placed a hand against the window, eyes locked on the battle outside. The Valiant twisted and turned in the distance, weapon batteries firing in all directions. A swarm of Syrax fighters danced about its hull, violet energy pulses rippling across the Valiant's void shields. One beam punched through a weakness in the Valiant's shields, and hull plating peeled away from the prow of the ship.
Even though the plan had called for the Valiant to be the bait, the sight of it being pummeled made Chen clench her fists. Vastly outgunned, it was taking everything the vessel had to avoid being turned into a cloud of debris.
"Auri!" Wilde called from behind.
Chen took one last look at the Valiant and turned. She jogged back over to the recessed pit in the center of the room where Wilde examined the floor. Sina stood at the rim of the pit, her swords still out and ready for the defenders that had yet to materialize.
Chen dropped down into the pit with Wilde and looked around. This had to be the Syrax equivalent of a command throne, but there was no obvious way to control anything.
"Any idea how to use it?" Wilde kicked at a raised panel with the toe of her armored boot. She jerked back when consoles shot up out of the floor to line the outer edge of the pit. "Never mind," she said, sheepishly, and prodded the closest one.
Chen span in place and examined the consoles. It wasn't obvious what each one was for, so she picked the biggest one and walked up to it. She placed a hand on the flat plate, and Syrax runes leaped into the air, streaming from top to bottom like a waterfall. They wouldn't translate in her mind as easily as they had before on Arcturus—Sina must be right in her theory about different matriarchs.
"Can you take control of it?" Wilde peered over her shoulder.
"I...maybe," Chen replied. Everything felt wrong, as though the information recoiled from her. The pressure in her head had only gotten worse; she sensed a presence in the back of her mind, something powerful, watchful.
~Who are you to enter a Syrax vessel?~
Chen went cold at the voice that pierced into her mind. It was all too familiar and yet very different from the last one she'd experienced.
She wanted to warn the others, but the psychic presence weighed on her—made it hard to think.
~Whatever your purpose, you will not succeed~
Chen rubbed her temple, then snapped her head back and stared up into the darkness above. Something was moving. Something huge.
"Everybody back!" Chen yelled. She jumped out of the pit and put distance between her and the being that emerged from the shadows above. Long, armored limbs uncurled, and huge claws scratched on the surrounding bulkheads. The Marines all had their weapons pointed at the descending alien, but they held their fire, unsure of what they were seeing.
Chen, Wilde, and Sina shared a glance, well aware of what was before them. It dropped to the floor with a thud—remarkably graceful for something that dwarfed even the two mechs.
Two backward-jointed legs supported a torso that was much larger and bulkier than the last one Chen had faced. Instead of a slim, curved head, it drew more resemblance from the Syrax warriors—its carapace a wide, manta-shaped shield that had faint crackles of purple energy dancing across the shiny, armored surface. A long, spiked tail swayed back and forth menacingly behind it, a lethal barb at the end.
Unable to breathe at the sight of another matriarch, Chen froze, limbs feeling weighed down even in the exo-suit. The Marines had no such problem. They opened fire as one and poured rounds at the huge Syrax beast, forcing it to stagger back from the onslaught.
The matriarch hunkered down in the command pit and drew its limbs in. It squealed in pain and tried to protect itself behind its huge carapace. Chen felt a glimmer of hope at the pain that radiated off it—perhaps the heavy firepower of so many Marines and their supporting mechs would actually be enough to end this quickly.
Finally able to move, Chen brought her pistol to bear and joined in the fire. She tried to aim for sections that might be weaker, but in the barrage of tracer rounds, it was hard to see how much damage the matriarch was taking. Smoke and sparks from shredded consoles filled the air, and the fusillade weakened when the signs of movement stopped. Everyone stood around, nobody wanting to advance to check on the creature.
Chen peered into the thinning smoke. She thought she saw a glow, but it was faint, maybe one of the broken command consoles. Her weapon lowered, she edged toward the sunken pit to try to see the corpse of the matriarch. Something shifted, and Chen's head exploded in pain. A shadow rose up from within the smog.
~Enough!~
The matriarch stepped forward, and its fangs snapped in anger while pulses of energy crackled across its head. The pistol fell out of Chen's hand and clattered to the deck. She staggered from the psychic power that rolled off the matriarch. It assaulted her mind and shut it down.
"Aurichen!"
Chen was vaguely aware of Sina's presence next to her, but a massive energy discharge exploded across the room and threw her back against the wall. Her exo-suit cracked from the force of the impact, and Chen collapsed to the deck, every part of her in pain. Stars clouded her vision, but she blinked them away and craned her neck up to see what had happened.
The dim lights in the room flickered, walls, and ceiling damaged from the psychic bombardment. Marines lay scattered about, some groaned in pain, others unmoving. One of the mechs had staggered back to its feet, but the other was sprawled against the bulkhead. The armor-glass that protected the pilot was smashed, blood spattered across the interior. Chen tried to find Wilde in the chaos, but she was nowhere to be seen.
The matr
iarch strode forward out of the smoke and lowered its head. A bellow echoed across the bridge. The Syrax's third arm darted out from its chest when it neared the closest incapacitated Marines, long talons that Chen remembered so well ready to rip apart its prey.
Chen pushed herself up on aching muscles. She wanted to shout out a warning, but there was nothing she could do. The matriarch towered above two Marines and was ready to crush them beneath it when a whine of electronic joints echoed around the room and the other mech exploded across the deck.
It threw itself at the matriarch, and the guns on its battered limbs blazed. The matriarch screeched when they slammed together, and the pair rolled away across the floor in a tangled mess of mechanical and biological limbs.
The mech pinned the Syrax beast to the ground with one arm and struggled to get a good shot with the heavy cannon on its other. It blasted away at the creature's skull and managed to take a chunk out of the edge of the carapace. It seemed only a matter of moments before it blew the matriarch's skull out.
Then a flash of movement left the gun barrel in pieces on the floor, sliced in half by the razor-sharp blade on the matriarch's arm. It reached up, stretched both of the mech's limbs away from it, and pushed the armored suit back. Servos whined while the pilot tried to boost power to compensate, but it was no use. The matriarch rose above the mech, shoved it down to the floor, and the third arm shot out to punch through the armored glass and crush the pilot's skull.
The mech went limp, and the matriarch tossed it away across the deck like a rag doll. Chen gasped, and psychic energy pulsed across its carapace as the beast roared. Blasts of violet psychic fire shot around the room, and Chen dove behind a support column to avoid one headed her way. It hit the bulkhead in an explosion of amethyst sparks, and the energy rippled away across the metal surface.
