by Tom Chattle
Chen laughed and shook her head. "That's one way of looking at it." She closed her eyes and wondered what her father would have said—how he would have handled it. Her mother would leap all over the status of saying her daughter was the commander who discovered alien life—if she ever made it back, that is. Who was she kidding? Her mother would do the same thing whether she was alive or not.
Before her thoughts could turn any more morbid, Moreau cleared her throat. "Lieutenant, I don't know if you heard the story of why I was assigned to the Valiant."
Lifting her weary head, Chen pursed her lips. "No, although I was curious. Your Academy scores were far too high to explain why you got stuck with me."
A faint, tired smile tugged at Moreau's lips. "They were. Naval Intelligence had already approached me several times about joining up with their advanced science division when I was in my final year. I would probably be there now if it hadn't been for Captain Emmerson."
"Emmerson?" Chen frowned. "I remember him from a couple of classes. Total jackass."
Moreau stared toward the exit, fingers tapping on her knee. "I made the mistake of correcting him on something he said in a lecture." She turned her head back to meet Chen's gaze. "I guess he took exception to that."
Chen narrowed her eyes. "He tried to torpedo your career just because you embarrassed him?"
The woman shrugged. "I have no proof, but all the opportunities stopped coming to me soon after that. I'm guessing he spread some rumors in the right places."
It seemed absurd, but it wouldn't be the first time Chen had seen good people tossed aside because of the ego of a superior officer. Trying to decide on a reply, she was interrupted when Wilde jogged back in, boots splashing through expanding puddles.
"Come on, we found another way up."
- 37 -
2208.02.20 // 07:23
Mountain's peak, Arcturus b
Wilde led them out, and they soon found Bauer with her head tilted back, staring up at a winding ledge cut into the face of the tower. The smooth, gentle slope spiraled up into the darkness around the spire's outer edge.
"More climbing in the rain?" Moreau groused.
"It's not ideal, but it's the only other way we found which seems like it'll get us up the spire," Bauer replied with a sigh.
Despite the pain, Chen was in no mood to sit around waiting. Without hesitation, she stepped onto the ledge, leaving a bloody footprint on the smooth path. Within moments, the driving rain had washed it away.
"Watch your step," Bauer warned, stepping up behind her.
Chen waved her off and trudged up the spiral, the rest of the group falling into line. While not narrow—obviously it was designed to carry the bulk of one of the Syrax warriors—it was also open to the air, nothing but the rain between them and a long fall to the ground below.
The climb seemed to go on forever, and Chen was soon puffing and panting. She wasn't at the level of Bauer or the other Marines, and her stamina had taken a huge hit from all the injury and trauma that had been inflicted on her during the mission. The higher they got, the tighter the spiral became, and it eventually leveled off, a broad staircase cutting at a right angle into the center of the tower.
"Surely this must mean we're at the top," Wilde gasped from the rear, bending over and resting her hands on her knees.
Bauer brushed past Chen, rifle in hand. "If there's anywhere that's going to have aliens up here, it's probably something important like this. Stay behind me."
The stairs were short, at least, and they quickly emerged onto a round platform. There were no more places to climb. They were as far up as they could go on the alien mountain citadel. Thin, angled trusses that reminded Chen of skeletal fingers rose into the sky, a crackling web of energy held between them, lighting the broad, arena-like space from above. Bauer scanned the area for hostiles, but there were none to be seen—the platform was empty.
"Guess that's it." Moreau craned her neck, waving her scanner above her.
Chen followed her gaze, squinting against the painful light. The five bony columns rose from the edges of the platform, narrowing as they came together above. The cables and wires that connected each of them and the spider's web of fine tendrils of energy must have been the alien communications array.
As they stared up, violet pulses of energy radiated along the columns, adding new surges of power to the web. Chen gasped as her nerves exploded with pulsating, psychic fire. Falling to the ground, she retched bile and curled into a ball amid the puddles.
Bauer dropped to her side and cradled her head. "Auri, speak to me. Can you move?"
Chen coughed and forced her eyes open. "Can somebody turn this thing off?"
"Jesus, Auri! You look terrible," Bauer muttered, face scrunched up at the sight of her.
"I mean, you've definitely looked better, too," Chen replied, voice hoarse from the acidic bile still lingering in her throat.
"Yeah, but some blood vessels burst in your eyes." Bauer frowned.
Chen squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Is that why it feels like my head is about to explode?"
Moreau waved them over to a bulky piece of equipment at the base of one of the supporting columns. Bauer eased Chen off the ground and supported her with an arm under her shoulder. Together, they made their way over to the ensign.
The alien equipment Moreau studied was another console. Chen reached out and slapped a weary hand down on the flat area in the middle, hoping for any sort of reaction at all. Much to her surprise, it lit up, holographic information appearing in the dark, the panes of light fizzling as raindrops sped through them.
"I thought you couldn't control stuff right now?" Wilde asked, eyebrow raised.
"Not with my mind. I can't feel anything." Chen took her hand off the plate and the holograms vanished. "I guess it still works by touch?"
As soon as she returned her fingers to the device, it lit up again. The warm sensation that spread up her arm was a relief, an oasis of calm in the sea of pain that filled her mind.
Bauer cast a wary look at the energy net above. "Can you figure out how to shut this thing down?"
Chen focused on the console. It wasn't like before where the information flowed freely into her mind, but she could still translate the floating glyphs at a much slower rate. The transmission was edging ever closer to being sent. The raw amount of power being gathered indicated it must be aimed at a distant target.
After several minutes of manipulating the floating screens with her fingers, Chen snarled in frustration. "I can't stop the transmission."
"Why not?" Wilde asked.
"If I knew that, maybe I'd be able to stop it," Chen snapped back, jerking away from the device and clenching her fists.
Wilde raised her hands and backed off. "Well, we need to do something." She walked around the console, examining it. "Can we blow it up?"
The Marine shook her head. "I used my last explosives sealing that door out of the mountain."
"Lieutenant," Moreau started, tapping her chin with the side of her scanner. "Back when we were inside the mountain, you mentioned something about causing an overload, which might set off a chain reaction to the power core we passed earlier."
Chen narrowed her eyes, trying to remember. "I did?"
Nodding, Moreau continued. "If there's some sort of lock preventing you from stopping the transmission, maybe they didn't extend that to other functions." She shrugged. "We've seen they can be sloppy with their systems."
Chen took a deep breath and returned to the console. She fought back waves of nausea that were getting ever more frequent as the energy above kept building and waded back into the alien systems to try to find anything like Moreau suggested.
The controls surrounding the transmission itself were locked down hard. Any time she tried to manipulate them, pain scythed through her head, vision spotted with dancing lights. Circling those painful barriers, Chen probed the surrounding pathways, mapping what each one was for. Targeting, environmental... Th
ere. Energy dampening. If she could just...
Chen pulled back from the console with a triumphant laugh, a moment of relief dampening the storm in her head.
Bauer jerked her head up. "Did you find anything?"
"I managed to access the protocols for containing the energy of that thing." She nodded upward.
"Okay...and?" Bauer didn't seem to understand.
"...and I shut them off." Chen was still on a high from the discovery.
Moreau's eyes widened. "That's brilliant!"
"Can someone please explain it to the dumb jarhead here?" Bauer snapped.
"What's above us?" Moreau asked.
Bauer glanced up, frowning. "Lots of electricity?"
"Well, the Lieutenant disabled the energy dampening for the communications array. The power keeps building and it will eventually become unable to handle its own energy levels," Moreau explained.
"So, it blows up? While we're under it?" Bauer didn't seem too happy at that news.
Chen coughed, clearing her dry throat. "Not right away. It only reaches critical when it's ready to send the transmission. That's when it needs to release all the power. My guess is we have about thirty minutes, maybe less."
"The transmission can't be sent without it blowing up?" Bauer asked, skeptical.
"No," Chen confirmed. "The same surge they need to transmit the message will trigger the energy cascade."
The Marine nodded. "That's good enough for me. Let's get the hell out of here." Bauer started for the stairs, still supporting Chen as she struggled to balance. "On the way up, I saw a small ship of some kind on top of the landing pad we passed earlier. Perhaps you can figure out how to fly it."
They shuffled across the platform and were almost at the exit when a burst of pain so extreme hit Chen that she tipped forward mid-stride. She slipped out Bauer's grasp and sprawled out across the smooth, cold deck.
"Lieutenant?" Moreau cried, skidding to a halt.
Wilde knelt beside her while Bauer dropped her rifle in concern, crouched down, and helped Chen sit up. "What's wrong?"
Chen struggled to get the words out, hands clamped to her temples. "She's...coming. So much anger."
"Coming? Who's coming?" Bauer asked. Her head jerked up, and she searched the gloom around them.
Before Chen could respond, a loud hiss emanated from the center of the platform. Billowing clouds of steam shot out into the cold night air and obscured the shadowy shapes moving within them.
"What the hell?" Bauer muttered, grabbing her rifle and using the sensors on her scope to try and see through the roiling vapor.
Chen's head pounded. She could feel the presence approaching, the sheer psychic power radiating through her mind. Blinking the stars from her eyes, she peered toward the dissipating steam and saw the hole that had opened in the floor. The tortured whine of ancient machinery echoed out of it, and moments later, the peak of a long, elegant carapace emerged above the edge, the harsh underlighting painstakingly revealing the sightless face at its base.
"What the fuck is that?" Wilde cried, staggering back.
Chen spat blood from her mouth, the taste of iron strong in her throat. "That's their leader."
She pulled herself off the ground, struggling and using Bauer's shoulder for leverage. The beast was now almost at their level, and its head swayed back and forth and took in the bedraggled humans gathered before it. Long clawed limbs flexed in the harsh, flickering light from the communications web above.
"The Syrax Matriarch, the one who did this to me." Chen gestured at her head where blood now flowed freely from one nostril.
"Okay." Bauer pushed them in the direction of the stairs as the matriarch took a first heavy step off the elevator platform that had borne her. "Run!"
- 38 -
2208.02.20 // 08:02
Communications spire, Arcturus b
Fleeing toward the dubious safety of the stairwell, Chen's heart pounded as badly as her head. Moreau and Wilde ran ahead of her, and they were almost to shelter when Bauer cried out next to her.
"Watch out!"
With no time to even process her warning, a shadow passed over them, briefly shielding them from the dancing energy above. With a crash that reverberated through the spire, the matriarch slammed into the deck in front of them and skidded on the slick plating. It spun to face them, spiny, backward-jointed legs spreading its weight. She lowered her head and screeched. Rancid spittle spewed over them from her fang-filled jaw.
The group scattered to try to gain distance from the beast, but she was fast. With a powerful lurch, the matriarch leaped forward, slashing at her prey with elongated, skeletal hands. The closest to her, Wilde and Moreau, both got swatted aside. A razor-sharp claw tagged Wilde's shoulder, sending a spray of blood through the air as it tore through flesh and fabric with ease. Wilde screamed, and her antique revolver flew from her belt, skittering away across the floor as the woman hit the wall hard, slumping over. Moreau fared little better. She was backhanded by the beast's forceful impact and slid through the gathering pools of rainwater in an ungainly sprawl.
As the massive creature kept coming, Chen dropped to the ground and rolled. A knife-like talon whistled through the air where her head had been moments before. A screaming burst of gunfire meant that Bauer had at least managed to get her rifle up, but the hypersonic rounds seemed to do little more than irritate the monster. The rounds crashed off its armored plate in bursts of sparks and ricocheted into the columns that surrounded the platform.
Chen scrabbled backward and pulled Moreau's pistol from her waistband. Then she ducked under the matriarch's swinging, armored tail and watched in horror as it prepared to pounce on Bauer. Without thinking, she reached up, grabbed the beast, and pulled on it hard enough to unbalance the matriarch momentarily. A surge of nausea swept through Chen the moment her fingers clasped around the smooth, steely skin, and the alien screeched and spun, kicking at her with taloned feet. Chen aimed the plasma weapon at the creature's underbelly, but a whip from its barbed tail caught it and sent it clattering far across the platform in a shower of sparks, the energy draining from a deep crack in its side.
Another long burst of rail fire hammered into the creature, this time causing it to stagger. Perhaps one of the rounds had found its way beneath a section of the matriarch's carapace plate. Not that it mattered. Chen saw Bauer curse and fling her rifle to the ground. It must be out of ammunition—not surprising given all the combat they'd been through.
Bauer circled the creature, her sidearm drawn as she tried for a clear shot with the much less powerful weapon. The matriarch's tail whipped around. The wide, flared plate on the end of it connected solidly with Bauer's chest, making her crumple sideways to the ground.
"Alex!" Chen cried, but that only drew the attention of the monster that now stood over her. Leaning in, it opened its mouth, teeth glistening. Chen braced for the inevitable, but rather than biting down on her head, the creature's emaciated third arm broke away from the protection of its chest and skeletal fingers walked up her torso to cup her bloody chin.
~Your species is different. It defies us~
The hissing voice inside her skull twisted like a knife, feeling like every nerve ending was firing off. Chen flinched as long talons drew across her face, slicing her already battered skin.
~I will know everything you know. The Syrax Empire will rise again~
The matriarch clawed into Chen's memories. She screamed and tried to fight it, but the beast was too strong. Her eyes rolled back, and she batted feebly at the arm holding her head, but it was ineffective. Moments from passing out, Chen heard an electrical whine, then the creature screeched in rage and Chen was jolted over, talons scraping across her as they withdrew.
Chen forced her eyes open and saw Bauer slam into the matriarch once more, helmet sealed and exo-suit crackling with energy. She must have used her last battery reserves to supercharge the suit, boosting its power in a last-ditch effort to kill the monster.
&nbs
p; Grunting, Bauer hefted a balled fist at the matriarch and grappled with the arms that clawed down the front of the suit. She fired her sidearm at close range into the underside of the beast and battered at it, pieces of her exo-suit shedding as the matriarch flailed wildly, spurts of dark, sickly blood splashing to the ground from where Bauer's shots had broken through.
"I am so...sick...of fucking aliens!" Bauer bellowed, connecting a solid hit on the underside of its dripping jaw. Squealing, it lunged to the side, and Bauer stepped forward, crackling fist raised, ready to land a winning blow.
Chen's breath caught in her throat when Bauer froze moments before she made contact. Squinting, Chen tried to understand why she would hesitate at the last moment. Finally, realization hit her and drained all the hope the last few moments had built inside her. Bauer's suit had exhausted all its remaining power. Instead of aiding the Marine, it was now a stiff, unyielding prison, barely movable even to someone as well-muscled as Bauer was.
Without hesitation, the matriarch recovered, spun back around, and slashed at Bauer with its long, sinewy arms. The first hit took off the ragged remains of her chest plate and the second speared a handful of razor-sharp talons through Bauer's side, their length punching straight through her gut and extruding from her back.
"No!" Chen screamed, watching the monster shake Bauer off its claws and discard her to the ground in a crumpled, bloody heap.
The matriarch hunched over Bauer for a moment, then raised its head back and cried out triumphantly into the rain-soaked sky. It turned its head and stalked back toward Chen, jaw hanging open in a terrible leer.
Chen scrambled backward across the slick ground, but there was nowhere to go. There was no way she could outrun the alien beast, even after the beating Bauer had inflicted on it.
With a roar, the matriarch leaped toward Chen and landed with a heavy thud before her. Hunching down close, Chen could almost feel the victorious waves flowing off it.
