by Tobias Roote
But he had been distracted for just a second and now found himself surrounded. He could not fight this many in this confined space. A lethal looking spear attachment came hurtling toward him still attached to its owner, and Zeke had nowhere to go. He saw it begin to enter his reinforced flesh, then suddenly he wasn’t there.
He reappeared directly behind the group that was already milling about in confusion at the sudden disappearance of their opponent. Moving to the nearest guard, Zeke used the sharp edge of his weapon to remove the guard’s head from behind. Not wishing to waste the momentum, he then slashed downward, cutting the leg off another guard before swinging back up to lop an arm. As the surprised guards began to turn around to face him again, Zeke noted out the corner of his eye, that more guards were being converted back to the Queen who was now surrounded, providing her with complete protection.
Whatever skill he had, he decided that jumping was by far the coolest of them all. He had no idea how he had managed it, except he had thought at the moment of impact of the blade, he wanted to be somewhere else. He looked at a space opening up where he could get a good attack going if he could just get there...
...then suddenly - he was. Oh Wow!
He barely had time to think before he was beset by three guards. The first, one of the elite, immediately engaged him by thrusting its Shonkeel at him in an effort to remove his sword arm. Zeke jumped back, piling into another guard that had moved behind him. His body was solid with all of the Alacite in his system, so it wasn’t a gentle clash, but was one that disadvantaged Zeke when an arm enveloped him which was in the process of changing into another weapon. The guard’s nanites were working furiously to change into something that would cut him in half while the other elite was bearing down on him, its weird sword raised high to deliver a deathblow. He tried to think himself somewhere else. It didn’t work. Crap!
Now he was in trouble. The new Shonkeel forming at his chest was beginning to cut into his leathery skin. He knew it would soon penetrate, and the memory of the last Shonkeel that had sawed him through flashed into his mind. His real problem was the other guard whose sharp spiky ended weapon was descending towards him, and which would without a doubt, kill him. It hesitated for a second, but then with a slight adjustment of posture, the Elite Warrior above him signalled his end and Zeke felt the air vibrate as the blade rushed past his neck, missing by a hairsbreadth and shearing off the arm that detained him.
Released from the restriction of the guard, Zeke threw off the malformed arm and mentally jumped. He reappeared on the deck across the other side of the bridge, far enough from the battling guards to give him time to reconsider his tactics. He couldn’t jump while being held by something. Interesting!
He grabbed a look at the Queen, now surrounded by her protective guards, the others still trying to take them down, but losing the battle.
The leader of the rebellion, if that’s what it was, was retreating towards him. With its back to Zeke, it had no idea he was there.
The Queen shouted to him, her voice carried across the deck without effort. “Human, kill that miserable creature skulking towards you and I will allow you to leave this ship unharmed.”
“I will, but not because I fear you, or your guards.” Zeke replied confidently. He had planned to anyway especially as the rebel was going to be in his way.
The Queen scoffed. “Human, your interference in my head has brought us to this. Your immediate death by my guard’s hands would satisfy my desire for revenge, so do not test me.” Her limbs were still not fully healed, otherwise she would have made short work of closing the distance between them, Zeke was certain.
He pointed at the rebel leader who was still backing towards him. “Perhaps I should assist your enemy instead?”
“Hah! Whatever gives you satisfaction, human. Your disgusting presence in this universe is shortly to end. My fleet continues the eradication of your species. Stay and fight, or leave while you can. My gratitude is limited, in the end you will still die.”
Zeke having thought about it, would have left then, but he wasn’t sure quite where to go and he was still unsure of his new-found ability.
At that moment, Jabath turned and chose to engage him by swinging an arc with the weapon on his remaining arm, closing the last few feet between them.
Zeke flipped to one side as Jabath steamed into him, expecting its own brute force to drive the human enemy back. Instead, Zeke was now to his right with his borrowed Shonkeel raised to deliver a cut to the rebel’s shoulder. He was too close to slice through the arm and before his sword connected, the Nubl had moved, swiftly with trained responses, its single-armed weapon coming up to engage Zeke’s.
As he fought, Zeke realised that this Nubl was far superior to the others he’d engaged. Judging by its bearing, decorations and skill, Zeke realised he must be dealing with a senior warrior who could control others and overthrow a queen. Had he backed the wrong side?
No, he thought reluctantly. All these Nubl had one aim, eradication of his species. He had to kill them all. Even this Celnista, who showed no gratitude for his earlier timely intervention. The Alacite link had drawn him here, the rest had been an automatic response. He’d no idea why he had intervened, except perhaps seeing a one-sided cowardly attack caused the better side of him to react.
He was losing ground and being pushed back towards the other side of the bridge. He tripped, falling over a severed limb and nearly losing the one he carried. As the other warrior leaned in to deliver a lethal blow, Zeke’s hand grabbed the other limb off the deck and swung it directly at the warrior’s head, his speed and strength adding considerable inertia to the already heavy limb. The impact caved in the side of the Nubl warrior’s head.
Zeke would never forget that it was the chest region that held the heart of these things. So, using all his strength, his other arm drove upwards as the warrior toppled towards him. The rebel’s body fell directly onto the sharp blade coming up to meet it, killing it instantly. Zeke slipped to the side as the dead warrior collapsed beside him, its own Shonkeel still embedded in its chest..
He stood quickly, the new weapon dragging at his side, ready to meet the next threat. There wasn’t one. The guards, all now under the control of the Queen held their positions while she, all limbs reattached, stood at her throne watching him intently.
“You fight well for a simple biological organism,” she said admiringly.
“Aren’t you forgetting your own humble beginnings as a biological yourself?” Zeke replied, tiring now.
“Don’t call me that. I’m not a biological throwback,” her expression warning him he was treading on dangerous ground.
Zeke wasn’t frightened by her severity. Her guards would die as easily as the others. “You have forgotten your origins are the same as mine. In killing us you are killing your own kind.”
She shook her head vehemently denying his assertion. “We kill our enemies. Read your history, Jenari. You would have eradicated all of us - given the chance.”
“How long ago was that? Do you even remember what you were like before they caught you? I do,” he asserted, reminding her that he had been in her memories recently.
She stood and made as if to approach him, but stopped short, possibly remembering his abilities. “So, it was you in my dreams. How did you invade my memories?”
“Maybe I didn’t. Perhaps you were showing me where you began and why you are what you have become.” He thought he could possibly pull her from the brink of mass execution of his people, but he couldn’t tell if he was having any effect.
She turned away from him dismissing his argument and him in one fell swoop. “Enough, human. The battle continues. If you wish to watch the slaughter of your kind you can do so from my bridge. I will grant you your life for the extent of the remaining time your species has in this universe.”
“And then?” he asked.
“And then?” she turned back to him, surprise in her voice as she seemed to relent, “In rewa
rd for killing that useless w‘Pa, I will give you the same choice I had - live like us, or die.”
***
Pod was still searching for Zeke when suddenly her Alacite resonated with a familiar sensation, one that she had not realised was absent until it returned. Only then did Pod appreciate that the intensity of the link between her and Zeke had grown unnoticed over time. Recent expansion of the mutated alloy in his body had increased her sensitivity, but it had been so gradual, the little AI hadn’t noticed - until now.
Sensing its direction, Pod could track it like a compass bearing, so directed the ship to cloak and shield. Withdrawing totally from the battle, Pod set her bloodhound senses onto tracing him before she lost his signal again.
Twice more it dropped out, although only briefly, then it stabilised. Setting a course for his location Pod was surprised when it led directly into the large Nubl fleet entering the battle behind the first, severely reduced wave. These ships were starkly different and Pod remained very wary as her tiny ship closed with them.
Zeke’s homing signal unerringly guided her towards a large ship being guarded at the centre of the mass of ships. It had to be the one the humans referred to as a ‘Flag Ship’, the one with the Queen on, she presumed - and Zeke was on there too, according to the sensor readings she was picking up.
The ship’s cloak was at least as good as the Nubl ones, and it was unlikely they would be searching for enemy vessels amidst their own massive fleet, so Pod carefully manoeuvred herself as close to the large ship as she could, and silently monitored. Her tiny vessel was dwarfed by the one she stalked and as she slid even closer, her sensors probing the dampening field around the enemy ship gave her the information she needed. Zeke was here. Was he trapped? Had he been captured?
She tried Zeke’s implant.
Pod: Zeke, are you here? Can you hear me?
Zeke: Pod! Where are you?
Pod: Alongside the ship you’re on.
Zeke: Good, get me out of here. Jump me if you can.
Pod: Jumping you, but I know now that you can jump yourself just as well.
Zeke: I’m not confident I can do it reliably. I don’t want to end up sucking in a vacuum.
Pod: Jumping now!
As Zeke vanished from the deck of the bridge, the Crystal Queen noticed his absence and glanced around to see where he would reappear. It didn’t occur to her that Zeke had jumped off the ship, so she sent her guards on a search while she continued to undo the damage done by her weasel of a ‘Ta. There wouldn’t be another one, she decided. From now on she would be the ’Ta and the g’Nar’s would all answer to her directly. That human had abilities she would like to know more about, her scientists would learn how he did that. She might have to keep him for a while, she decided.
***
The first thing that Zeke needed was an update on the status of the defence of Earth.
“Pod, how goes the war?”
“Not good, Zeke. The enemy fleet paused a short while ago for some unknown reason and we made some headway in destroying them, but it resumed its efficient destruction of Earth’s ships just moments ago. Alpha Station has jumped away with the last of the evacuee ships, Beta Station has gone, blasted with the Nubl’s ‘planet destroyer’ lasers.
I have lost contact with Space Island, and the remainder of the Earth fleet is being directed by one of the captains from the Bear squadrons. My feedback from drones on Earth tell me that they are suffering the same fate as Beta Station. Then there are these...” and Pod replayed a video sequence directly into his mind from her logs.
The scene was of Nubl ships approaching the planet and releasing thousands of small missiles that powered through the Earth’s atmosphere, which instead of hitting targets on the surface, opened in the upper atmosphere, releasing a fine dust that dispersed in the high winds. Pod’s enhancement showed the fine dust spreading across in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, then descending towards the surface. The video stream ended.
“They’re dropping something - any idea what?” Zeke quizzed.
“Zeke, I believe they have taken my idea of using killer nanites and returned the courtesy,” Pod admitted.
“Holy crap! You mean that dust is billions of nanite swarms?” Zeke exclaimed. His brain switched gears and calculated the probability and reached the same conclusions as Pod. A nanite swarm to digest the biological mass of the planet would render Earth sterile in how long? His mind raced again extrapolating the likely growth rate if they were self replicating. He didn’t like the answers.
“Bastards!” His anger grew, his mutating genes expanded further leaving him temporarily dizzy. As he recovered, his thinking went into hyper-drive, envisioning the whole scenario and what it would mean for the human race. He could clearly see that, as a home planet, they were finished here, but the evacuee ships - had they got away?
They had the hope of the planet on their shoulders and Zeke once again had cause to be grateful to Frank Garner, the Space Island President who had seen the future and shown them the way. The ARKs and the flotillas of ships that had escaped were now humanity’s last hope. The Nubl must never find them.
“What can we do to stop this madness?” He despaired at the massive loss of life he was visualising down on the planet. There were millions in hiding, the ones that couldn’t escape and had holed up in government made bunkers and deep caves hoping to evade the Nubl hordes. None of them would be safe. The intense emotion he felt caused the chemicals and stress hormones in his bloodstream to accelerate the mutation’s painful progress.
Pod remained silent as Zeke’s body recovered from the latest attack on his nervous system.
A few minutes later, as the pain subsided, Zeke contemplated the images he had just seen, but wisely controlled his emotions this time.
This alien monster, Celnista, showed no mercy. He should have killed her while he had the chance.
He replayed his rescue of the creature on the mother ship, Celnista... what had she said? “My fleet continues the eradication of your species.”
So, they would not end their genocide of the human race, but what could he do to stop her? If that other contender had killed her, would the fleet have turned about and left? No, he realised, they would have continued their eradication programme. But, what if......
“Pod, I have an idea,” he yelled as he ran to the armoury. Within minutes he had armed himself with a plasma blaster and his sword that Ossie’s nanotech had manufactured from the strongest metals available from the wreckage of Nubl ships. He had trained for months using the heavy beast to hone his skill, but it had seemed ‘macho’ and cumbersome strutting around the ship and Alpha Station with it. When the crew started calling him ‘Conan’ behind his back, he got the message and placed it in his personal armoury and forgot about it. Now, he vowed that it would serve its original purpose.
- 27 -
Head of the Monster
“Captain, from what I have already seen out there, we have nothing left to defend unless we can actually stop those ships from continuing their attack on Earth,” Zeke pointed out the futility of running a suicide mission into the vast fleet of enemy warships.
“What do you propose we do then, Callaghan?” Brompton responded, desperation driving his frustration. His and other other ships crews had the same problem, many were grief stricken over the loss of loved ones and the sheer mass of destruction unleashed by the Nubl ships.
Brompton had pulled together three hundred and forty two fighters, a mix of Marauders, Bears and a few Reavers, and was rallying them into a small attack fleet when Pod had jumped Zeke into their midst. Now it was a matter of what to do against more than half a million enemy ships.
“We have nowhere to run, and if we have to die here, then we can at least take some of these bastards with us,” he added.
Zeke knew that the captain would sacrifice the few remaining ships in a suicide run against the fleet of Nubl Shadowships if there was no alternative. They needed to be given some hope
, but all Zeke had was an idea. He needed to keep the ships safe until he could carry out his plan - if it worked, they might save themselves yet.
“I would prefer we all lived. Enough have died already and this invasion is unstoppable. I believe the only way to possibly halt the enemy fleet, or at least put it into disarray, for even a short time, is to kill the Queen. The fleet cannot reach the Throne-ship, it’s too well protected. The only way is for me to go in and finish the job I should have completed the last time,” Zeke spoke reassuringly.
“What do you want us to do?” the captain enquired, puzzled how they could help.
In truth there was nothing that they could do except die, and Zeke wasn’t about to let them do that without good reason even if they wanted to. He needed them to hold back while he dealt with the Queen, but would they accept standing by while the Earth was razed to the ground and sterilized. He had mistakenly let the Queen live once. Now he had to finish what he started and hope it brought the incineration of Earth to an end.
“Hide, cloaked and shielded, on the edge of the invading fleet nearest the Throne-ship, give them no reason to suspect you’re there. I may need a diversion and Pod can get a message to you. When that happens, make merry hell against the Nubl and aim for the Throne-ship You won’t get close, but the very act of attacking will appear as though you’re desperate and will elicit the response I need. Give it five minutes, no longer, then get the hell out of there before you lose too many men and ships.”
“OK, Admiral. We will give your plan a go, but be quick, they’ll come looking for us as soon we run.”
“Wait for my signal, Captain, and... good luck.”
***
They were soon in position alongside the alien Throne-ship. Zeke was nervous about confronting the Queen again, he knew that going back into the hive a second time was tempting fate. He had surprise on his side - it would have to be enough.
