The Serpent King was up there, in the hive temple, and it was time to finish this. Morgan checked the magazine of her plasma pistol and let her hand rest on the hilt of her Morrighan blade. As the brood mother strode to her assault pod five of her elite Izrid warriors fell in step behind her, as silent and grim in their purpose as the brood mother herself.
ACT IV
Fiona slammed home her last full magazine and racked the slide on her AK-47 as a hail of flechette rounds chewed apart more of the communications deck. The sounds of screaming and return fire filled her ears and she took a deep breath while counting to four. On the silent count of four she whipped around from behind her cover and dropped to the ground, wincing at the jarring impact of landing on her elbows. A cloud of jagged projectiles shrieked through the empty air where she had been standing as the Izrid warrior fired where he thought she would be standing. From her prone position Fiona unleashed several three-round bursts that splattered both kneecaps of the shield-bearer who had been pushing into the room and providing cover for the warrior wielding the flechette caster. The shield-bearer dropped his energy barrier and was hurled onto his back by Fiona’s sustained fire. She focused on the shield-bearer, and had chosen to trust her new comrades to take advantage of the opportunity to gun down the now un-protected flechette carrier. Her comrades did not disappoint her, and the other warrior collapsed under a withering storm of hard rounds. She fire a last burst through the open hatch, just to give the warriors on either side a reason to remain in cover.
The ammo readout on the side of the gun flashed with only nine rounds left, so Fiona toggled back over to semi-automatic as she slid back into cover. In the room with her was the single surviving half-dragon security trooper and the Serpent King’s traitorous concubine. The bloody corpses of rest of the troopers who had helped Fiona to take the communications deck were scattered around the room and the hostile hallway beyond. As Fiona controlled her breathing she concentrated on the audio message that played on a continuous loop throughout the temple even as it was broadcast by the deck through all of the rest of the Complex communications networks. Fiona smiled, despite the carnage and fatigue, at the knowledge that because the message was being broadcast on the Hive temple master network that all war hives and Complex facilities throughout the world were broadcasting the same message. From Chicago to Baghdad, to Paris, to Moscow, and the world over all Complex devices hooked into the master system were blaring her message. She could only hope that it had reached enough willing ears to make a difference. Even hearing it now, likely moments before an Izrid war axe hacked her to pieces, she found a new reserve of strength.
“This is Fiona MacArthur. We have endured a decade of occupation by alien forces. We have remained stalwart in the face of betrayal by the people we once held as our leaders. We have put our bodies into the breach time and time again to hold back the darkness. For this we have been outcast, we have been hunted, and those who seek to control humanity have painted us as the villains. Today it all ends, one way or the other. A human and alien hybrid army is even now laying siege to the Serpent King’s High Temple, and they are winning. Brave men and women within the ranks of the Complex have joined the hybrids in open rebellion, they wear a bright-green sash to distinguish themselves from our true enemies. Half-dragons now turn their guns on their masters. Slaves bite the hand that feeds. Take up arms my brothers and sisters, if ever there was a moment to be brave this is it. The Serpent King dies today. Join us, and win back your freedom, re-take your humanity. We are the resistance. Let this be our finest hour.”
It had been several hours since Cava-Rek had left her bleeding in the prison chamber. Once she had recovered her senses she dressed herself, even as her mind raced with the memory of the last several hours. She felt unclean after having so enthusiastically coupled with her arch-nemesis, and yet, she could not deny just how pleasurable and raw the experience had been. It had been rather cathartic, she thought to herself, to face him at last and not be found wanting. She had given as good as she’d gotten, and there was a victory in that. He had thought to break her, to humiliate her, and both of them had found themselves taking genuine pleasure in each other’s arms. She was eager to discover what battle unfolded upon the ship, as the resistance did not have access to the temple, so it could not have been any of her people.
After a few more minutes the dark haired concubine with the removable teeth appeared at the door of the cell. She carried a wicked looking pistol in one hand, had an AK-47 slung across her back, and now sported a bright green sash tied around her waist. The concubine had stood and stared at Fiona for a few moments, then reached up and keyed in the passcode to open the barrier.
“Fiona MacArthur, events have reached a turning point, and it is time to strike back,” the young woman spoke boldly as she flung the AK-47 into the cell, to be caught by Fiona, “A conspiracy has been growing within the ranks of the Complex, from the highest elite to the lowliest of servants, like myself.”
Fiona checked the magazine and stepped out of the cell as she accepted a handful of spare magazines, which she placed in the cargo pockets of her fatigues.
“I am not surprised that there’s been dissention in the ranks, after five years of Complex rule I knew there had to be at least someone on the inside who wasn’t buying into the party line,” said Fiona as she followed the concubine out of the detainment chamber and into the corridor, where they were met by a group of six half-dragon security troopers, all wearing the green-sash.
“What has prompted you to take action? And what’s the play?” asked Fiona as the group began rushing down the corridor even as the sound of gunfire and small incendiaries echoed throughout the ship.
“The hybrids have returned, and they brought an army with them,” stated the concubine matter-of-factly as the group continued to make their way through the ship, “Five years ago Cava-Rek exposed female captives of the resistance to a series of experiments, some of them focused on inter-breeding, and they escaped before he could complete his research, when you destroyed his laboratory, if the stories are true.”
“They are, we infiltrated and destroyed it, all of the hybrids died except for two woman. I’d always wondered what happened to those two,” Fiona responded as she grimaced at the news, unsure of how to feel about the knowledge that her unfinished business had returned to the city at the head of an army.
“We have no idea how they have done so, but there are three war hives and an ancient Hive temple on the battlefield, and for the last several hours they have been fighting their way towards us here,” said the concubine as they reached and boarded what appeared to be a service elevator, “Swarms of hybrid soldiers have engaged the Complex, though they shall be flanked and overwhelmed if we do not lend them aide.”
The door opened into a wide hallway, and across from them stood a large doorway towards which the half-dragons rushed. One of the troopers entered a security code and the door opened. The six half-dragons stormed into the room and immediately began shooting. Fiona moved to join them, but the concubine held her back for a brief moment as the fighting continued.
“We need you to do what you do best, be Fiona MacArthur, and speak to the people. Help them to rise up, so that today’s battle is not in vain,” she said as the shooting abruptly stopped and a half-dragon emerged to give the women an affirmative nod, “Warriors will respond to this intrusion soon, though not as quickly as they would had our agent not initiated diversionary attacks throughout the ship.”
Fiona walked into the room and realized it was a communications deck of some kind. Inside were the bodies of a handful of Izrid pilot caste, all riddled with holes, and the body of one of the half-dragons. Just beyond the half-dragon body was that of a lone Izrid warrior who had presumably been their security.
Fiona’s thoughts were drawn back to the battle at hand as a furious amount of shooting erupted outside the hallway. She could not imagine what force would have engaged the Izrid beyond another group of green-sa
shes. Fiona and her two comrades emerged from cover and pointed their guns at the open door, until a familiar voice rang out.
“In three seconds we are coming in there, and anyone not wearing a green sash will be killed on sight. Do I make myself clear?” bellowed Morgan as she nodded at her elite shield-bearer and two of her warriors, who stacked in a tactical formation along the hallway ready to spring into action.
“Morgan?” asked Fiona as an elite shield-bearer entered the room, behind him stood two hybrid warriors, and the brood mother herself, Morgan.
The half-dragon and concubine lowered their weapons, and Fiona let the point of hers drop to the floor as the woman she’d ordered killed strode into the room. The former sniper looked very little like her old self, though Fiona as her eyes moved up and down the hybrid’s form. Her skin had become a dark blue tinged with yellow, as if her entire body was one large bruise, all coated in a sparkling sheen of what Fiona could only assume was a kind of alien secretion. Morgan was outfitted in customized elite battle armor, cradled an Izrid plasma pistol in her hand, and across her back was a sword nearly the size of the woman herself. The look in her eyes was completely alien, and Fiona could see that the hybrid’s tongue flicked out and tasted the air, just like the Izrid would.
“Fiona MacArthur. I heard the broadcast, and I had to see for myself if it was really you,” hissed the hybrid as she stared daggers at the resistance leader, “I’d kill you where you stand if I didn’t understand why you gave the orders you did. If Lysa wasn’t already laying dead in a downtown ditch she would surely have taken pleasure in snuffing you out.”
“What’s stopping you hybrid?” said Fiona defiantly, even now refusing to back down from her decisions, “I won’t apologize for doing my duty, we had no idea what he might have done to you, what he might have made you become.”
“That is precisely why I’m going to spare you Fiona, because your duty is all that you have left,” said the hybrid as she closed distance with the resistance leader, picked up the AK-47, and returned it to Fiona’s grip, “There is a planet full of traitors, and even after the Izrid are gone there will be wars to fight.”
“Go in peace half-dragons,” she said to the concubine and the trooper as the hybrid turned with her warriors to leave the room, “Your work is done here, I will deal with the Serpent King. My weapons have left the gravity tether intact, if you can reach it alive you’ll be able to escape to the surface.”
The hybrid turned to leave, and as quickly as they had arrived Morgan and her elite warriors were gone. Fiona and her comrades lost no time in fleeing the room and rushing towards the gravity tether. The concubine keyed a code into a small hand-held device, and then issued a verbal order for the green-sashes to disengage and evacuate the ship by any means available.
Minutes later Morgan entered the central chamber with her squad of elite warriors and found herself face to face with Cava-Rek. The brood mother writhed in her milky pool and raised herself to a towering height as she hissed. The Serpent King stood at the center of the chamber with his own squad of elites, and bellowed a challenge as she entered the room.
“You have come a long way to die Morgan,” Cava-Rek shouted as he drew a flechette pistol from his hip belt and held it lazily at his side, “Ancient war machines and a bastard brood of lesser warriors will not win the day. Even now my magisters close in on your pitiful children.”
“The last time an Izrid army came here the planet itself drove you out,” growled Morgan as she thumbed off the safety of her plasma pistol, “Now it’s my turn.”
The brood mother splashed in her pool and a deep psychic keening erupted from her silent visage. It buffeted the minds of Cava-Rek and Morgan, imploring them to fight for supremacy, and they gladly began to engage. Morgan unleashed a blast from her plasma pistol, only to disintegrate the body of a warrior who threw himself in front of his magister. Cava-Rek cut loose with his flechette caster as the rest of his squad began surging forward behind the protection of his two shield-bearers. Morgan’s own elite squad rushed the enemy behind their own bearers. Morgan leapt upon the back of her own shield-bearer and wrapped her legs around his chest as she braced herself on his shoulder. Morgan unloaded her plasma pistol at the oncoming squad and managed to overload one of the energy barriers to create a smoking heap of burnt flesh and scrap metal where the enemy warrior had once been. A hard round from one of the enemy smacked into her side and knocked her off the warrior and to the ground. She rolled to her feet and stood up behind her squad just as they hurled themselves into a furious point-blank firefight with the enemy. It was over in just under five seconds as both sides emptied their guns into each other, and then as they reached hand to hand combat range discarded guns and hacked at each other with combat axes. Morgan had drawn her sword and leapt into the last seconds of the conflict and cleaved an enemy warrior’s arm from his body and his head from his shoulders in a blur of strikes.
Cava-Rek’s own axe bit down into the neck of her remaining warrior, and then he began assaulting her with a flurry of blows that she barely managed to turn aside as he drove her towards the brood mother’s pool. The Serpent King’s body was wounded in several places, evidence that even he had been in the thick of the fighting and not escaped unscathed. The one-eyed magister screamed as he pressed the attack and knocked aside Morgan’s blade before stomp kicking her squarely in the chest and sending her sailing through the air. She collided with the coiled body of the brood mother and felt herself sink beneath the surface of the brood mother’s pool.
As the viscous fluid permeated her skin Morgan’s senses were electrified, and if felt as if the brood mother was within her even as she was without. Morgan opened her eyes and saw that her wounds left trails of cloudy blood in the pool, and then the dark form of Cava-Rek looking into the liquid above her. Through the connection with the brood mother Morgan realized the gravity of Cava-Rek’s mistake in knocking her into the pool, and she made a choice no pureblood could have even imagined. Morgan drew a combat knife from her thigh scabbard and began slashing at the body of the brood mother. With her off-hand she took a firm grasp of the brood mother, finding several orifices into which she could force her fingers for purchase. The inky black blood of the brood mother began to obscure her vision, and still Morgan stabbed and slashed, determined to cause as much damage as she could before losing her grip. It was as if upon touching the liquid her fight was no longer with Cava-Rek, but with the brood mother, as if on some primal biological level she knew that this serpent creature was the true enemy. Psychic waves crashed against her awareness as the brood mother attempted to control her mind, and in that moment Morgan truly understood just how much subtle control the brood mother was capable of exherting upon the magister case. When Morgan’s hybrid nature protected her from the assault the brood mother made several attempts to crush Morgan with her serpentine body, though the hybrid was too fast and vicious with the knife, and continued to ravage the brood mother.
As she swam in the gore and fluid Morgan realized that she had not stopped breathing, and in fact her body had achieved an instantaneous equilibrium with the fluids of the pool. She kept attacking whatever flesh she could reach, and soon the brood mother stopped struggling and succumbed to the horrific wounds being torn in her flesh.
Some moments later Morgan heaved herself out of the pool and saw Cava-Rek kneeling amidst the carnage and weeping. For the briefest of moments she felt pity for him, this once proud warlord who had just witnessed the terrible death of his race’s highest being. She could see from the blood pouring from his eyes, nose, and mouth that the psychic death screams of the brood mother must have been all the more traumatic for him than it had been for her given her hybrid nature. She walked past him and dropped the gore-slick knife in front of him while she moved across the chamber to recover her sword. By the time she had picked up the sword and turned around she could see that he had picked up the knife and stared at her. His eyes were bloodshot and hollow looking, the horror of t
he totality of his defeat played out across his face. Without the brood mother the Hive was dead, and both Cava-Rek and Morgan knew it. No magister would ever hurt a brood bearer, much less a brood mother, it was part of their biological programming. Morgan could see the despair over take him, and Cava-Rek wept as he plunged the knife into his abdomen. The Serpent King bent over as he pulled the knife from his body and the blood began welling up from his wound. Satisfied that he had suffered enough Morgan sprang forward and cleaved his head from his shoulders.
Morgan used the tip of her sword to impale the skull of the brood mother and drag her savaged body onto the chamber floor. She laid it atop Cava-Rek’s body, and then set his severed head within her coils. The hybrid recovered and reloaded her plasma pistol, and then reduced their corpses to piles of smoldering ash.
The hybrid stripped away her armor, then her undergarments, and slid her naked body into the viscous pool. The milky fluid had already filtered itself of the gore and the cleanly glowing pool welcomed her body. As she lay suspended in the fluid Morgan found herself connect with the Hive Mind, and she began to give her commands.
Alien Resistance: Omnibus Edition Page 22
