by A A Warren
The vermirak swung its narrow, fanged snout towards her and snarled, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. It hissed like a serpent, and recoiled from her blows. But it did not release its prey.
Rydan screamed as the thing’s front claws smashed against his faceplate, battering at him in a whirlwind frenzy. Tiny cracks appeared in the transparent plate.
“Beck," Rydan cried out. "Please, help me!”
“To blazes with this,” Aroyas muttered. He aimed his pistol and fired. A loud whine echoed off the domed walls as the gun spat a crackling energy bolt towards the creature. The shot missed the creature and burned a gash in the mesh fabric around Rydan’s leg. The creature continued beating at his helmet with its glistening claws.
“You punctured his suit!” Beck shouted. “Get a patch!”
As Aroyas fumbled to open a utility pouch on his belt, Beck slid the barrel of a heavy-duty tool from brackets on the back of her suit.
“Rydan, hold still!” she ordered. A shriek of pain was his only response. Beck held the heavy device like a jackhammer. She aimed it towards the lump of fur and scales that thrashed on Rydan’s chest.
With a loud pop, Rydan's faceplate shattered beneath the onslaught of the creature’s blows. The young man's eyes bulged as oxygen rushed from his suit. His mouth gaped open in a silent scream, and his tongue swelled. The claws tore into his exposed face, sending torrents of blood into the air.
Cursing, Beck pressed the control trigger in her right hand. The energy lance hummed to life. Once again, its crimson glow pierced the shadows as a meter long energy beam leapt from its muzzle.
The beam pierced the vermirak’s hide. The thing wailed in pain, and ceased its assault on Rydan’s face. It released his body and tried to scamper away but Beck stomped on it with her boot, holding it in place. She struggled to control the heavy lance, making sure the glowing blade of energy didn’t cut into Rydan’s body. Smoke rose from the thrashing beast’s carcass. Beck could smell its cooking flesh, even through the air scrubbers in her suit.
The creature stopped moving. She cut power to the lance, and the high-pitched whine died down to a low hum. The beam disappeared.
Rydan’s body lay still and motionless in the dust.
Beck shot a glance over her shoulder at Aroyas. “Where the hell is that patch?”
The older man shook his head. “You can’t patch a helmet, Beck. It’s over. One less split for our bounty.”
The woman stared at Rydan’s body. His bloated tongue lolled from his savaged mouth. His eyes stared forward, wide and unseeing. The vermirak lay sprawled across his chest, smoke drifting from the gash in its armored hide.
The captain removed a small cylinder from his belt, and tossed it into the dark opening in the wall. A brilliant green light flooded the chamber beyond. They heard scurrying legs chitter across the rocks.
“Damn vermiraks," Aroyas hissed, peering into the dim green shadows. “Bastards can breath anything, even the sulfur and methane gasses down here. They love caves, tombs, dark places. Rydan should have known better."
"You've encountered them before?" Beck asked.
Aroyas looked back at her. He turned his head, letting the dim green light highlight his scars. His lips curled into a grin. "How do you think I got my beauty marks?"
He turned back to the hole, and fired his pistol several times into the darkness. The shimmering bolts exploded against the walls of the hidden chamber, sending pebbles and rocks tumbling to the ground.
“That should scare away the rest of 'em,” Aroyas said. “Let’s see what Rydan found back here. Bring a hauler.”
He stepped into the darkness, pistol at the ready.
Beck tapped the controls on her wrist, and one of the floating haulers swooped towards her. She gestured into the hole. The mech floated ahead, following Aroyas through the opening. Wielding the heavy energy lance in a tight grip, she followed them into the darkness.
The chamber beyond was even larger than the one behind them. Aroyas tossed several more plasma sticks ahead of them. Their brilliant green glow could not penetrate the darkness that shrouded the edges of the cavern.
“By the Haunted Stars,” Aroyas whispered. "This place is huge.”
Beck lowered her lance and pointed. “Look… Rydan said he saw coffins.”
In the dim green light, row after row of frost-covered metal cylinders stretched into the distance, as far as the eye could see.
Aroyas grinned, and lumbered towards the unmarked metal tubes. Small, darkened control panels protruded from the sides of each tube. The captain knelt beside a cylinder. He ran his fingers over a series of markings etched below the panel. They looked identical to those on the walls of the previous chamber.
Beck stumbled as she hurried after him. She looked down, and saw thick bundles of cable ran along the cavern floor.
Aroyas reached out with a gloved hand, and wiped the frost off the top of the cylinder. The shriveled, desiccated face of a corpse stared back at them through a clear viewing panel in the pod's lid.
“They’re not coffins,” Aroyas said. “Or at least, they weren’t supposed to be. These are life pods. Whoever lived here fled to these pods, to survive a cataclysm or natural disaster. Must have lost power at some point. Iberron only knows how long they’ve been down here. Nothing but corpses now.”
“Sir look…” Beck pointed at another row of the strange pods in the distance. “You said they lost power?”
“Yeah, so?”
“That one’s blinking”
The captain turned and followed her gaze. Sure enough, beyond the perimeter of green light, a series of tiny yellow dots blinked on another pod in the distance.
“Well I’ll be damned!” he muttered.
Aroyas and Beck hurried towards the distant pod. The hauler mech hummed as it drifted after them. Beck glanced left and right as they moved, keeping an eye out for more of the deadly creatures that had attacked Rydan. She saw nothing else moving in the cavern, aside from their shadows shifting across the rocks.
They approached the blinking pod. Unlike the others, it stood alone on a raised stone dais. The circular platform was several meters in diameter. More alien markings adorned the stone disk, tracing a ring around the pod.
Aroyas stepped up onto the platform, and approached the lone pod. He wiped the frost off the viewing panel. The face underneath was different from the others. He was young, handsome.
He was alive.
The muscular young man inside the pod couldn't have been more than sixteen years-of-age. The skin on his face and shoulders was tan and supple. His eyes were closed, and his hair was long, thick and dark.
Aroyas turned and winked at Beck. “We’ve got a live one. Get that hauler over here. Load it on the ship.”
“What?” Beck gave him an incredulous stare. “We’re taking him?”
Aroyas licked his lips, and hopped down off the platform. “Course we are.”
Beck shook her head, and pointed the control beam at the pod. The hauler floated over it, and locked its legs around the cylinder. With a loud, mechanical grinding, the mech tore the pod free from its brackets in the rock, and lifted it into the air.
She followed the captain as he strode towards the exit. The hauler hummed behind them. Green plasma sticks fizzled and died in their wake. Twin beams from the hauler's floodlights cast a narrow path, illuminating the way back through the darkness.
The captain chuckled. “This stuff must be worth a fortune. Good haul, Beck.”
“Not so good for Rydan,” she muttered.
“He knew the risks when he signed up, same as you.” Aroyas growled. “Order the other haulers back to the ship. I want off this rock before the Salvage Guild notices we're here.”
Beck tapped her wrist unit. They heard distant clanking as the haulers in the other chamber finished their work.
“The body in the pod… he looks like he's just a kid," Beck said, as they stepped back through the crack in the wall. "What do you wa
nt with him?”
“Waste not, want not, Beck,” Aroyas replied. He paced over to their lines. He ran a cord through the winch rig in his suit, then he winked at Beck and grinned. “I know a trader at Saludin Six who will pay a pretty penny for him. Fresh meat for the blood pits.”
He tapped his wrist unit, and the winch hummed to life. He and Beck ascended back up the vertical shaft. The hauler rose beneath them, carrying its strange cargo clasped in its mechanical legs. As it flew up the shaft, its floodlights switched off.
Once again the ancient chamber, and the dead within, were left shrouded in darkness.
Chapter Two
AKAROS PLANETOID
Outer Reaches, Tygon Dominion
Present day…
The corridor was dark and empty. Spatters of dried blood dotted the concrete floor. The sting of disinfectant lingered in the air. Heavy walls muted the thundering cheers of the crowd outside, but they were still audible. Countless voices, bellowing in a thousand different tongues, rose and fell in a sonic wave. The bloodlust of the audience could not be contained.
Footsteps echoed off the gray metal walls.
A shadow rounded a bend in the hall. The footsteps grew louder. A young man approached a sealed hatch at the end of the narrow passage.
He was human, and his age was difficult to guess. He moved with the easy gait of a youth, but he was tall and well-muscled. His skin held the bronze glow of one who had wandered under a dozen different suns. His hair was cut to a medium length, and a thick, dark curl hung down over his forehead. One of his eyes was a deep brown, dark and penetrating. His other eye was missing, replaced by a smooth red crystal. The crimson gem reflected the dim light from the glow-orbs overhead. It gleamed in the darkness, like a cat’s eye peering from the shadows.
AROK NOK TOR! AROK NOK TOR! The chanting outside grew louder… it was almost time.
SEMNAN SALURANG! SEMNAN SALURANG!
The man grinned. He could pick out the words from the garbled mix of languages. He recognized the phrase in several tongues. Gerantian. Nimhanese. Torish. Although he had seen little of the galaxy, other than arenas like this one, he had taught himself several of the more common languages spoken in the Dominion.
The words chanted over and over by the exuberant crowd were well known to him…
TALON THE SLAYER! TALON THE SLAYER!
They were screaming his name.
He reached the large, circular hatch, and stopped. A red beam of light fell upon him. He rolled his shoulders, stretching the massive cords of muscle that ran down his back and along his arms.
The beam scanned him, traveling up and down his face and body.
“SUBJECT CONFIRMED,” A loud mechanical voice crackled over a speaker. “FIRST NAME TALON. LAST NAME: NONE. DOMINION SLAVE LICENSE 0091178B. PROPERTY OF RUFA OMDURA. NO CONSENT REQUIRED.”
The red light disappeared. A digital countdown blinked to life over the hatch.
10… 9… 8…
“PREPARE TO ENTER THE ARENA.”
The man known as Talon tightened the straps that ran across his chest. He pulled the plates of armor snug around his body, and slipped a metal helmet over his face. His crimson eye glowed through the open face guard, reflecting the lights above.
7… 6… 5…
He clenched and unclenched his fists. He felt like he always did before entering the arena. A rush of blood pulsed through his veins. A surge of adrenaline coursed through his body.
How many times? he wondered.
How many times had he spilled blood in this arena, or others like it?
Despite his young age, he had lost count long ago.
But tonight, his victory in the area would bring a sweeter prize than crystal chips, or even glory. Tonight he was fighting for his freedom. Tonight, he would be victorious. Tonight, he would win.
Or he would die.
Victory or death…
4… 3… 2… 1…
“GLORY TO THE DOMINION. GLORY TO YOUR MASTER. GLORY TO THE DEAD. FIGHT WELL. DIE WELL. ENTER THE ARENA.”
A harsh green light flooded the corridor. He squinted, as a cloud of vapor belched from the hatch’s ancient hydraulic vents.
He heard a voice shouting above the crowd outside, magnified by the arena’s speakers. The announcer spoke Galactic Standard, the common tongue understood by all in the Dominion.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and other beings… the wait is over! I give you your champion! I give you the one, the only… TALON THE SLAYER!”
The mist turned bright red. With a metallic rumble, the hatch slid open. Talon charged forward. His feet pounded down a metal ramp, and into a vast pit of sand.
The crowd’s cheer was deafening. It was like thunder, and the sand beneath his feet seemed to vibrate from the waves of sound.
The clear dome overhead allowed the distant stars to shine through. Akaros, the arena's planetoid, was a lump of desolate rock. It hung in a precarious orbit around twin suns, which somehow left the arena’s hemisphere plunged in perpetual night.
As he ran, Talon did not look up at the pinpoints of light that shimmered through the dome. He focused on his enemies.
More hatches were opening at various points around the arena. A horde of dark, spindly bodies lurched into the oval ring of sand. They stood upright like men, but Talon noticed they moved with a jerky, mechanical gait.
Combat mechs, he thought. His opponents were soulless automatons, programmed to battle to the death.
Gritting his teeth, Talon increased his pace, and reached down to his belt. With a smooth, fluid motion, he drew twin scimitar swords from their sheaths, and whirled them through the air. A thin line of blue fire seemed to dance along the edge of the blades. Cryocite, a crystal harder than any metal known to man, lined the weapons' cutting surfaces. He had sharpened the blades himself, blasting them to a fraction of a molecule’s width. With enough force, they could cut through almost anything.
Talon and the horde of mechs were all running towards the same point in the arena… A massive stepped pyramid, rising up from the sand. The towering structure nearly touched the dome above. The pyramid's metal blocks shimmered like polished mirrors, reflecting the light of the massive glow orbs hovering above the crowd.
Talon sucked in great lungfuls of breath and increased his pace. His muscular legs were a blur as they drove him forward across the sand. He reached the pyramid, leapt up and raced along the steep inclined surface.
He heard the metallic clank as a pair of mechs climbed the structure to his left. Running around the edge of the pyramid, he dipped low, and swung his swords. He grunted with exertion as he slashed the razor sharp blades across a pair of mechs climbing up the side. The robots stared up at him with lifeless, skeletal faces. Their glowing eyes showed no sign of fear or anger, as he severed their arms at the elbow joints. They fell down, crashing into the hot sand below.
Talon laughed, and leapt up another row of steps on the pyramid. He looked towards the peak of the deadly structure… He knew that was where his prize lay. He had to make it to the top.
The crowd roared with excitement. He heard footsteps, clanking behind him. More mechs were crawling up after him. Time to move.
As he climbed the pyramid the steps became larger, taller… He could no longer run up the sides. Now he had to pull himself up and over each gleaming cliff. The muscles in his shoulders and arms bulged as he dragged himself farther up the structure.
Suddenly, he felt cold, metal fingers dig into his ankle. One of the mechs had wrapped its claws around his leg, and was pulling him back down. Talon roared in fury, and kicked at the skull-like face of his attacker. The servo motors in the mech’s neck clicked and buzzed, as it struggled to compensate for Talon’s powerful blows.
Talon released his hold on the step and dropped, letting his full weight slam into his attacker.
They both fell to the step below. Talon rolled to his feet and lashed out with one of his swords. The mech raised its arm, blocking the attack with a
blade mounted to its limb.
Talon took a step back, and swung his twin blades forward in a scissoring motion. They sliced off the mech's hand at the wrist. The robot stumbled to its feet, beeping and clicking as it computed a new strategy.
Talon heard more clanking steps… Another robot was approaching from behind.
Bellowing a fierce war cry, he held out his arms and spun both blades in a wide circle. Sparks flew from the robots on either side of him, as the weapons cleaved off both their heads.
Kicking one of the decapitated mechs forward, Talon watched as it tumbled over the edge of the pyramid. It fell into another pair of robots that had just climbed up from below. The mass of tangled metal limbs rolled to the ground, and thrashed in sand.
Talon leapt up and grabbed the edge of the next step. He was more than halfway up the pyramid now…
More than halfway to freedom.
Looking down, he saw a swarm of mechs converging up the pyramid. They scurried beneath him, like fire ants crawling around a nest.
Too slow, you mechanical bastards!
As he pulled himself over the next ledge, he heard the hiss of sliding metal… He moved without thought, trusting instincts he had honed in more battles than he could count.
He rolled sideways, moving along the edge of the step, as a panel in front of him slid open. A bank of pulse cannons emerged from within the pyramid. The weapons fired, emitting a barrage of energy beams from their glowing muzzles.
Talon sprang to his feet, just as another of the deadly metal opponents clanked around the edge of the pyramid. It stood before him, staring him down with its inhuman, glowing eyes.
Again moving on instinct rather than conscious thought, he darted to the right. As he moved, the mech swung its arm-mounted blade. The weapon whistled through the air where Talon’s head had been moments before.
The blade struck his shoulder armor. The powerful servos in the robot’s arm drove the blade down, cracking through the plate. Talon felt the razor sharp blade bite into his flesh. Blood sprayed across the mech’s glowing eyes.
Talon winced, but he did not cry out. He stabbed his blades forward, but the mech pivoted out of the way, dodging the blow.
