by Will Crudge
So, what’s my plan? Glad you asked. Watch this shit!
I burst around the corner, snapping my energy shield into full array, and draw my sword with a single fluid motion. As I clear the bulkhead that obscures my line of sight from the defenders, I hop out to plant my right foot, and spring off of it to bound over the closest container.
The five defenders never saw it coming. I smashed my shield into one of them, and send him crashing into the blast door. By the time he slumps to the floor in a heap, I swing wide with my sword and decapitate one more enemy. The remaining three stumble back in shock, and the closest one attempts to spray a wild burst of ballistics fire at me.
Most of the rounds are harmlessly deflected off of my shield, but I take a slug to my right shoulder, and my arm jerks backward, sword and all.
I felt the impact, but not the pain. Unbeknownst to me, War Master Armor is highly effective against the typical lower velocity ballistic rounds that are commonly used on starships.
The man’s burst ends when I bring my right arm back around to slice his barrel in half. His eyes go wide, and he stumbles back into a scamper. He loses footing, lands on his ass, and then trips up the other two surviving enemies.
The other two flinch, as I press my shield forward while firming up my attack stance. I pause for a moment. I gesture at their weapons with my eyes, and then point my head to the side. They catch my drift, and then toss their weapons aside.
“Who the fuck are you?” I scowl at them. The man on his ass exchanges nervous glances with his peers, and then tries to babble something incoherently. I stomp my foot, and flex my sword arm. The threatening movement works, and the man begins to spit out something I can understand.
“We-we are just doing a job!” He sheepishly spouts. “I didn’t – we, didn’t…” He seems to have something on the tips of his tongue. I reach down with my shield arm, as it snaps out of array. Then I grab him by the collar rim of his body armor, and lift him off the ground with one arm. I can see the planet sized eyeballs of his peers form.
The sight of someone without power armor or noticeable strength mods, lifting a one hundred kilo man wearing twenty kilos of light armor, is novelty enough for anyone. But watch a thin woman do it with one arm certainly makes people shit themselves… At least that’s what my nose is telling me.
“Spit. It. Out!” I growl, as I accentuate each syllable. I’m guessing he’s watching his life pass before his eyes… Good.
“We didn’t know that squids would be involved!” One of the other men shouts desperately. I don’t budge, but continue to glare into the dangling man’s eyes.
“Who hired you?” I say sternly, still holding my eyes in place.
“He just said his name was, Charlie!” The dangling man spat. I tiny spec of spittle strikes my cheek, as a result. I low the man down to his feet, and then shove him back against the bulkhead. The other two men cower back to where he now stood.
“I call bullshit! Charlie is dead. Killed by a War Master like me.” I say in a lecturing tone. I notice the expressions on their faces switch from fear to confusion. One of them even began to scratch his head.
“War Masters are real?” The man I previously held said, completely astonished.
“I think you can answer that for yourselves!” I say as a matter of fact. “What were you paid to do?”
“Only our captain knows the full details! Please, don’t hurt us!” The head scratching guy pleads. I can feel his mental intensions, and he believes in his words. But I’m not ready to get all warm and fuzzy with them yet.
“Convenient!” I say sarcastically. “Where are the rest of your goons?”
“Trapped in engineering, out in their fighters, or further forward beyond this door!” The dangly one answers. It makes sense. Engineering is often located near the thruster array. The damage back aft must have triggered an emergency lock-down to preserve the forward compartments. I don’t recall passing anything other than crew berthing, a galley, and administrative facilities. Most of the operational based positions would be fore, aft, or down below in the fighter bay.
“Why did they leave you all out here to defend a blast door out in the open?” I ask. In truth, it makes no sense to me. There’s a perfectly good armored blast door to provide a natural choke point from the other side.
“The door was sealed before we could make it to our action stations.” Mr. Dangly explained. “We never expected to be attacked, and we were off shift.”
“Well, now. I guess I’ll have to just cut my way in, then.” I say casually.
“There’s no way!” Mr. Head-scratcher blurts. “The door is twelve centimeters of high-grade steal, and it has layers of ceramic to resist cutting torches. Plus, it’s got internal channels for argon gas to counter excessive heat!”
“Sounds imposing… but stupid.” I say. The men just shoot me incredulous stares. They must not know the first thing about installing security systems on an, otherwise, civilian ship.
I take my sword, activate the energy cutting field around it, and then stab into the bulkhead that surrounded the blast door. Within seconds, I cut around the entire door, as the men shield their faces from the barrage of sparks and slag flying everywhere. I withdraw the blade, and kick the blast door center mass.
The entire doorframe, with the armored door still encapsulated within, flopped outward. It landed with a loud clunk, and the CIC came into view. A plasma bolt flew at me, but I swatted it away with a parry, and I snap my shield back into array.
I lunge forward into the broad space, and human defenders pelt my shield with a myriad of pistol fire. Pulse bursts, plasma bolts, and small caliber ballistic rounds deflect harmlessly away. I cut a bead to my left-side, and guide my shield’s surface to the right, in order to better cover me from the enemy fire.
Going down center would have left me fully exposed at my flanks. Going to the right would have limited my sword’s range of motion with the bulkhead in my way. Going left was my only play. It allows for freedom of movement with my sword hand, and denies the enemy the opportunity to flank me from more than one side.
I slice the closest defender clear in half, duck behind a scan suite workstation, and then re-adjust my azimuth. My shield needs a second or two to re-energize back above ninety percent, so I use the console as cover, and draw my .45.
The attackers appear to be eight in number… not including the vivisected corpse I left behind me… and they’re all taking cover behind their own workstations. I take note that they must no longer care about damaging the ship’s central control systems. Either they’ve got a back-up control room, or they are hoping to abandon ship when I give them room to scatter.
I weigh my options. These are paid mercs, and I’m quite sure they can’t cash a paycheck if their dead.
“Listen up!” I shout, as I huddle behind cover. I either need to convince them to surrender, or bide enough time to recharge my shield… I’m happy either way. “None of you want to die for a cause that doesn’t concern you. You took this job to keep yourselves fed, I’m guessing. But you can’t fill a stomach that’s got holes in it, can you?”
“Go to hell!” An anonymous voice shouts, and a plasma bolt impacts the bulkhead behind me a second later.
“Suit yourself, fella!” I shout. “But if any of you that want to live to see your next pay day, then I won’t stop you from finding the nearest escape pod!”
I let them stew over it in silence for a few moments, and then I hear a pistol impact the floor. Then another. Soon, five mercs dropped their weapons and begin to work their way to the door with their hands raised. I let them leave, but I keep my eyes on them.
The first one makes it within a few strides of the fallen blast door, but then is cut down by an electron beam. The beam blazes straight through his chest before he could even scream in pain, and the lighting went on to cut down the four mercs behind him.
I rotate towards the source of the fire, and raise my left forearm. I can’t dodge, or de
flect an electron beam, so I have to have my arm ready to snap my shield into array.
A moment later a shadowy silhouette of a man in flat-black Crimson Commando armor walks into the ruined doorway. He’s cradling a crew serve electron beam gun, as if it weighed nothing at all.
“Well, well, well!” I hear a sickeningly familiar voice range out of the armor’s speakers.
Peterson!
“You’re supposed to be dead!” I shout in anger.
“My clone is most certainly dead!” He replies with a sinister laugh.
“Bullshit! Your genes can’t be cloned! Our genetics don’t allow for it.” I retort.
“You are completely correct, my dear War Master Candidate!” He replies, as he slowly levels the beam and creeps along the bulkhead across the CIC. “But you’re forgetting something, young lady! My brothers and I never had our genes manipulated out of their rawest form, so that logic doesn’t apply to us.”
Fuck! Why didn’t I realize this before! No wonder they were such effective hunters… There are several of them! I come to the conclusion. It hits me like a ton of bricks. Now the game has changed… The Guild is no longer safe… And we have a clone infiltrating our crew!
But things just got worse…
Before I realize it, there are three – creatures – following Charlie into the CIC.
Mwargoths. Heavily armed, as it would seem.
“So now you’re a traitor to humanity!” I spit. “I thought you and your brothers despised these creatures, as we all do!”
“Tisk, tisk, tisk! It isn’t wise to insult humanity’s new benefactors! The ends always justify the means… Weather I like it or not!”
“What is your end-game, traitor?” I scowl.
“Now, this isn’t some ancient spy film where the villain reveals his secrets before he kills his enemy. But I will say this… History is riddled with kings and emperors that have risen to their stations using – foreign support - , understand?”
“You disgust me!”
“Trust me when I say, the feeling is mutual.”
“So why did you wait to pounce on my friend?” I spit.
“A vessel with ties to a War Master floats into this elaborate pirate ambush, and you think I’d just let it float by? These Mwargoths, here, have been dying to wipe out the Guild for centuries! Removing humanity’s greatest heroes, makes their jobs much less tedious!”
I hear the gargles and grumbles of the green squids. They seem to be losing patience… But then, I don’t know shit about alien mannerisms.
One of the squids slithers toward the command console on its grotesque tentacles. It inserts a small flat object into the console, and the ship responds immediately. The lighting in the CIC brightens, and several seemingly dormant displays begin to flicker to life.
“It appears as if we’ve restored flight control of our little ship, here!” Charlie says with sickening glee. I don’t know how the thrusters could possibly be repaired so quickly, so I maintain a healthy dose of skepticism.
“It won’t do you any good, asshole!” I shout. “There’s an entire pirate fleet coming to wipe this ship from the cosmos. Not to mention, two LRF-90’s, a Mark-8 fighter, and a state of the art UAHC frigate. You’ll never leave the system alive!”
“We will if you let us.” He says flatly, then he points to the main holographic display. I look to see the space donkey well within weapons range of the gunship’s flak cannons. My heart sinks in response, and a wash of despair comes over me.
“Your allies may have taken out our fighters, and even shot down our earlier missile barrage… but they can’t stop a full volley of flak cannon fire, can they?” He says with a tine of sinister gratification.
“You bastard! What do you want from me?”
“You.” He relies menacingly. “Surrender to us, order your friends to stand down, and escort us out-system. Even a fleet of pirates won’t try to take on your companions.”
“Fuck you!” I shout, as I snap my shield into full array, and charge at Charlie. The Mwargoths grunt and slither back out of my way, and I’ve cut a bead straight to the black-armored ass-clown.
I also learn a hard lesson. My light-duty shield isn’t shit against a crew serve electron beam…
He levels his beam cannon and blasts my shield, before I get within five meters of him. Everything disappeared in a brilliant white flash of light, and my body feels like I’m being grudge-fucked by a nuclear power plant!
But that’s not all I’m feeling…
No sooner did my body get rocked by radiation and electricity, then my primal Rage decided to drop the mic… so to speak.
I black out for, what seems like, a second. When the shades of red fade from my eyes, it’s replaced with shimmering streaks of blue. I feel no pain… I feel no fear!
But I do feel my hand is stuck in something gooey!
When my awareness catches up to my surge of interdimensional energy, I see that Charlie is impaled by my out-stretched fist… But my fist is clenching something.
My sword.
His feet are dangling off of the deck plating, and his face is gasping in agony. The beam cannon falls from his right hand, and his left is clenched around my right forearm. I realize that I had stabbed into him so hard that my hand went all the way into his gut, and I was holding his weight with my arm.
I hear foot falls and screams of terror. The remaining three flight crew mercs haul ass out of the room, and the three Mwargoths begin to slowly circle me. I can see my eyes are glowing blue in the dull reflection in Charlie’s armor.
I slam him down to the ground, and wrench my arm from his abdomen… Sword and all. Blood spatters all over, and he yells out a horrifying scream of pain. But it was the last thing he’ll ever do… In this body, at least.
I slowly spin around to see the Mwargoths are now evenly spaced around me. Their flat-topped bulbous heads don’t even bob as they skulk around. I’m guessing they believe they have the advantage here. They’re certainly stronger than a normal human, and their multiple limbs allow for a distinct close quarters advantage, as well.
I don’t see any weapons in their hands… err limbs. So, they must think they’ll make short work of me.
Rule number one… Always turn your enemy’s greatest strength into their greatest liability!
These fucks don’t know what they’re getting themselves into! Maybe I should let them send a data burst to their captive peers on the Thermopylae! Those fucks didn’t know that losing a close quarter’s battle against humans was even a possibility! Which is why all but three of them aren’t in a catatonic state of shock!
I they have mouths, but they are hard to pick out when they’re not busy gargling their putrid vocalizations. But I can see what matter to me the most… Their eyes.
I’ve fought their kind before, but these guys haven’t fought a human… that I know of. I remember being able to anticipate their movements by their subtle eye movements. In this regard, they’re very much like humans. Prize fighters avoid looking their opponents in the eye, so as to not subconsciously telegraph their next move… These squids didn’t seem to get the memo.
One of them twitched their eye towards his buddy off to my right. The Rage allows me to experience time at a much slower pace, so I have ample time to respond.
The squid to my right found his out-stretched tentacles completely severed in a sickening spatter of black jizz-like alien blood. My sword cut through six of his smaller limbs while taking out two of the larger ones. I never turned to look in his direction, but refocused on the other two. I hear gargling shouts of pain dissipate behind me, followed by a wet-soppy thud as its body slumped down on the deck.
The other two spat some mucus-like goop, as an apparent sign of shock. They fumbled back a few paces, but I kept frosty. My movements were slow and deliberate… The dance of death!
I circled around to keep the remaining two in my main field of vision. We all start to rotate in a clockwise circle. Somehow I remember
something I read about situations like this… Back before humans ventured out into space, this would have been known as a ‘Mexican Standoff’. I wonder if that term still applies, since Mexico is now a three-system hegemony now.
I ignore the spasms and undulations of the dismembered tentacles flopping about on the deck nearby. Either their former owner is dead from bleeding out, or has gone in some kind of catatonic shock. I could care less.
A sudden chime from the coms suit console fills my awareness. It startles the squids slightly, and they garble out some frothy bursts of noise. By they never take their eyes off me. I’m wondering why their biding their time. Surely they know that a swarm of human pirate ships will be within weapons range any minute now. But then a new thought emerges in the back of my mind.
They’re patient when it comes to warfare! They’ve plotted their revenge on our galaxy since before man discovered fire. In a universe that separates civilizations by thousands of light years, I suppose it’s an ingrained cultural trait. I think to myself in a void between linear time and the fourth dimension. My thoughts come to me as if I were in my normal frame of mind, but as far as the squids are concerned, I barely beat an eyelash.
That’s it! I shout in my own mind. I’m guessing the Primal Rage is feeding me breadcrumbs, and my dumb chemical-based brain has to sort divine wisdom out in its own dumb way. They’re not being slow and deliberate from a cultural standpoint… They haven’t lost a war since they were driven back into extra-galactic space by the Arcturians! That was hundreds of thousands of years ago! They’ve been rolling over every civilization that they’ve encountered since then. They must have conquered and plundered the Andromeda Galaxy until they were strong enough to retake the Milky Way.
Without the Arcturians standing in their way, they must have scouted the galaxy, and found dozens of intelligent civilizations who have set aside any notion of violence. The stage was set… they were ready to pounce… until they stumbled upon a young civilization of spacefaring primates that knew how to fight!
