by Donald Swan
Nick’s body suddenly felt too heavy to maintain a standing position. Overwhelmed by the bizarre situation he found himself in, he sat down heavily on the nearest object that would support his weight. This was really seeming more and more like a dream. A really long, really bad dream. Just when he thought he had a handle on this new, alien world, it got weirder. Not just weirder, but more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. They were facing an invincible enemy, one that wanted to steal his module and presumably rip his head off.
Ignoring his weak moment, Arya continued. “So, aim for the head. I don’t know how many shots it’ll take, but hopefully these new rounds will burn through the armor. If not, the heat may be enough to damage the brain inside.”
“Right, aim for the head. Always aim for the head,” Nick muttered, still dazed. “Shit. What have I gotten myself into this time?”
Arya turned her attention back to the task at hand. “How’s it going, Karg?”
“Almost done. These rounds should have enough of a Corminium coating to achieve reaction, but still fit the weapon tolerances.”
Under normal conditions, Nick would have been studying the apparatus in the lab, trying to learn more about this new alien technology, but that was far from his thoughts. He was focused on the enemy and how to get home. “Know when to fight,” he said under his breath. “And when to run.”
“Nick.”
He glanced up to see Arya tossing a pistol through the air toward him. He reached out, plucked it out of the air, and looked back at her. By her stern look, Nick knew the time had finally come to fight. He held the pistol up and gave a nod, happy they trusted him enough to give him a weapon. “Thanks.”
“It has a full clip, and I disabled the plasma converter,” Arya remarked as she loaded spare clips into her pockets.
The pistol was amazingly light weight. Even with the full 144 round clip the gun was half the weight Nick expected. He wondered how the pistol’s light weight would affect its accuracy. Guess he would find out soon enough.
On their way out, Arya stopped near the door and aimed her pistol at a cabinet across the room. With hardly a sound, and too fast to see, a round flew from the barrel and impacted the cabinet. A loud bang rang out from the cabinet, accompanied by a red flash. The blast left a nice round hole seared through the cabinet door. A small puff of smoke rolled from the hole and floated toward the ceiling.
“Just checking,” she said as she turned to leave. “At least we know they work.”
“Against cabinets,” Nick added.
Arya called to Argos on the bridge. “Captain, we’re ready.”
Argos answered back over her com. “Good work, now get those freking things off my ship. More will be here soon.”
The group made their way back to the hangar and approached the doorway cautiously.
Nick held his pistol at the ready. “What’s the range of these?” he whispered.
“With the new modifications, I’m not sure. I think they should be accurate to at least fifty urks.”
“Um, okay, what’s an urk?” Nick’s nanites weren’t translating that one.
“Oh, um…it’s about from here to the module. Sorry…your nanites don’t know how to convert things like distances or time until we give them some parameters. Then it will translate. We’ll take care of that later.” Arya paused to glance at him. “If we survive this.”
Karg interrupted. He turned to Nick and Arya, hunched over as low as he could get. “They can’t see us because of the crates. We’ll sneak in and spread out. When I give the signal, take out the Mok’tu closest to you. The more targets we give them, the less they will be able to concentrate their fire. I can only see three, so watch out for the other two.”
Nick gave the big guy a nod and tried to mentally prepare himself for the fight ahead. Arya moved left behind a row of crates as Karg went right. Nick positioned himself a short distance from where they entered, crouching down behind the safety of a crate. At least he was close to the door in case they needed to retreat.
“Now!” Karg’s thunderous voice startled Nick.
“Shit! I wasn’t ready yet,” Nick muttered to himself.
With no choice but to go into action, Nick popped up from behind the crate and fired two rounds right between the eyes of one of the Mok’tu before ducking for cover again. The Mok’tu reacted quickly, releasing several rounds from its Gatling-gun style plasma rifle. The shots landed a little too close to Nick for comfort, blowing pieces out of the large crate that protected him. He shook the debris from his hair and ducked behind another nearby crate.
From his left, the loud thunder of plasma rifle blasts split the silence again. It was easy to recognize the distinct discharge as that of the powerful Tac Squad rifles. They had a uniquely lower pitch than Karg’s rifle, and considerably more power. Another exchange of weapons-fire erupted and then everything quickly fell silent. The shots seemed to have emanated from the corner where Arya had been moments earlier. The sudden silence didn’t bode well.
“Arya!” A surge of adrenaline cut Nick’s cry in half. Where the hell was she? Dammit! Where was she? Fearing the worst, Nick frantically swept the area with his gaze. From all appearances, these biomechanoids could rip a person in two with very little effort. He didn’t like the thought of Arya meeting such a gruesome end.
Just as he was mustering the nerve to go after her, a Mok’tu soldier stepped from around the corner and into his line of sight.
“You bastards!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the huge hangar bay.
With lightning quick reflexes, Nick swung his pistol toward the approaching enemy. Before he could squeeze off a shot, the Mok’tu fell forward onto its face with a hollow metallic thud. A puff of smoke trailed up from its head, and a stream of thick red fluid oozed onto the floor from its shiny skull. The Mok’tu was dead.
Much to Nick’s relief, Arya stepped out from around the corner. She smiled as their eyes met.
“It took him longer to die than I expected,” she said with a thankful sigh.
Nick struggled to catch his breath. His heart was still in overdrive from the massive amount of adrenaline being pumped into his veins. The roar of the weapons and the pounding of his heart left his ears ringing with an annoyingly loud hum. He managed to pull himself together and get in a couple of breaths before spotting something moving out of the corner of his eye.
“Look out!” Nick warned, as another Mok’tu rounded the corner behind Arya. The huge mechanical soldier towered over Arya’s small frame. With her so close to it, Nick would never get a clean shot in time.
Arya spun around to bring her gun to bear, but she was too late. The enemy swung its powerful arm, sending her pistol flying across the bay, and knocking her to the ground. Without a second of hesitation, the metal soldier was over her. It bent forward and grabbed Arya with its robotic arm, picking her up off the floor and raising her to eye level. Its long, cold, metal fingers wrapped all the way around to the back of her neck, clutching her tightly in an icy grip.
Arya was now face to face with the Mok’tu, staring into its unsympathetic visual receptors. As she hung there frantically kicking at it, she tried desperately to pry its huge fingers loose with her hands. It was no use, the metal monster was going to squeeze the life from her body and there was nothing she could do about it.
Nick’s finger was poised on the trigger, ready to shoot, itching to kill the bastard. But he hesitated as he assessed the situation. Arya was so close to the Mok’tu that the plasma blast from his pistol might kill her. But if he didn’t act quickly, the mechanoid soldier could snap her head clean off.
“Shoot!” Arya screamed, her muffled voice barely leaving her tightly clamped throat. “Shoot the freking thing!”
Nick squeezed off eight rounds in one rapid burst. As the rounds met their target, smoke poured from the Mok’tu’s metal skull, but the beast didn’t move. Nick sprinted toward the towering hulk, emptying another five rounds into its head as he dre
w closer. The Tac Soldier seemed unaffected.
“Why isn’t it dying?” Nick yelled.
The soldier just stood there motionless with Arya flailing around in its grip. Nick pushed his legs into a flat out run, planning on using the momentum and his own body as a ramming device. When he was close enough to the Tac Soldier, he lunged feet first into the beast, kicking it square in the hip in an attempt to knock it off its feet. The monstrosity didn’t budge. It was like hitting a brick wall. The impact jarred Nick’s spine and sent him bouncing off. He landed hard on his left shoulder. The impact pushed the air out of his lungs and caused him to bite his lip by accident. He barely missed hitting his head on the floor beneath him.
“Crap!” he cursed. The damn thing was solid as a granite mountain. No wonder everyone was so afraid of them.
Ignoring the pain in his body, he rolled nimbly and was back on his feet in seconds. With precision born of instinct and training, Nick aimed his pistol at the eight foot tall Mok’tu’s head and fired another burst of rounds. A stream of hot liquefied brains flowed out of the skull and dripped down the Mok’tu’s body. But the massive, silver hulk remained standing.
Arya still hung helplessly in the hulk’s grip, staring at the metal soldier’s expressionless face while steamy red liquid oozed down its neck and dripped onto the hangar bay deck. She struggled uselessly against the Mok’tu’s grasp as the beast’s metal legs began to buckle. The Mok’tu slowly collapsed to the floor with her neck still held tightly in its powerful mechanical hand. Pinned under the heavy, lifeless monster, she lay on the floor, fighting to get free. “Get this thing off me!” she screamed in a panic.
“I’m on it!” Nick pushed at the dead soldier’s torso. He had to strain every muscle in his body just to push the thing off of her. It rolled over onto the floor with a metallic clank. Nick stared down into Arya’s frantic face. She looked up at him in desperation, still hopelessly trapped by the Mok’tu’s huge metal hand clasped around her neck. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye. She was scared. She was actually scared. Nick was surprised by her sudden show of vulnerability. Until this moment, she had always been strong and in control. He’d never seen fear in her before.
“I guess we’re not so different, after all,” Nick mused.
Arya whimpered as she gazed up at him.
“It’s alright. I’ve got you,” he soothed as he bent forward to help her.
Nick pried the lifeless mechanical hand loose from Arya’s throat. As soon as she was free, she rolled away from the thing and lay gasping on the floor, struggling for air.
The sight and smell of the Mok’tu’s liquefied remains pooling on the cold metal deck was enough to make Nick wince in disgust. The choking stench was somewhat like burnt hair mixed with vomit. He pulled away, throwing his arm over his nose to block the stomach-turning stink. “Ugh, they even smell bad.” He wouldn’t forget that aroma anytime soon.
“What took you so long? It could have killed me.” Arya held her throat and coughed several times, still trying to get a good breath.
“I was af—” The sound of weapons-fire stopped Nick from finishing.
Concerned for Karg’s safety, they both jumped up to see where the shots originated. They peered over the crates. Two Mok’tu stood in an open section of the bay. One of the beasts fell immediately to the floor, its skull billowing smoke. The other swung its rifle around to fire at Karg who stood nearby.
Before his friends could react, Karg ran and leapt into the air, his feet flying in the direction of his adversary. The Mok’tu released a barrage of rounds from its rifle, trying to get a bead on the advancing target, but Karg’s amazing speed didn’t give it the chance. The shots flew under Karg, one barely grazing his leg as he soared through the air.
Karg’s foot landed square on its mark, forcing his prey’s head down to the floor. His massive weight smashed the Mok’tu’s armor skull against the hangar deck, crushing it almost flat. Red gunk squirted out onto the deck from under Karg’s huge foot as the Mok’tu’s brain was squashed like a watermelon that had been run over by a tank.
“That’s four,” Arya said. She quickly surveyed the hangar. “Where’s the last one?”
Loud metallic sounds echoed through the bay, like a huge metal door being unlocked.
Arya looked around, her ears twisting as she listened intently to the strange noises. “I’ve never heard the ship make that noise before.” As she turned back to Nick, her eyes widened. “I have a bad feeling about…this…. Frek! Run!”
Arya grabbed Nick’s arm and pulled him in the direction of the door. “Karg, get out!” she yelled over her shoulder as she ran.
A rush of air howled through the doorway that led to the hangar, driving against them as they tried to escape. Fine grains of dirt kicking up from the corridor floor stung Nick’s cheeks as it pelted him in the face. The two struggled to reach the door, but the air’s velocity quickly increased until gale force winds swept Arya backwards through the air and over Nick’s head. He instinctively reached up, grabbed her leg, and held on tight as she floundered like a kite in a stiff breeze. The tug of Arya’s body fluttering in the tornado-like vortex yanked Nick over and onto his back. The wind dragged them toward the other side of the hangar, where Nick managed to grab onto a heavy crate in an attempt to anchor the two of them in place.
Arya pulled herself down Nick’s arm and hung onto the crate with one hand, her feet drawn upward by the violent torrent of wind moving through the bay.
Nick’s lungs hurt. The air pressure was dropping. And fast. He struggled to catch his breath in the lower oxygen level, but it was no use. The swirling sensation of lightheadedness was already upon him. If he could only get to his ship. One good breath from the module’s oxygen supply would keep him from passing out.
At least Arya seemed to be holding out. The firm grasp of her hand around his arm was evidence enough of that.
Nick struggled to maintain his grip, but he could feel himself fading fast.
Suddenly, the rush of air stopped and the two crashed to the floor.
“What the hell was that?” Nick spoke between gasps, his lungs burning for more oxygen.
Arya huffed back a reply. “The Mok’tu breached the hull to get on board. Their breaching craft must have detached, leaving a hole to space. Which means one of those baskurts is getting away!” She looked around with a puzzled expression. “But…why did the vortex stop?”
They both stood up and stepped around the crates to see what had happened to Karg. Nick scanned the area with his gaze. The cargo bay was usually neat and orderly, but now crates and debris littered the floor. There was no sign of Karg anywhere. Where the hell did he go? And what stopped the air from rushing out of the hull breach?
Karg’s voice echoed through the vast hangar bay. “Whenever you get a chance, I would appreciate it if you could give me a hand.”
Nick and Arya looked around, unsure where the voice was coming from.
“I have no idea,” Nick said as he turned in circles. “Where the hell is he?”
“Up here.”
Looking up they spotted Karg hanging above them. Nick and Arya stood speechless, twisting their heads to get a better look at the strange sight. There was Karg with his back plastered flat against the ceiling, his arms and legs dangling down, like someone had glued him up there. The big hulk had flung himself in front of the breach, using his body to plug the hole. He was sucked tight to the ceiling, stopping the outflow of air and saving their lives.
Arya gazed up at Karg in bewilderment for a moment and then busted out laughing. It was the funniest thing she had ever seen. There was this big lug of a warrior, stuck firmly to the ceiling, helplessly waving his arms and legs.
“You’re going to be the talk of the next mess hall gathering,” she said between giggles.
“Now, is that any way to treat someone who just saved your life?” Karg called down.
“Sorry, Karg, we’ll get you down soon. But first we need to ge
t the systems back online.” Arya turned toward the door at the far side of the bay. “Come on,” she commanded Nick as she struggled to keep a straight face.
“Alright, but hurry up, my rear is getting cold,” Karg hollered as he watched his two shipmates head to the door.
Nick glanced once more at Karg and then followed Arya to the doorway. He had to admit it was an awfully funny sight seeing Karg hanging there with his butt out in space and his four arms dangling helpless. “Now that’s what I call seriously getting your ass in a crack. Never a camera around when you need one,” he muttered to himself.
Arya called to Captain Argos over her com-badge while she quickly made her way down the corridor to the aft section. “Did you get that baskurt, Captain?”
“No, they disabled the weapons. We couldn’t do anything but watch him fly off. We’ll have to worry about him later. Right now we need propulsion and weapons back online.”
“You’ll have it, Sir.” Arya paused in front of a thick, metal hatch. She swung the door open, ducked inside, and quickly got to work restoring power to the engines.
Nick stood watching. It would take more time for her to explain what to do than for her to do it herself, so he stayed out of the way. She was definitely proficient at everything he had seen her do up until now, and this was no exception. Nick looked around, lost in the unfamiliar alien power distribution hub. Walls full of removable control boards surrounded them on three sides. Arya quickly rearranged the boards, rerouting the power conduits with great efficiency. Nick tried to follow what she was doing, but he was still two steps behind when she slid the last control board in.
