Another crackle of interference came, but this time Lucien heard the message. “Sierra one zero, this is Central. Cannot comply, all units grounded due to hull breach. Do not engage. Marines en route ETA ten minutes. Over.”
“Negative, Central. Marines too slow. Sierra one zero responding.” Lucien switched channels to the inside of the patrol car before the dispatcher could reply. “Listen up, Brak: we’ve got a hostage situation in the shelter. No backup from Central, but Marines are on their way. ETA in ten. I can’t wait; my kids are in there, but you don’t have to follow me in, buddy.”
Brak replied, hissing into the comms, “You insssult my honor, Bud-dee. I follow you.”
“Copy that,” Lucien said as he set the hover down in the garage. The doors rumbled shut behind them with a resonant bang, sealing the shelter’s atmosphere against the raging vortex outside. Lucien unbuckled and popped the canopy open. The thin air rushed in, making his head spin. He stood up carefully and grabbed the rim of the canopy overhead to hold himself down while he climbed out of the cockpit. In zero-G every step threatened to launch him to the ceiling.
Using the rungs on the side of the cockpit, Lucien rotated his body until he was facing the aft of the hover car, where the equipment locker was located. Pushing off carefully, he sent himself drifting to the back of the car. He managed to stabilize his trajectory and keep himself on course by grabbing hold of intake vents and control surfaces along the way.
Hang on girls, Daddy’s coming...
Chapter 10
Astralis
“What do you mean Fallside is depressurizing?” Admiral Stavos demanded.
“It’s exposed to vacuum, sir,” the chief engineer, Lieutenant Ruso, said. “There was a massive detonation somewhere between decks twelve zero five and twelve fifteen soon after we turned off the gravity.”
Tyra listened to the exchange with growing horror from where she sat belted in at an auxiliary control station. Someone had snagged a pair of mag boots for her before they’d shut off the gravity, but she was in no rush to test them out. Her stomach was still adapting to zero-G, and she didn’t think walking around was going to help.
“Was the explosion caused by the faulty reactors?” Chief Councilor Ellis asked.
Admiral Stavos shook his head. “No, two or three reactors going critical wouldn’t cause that kind of damage. This was a bomb. They baited us and we fell for it—got us to turn off the gravity so their bomb would do maximum damage when it ripped open the sky.”
“Then turn the gravity back on!” Ellis said.
Stavos shook his head. “We can’t. Everything in the whole damn city is halfway into space already. We turn the gravity back on now and all of the debris goes plummeting to the ground, causing even more damage. Whatever went up must not come back down.”
General Graves waved to them from the holo table in the center of the command deck. “Admiral, you need to see this!”
Both Admiral Stavos and Chief Councilor Ellis hurried over to the table.
Tyra’s thoughts went out to Lucien, and she mentally placed a call to reach him, but it just rang and rang...
That pushed her anxiety into overload, and she couldn’t sit still any longer. She unbuckled from her control station and followed Stavos and Graves, walking gingerly across the deck and trying not to make any sudden movements that might encourage the contents of her stomach to make a dash for freedom.
Tyra reached the table in time to see the general pointing to a group of about ten red dots surrounded by a few dozen green ones on a map of one of the ship’s lower decks. “They’re in the sub-levels,” Graves explained. Already down to sub four hundred. We shut down the elevators before they could get any further, but they’re still on the move, using the stairwells now.”
“On the move to where?” Admiral Stavos asked, while running a hand through his beard.
“Based on their proximity, and their consistent downward push...” Graves looked up from the holo table. “I’d say they’re on their way here, sir.”
Admiral Stavos straightened and turned to address his crew. “Lock down the bridge!”
“Aye, sir!” someone replied.
Klaxons blared and crimson lights flashed.
Turning back to the general, Stavos said, “Get as many squads down here as you can. We hold the bridge at all costs.”
“Yes, sir.”
Graves got on the comms to his men, barking out orders in his raspy voice.
Tyra turned in a slow circle, watching the frenzy of activity going on all around her. A Marine sergeant and a pair of bots ran from station to station with armfuls of equipment that she couldn’t quite make out in the dim light. Then one of the bots came clanking up to her and held out a plasma pistol with a belt and holster attached.
She hesitated.
“For your protection, ma’am,” the bot explained, its glowing red eyes insistent.
“Take it,” Ellis said as he accepted a matching pistol from another Marine bot and belted it on. “If they get through those doors, we’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”
Tyra reached for the weapon. The cold weight of it felt strange in her hands. She was a politician, not a soldier. What was she supposed to do with a gun? It had been so long since she’d trained to use a weapon that she’d probably have more luck using it as a bludgeon. Then again, from what she’d seen and heard of their weapons’ effectiveness against the enemy, it probably wouldn’t matter anyway.
“How many of them have we killed?” Tyra asked.
Ellis stared blankly back, unable to answer.
General Graves looked up from the holo table, his eyes gleaming blackly. His features were all stark blue shadows in the light of the table, while his bristly dark hair blazed red in the flashing lights of the lock-down. “None yet, ma’am.”
Tyra did a double take. “None?”
“Every time we think we’ve put one down, it heals itself and comes back to life. All we’ve managed to do so far is slow them down.”
Tyra turned away in shock, her eyes drifting to the doors of the bridge. If these Faros were that hard to kill, then it wouldn’t matter how many Marines the general sent to defend the bridge. They’d never be able to hold it.
* * *
Astralis
Lucien opened the equipment locker at the back of the patrol car, clinging to the door like a life raft in a stormy sea. Brak stood effortlessly beside the engine cowling, already wearing his mag boots.
Lucien gazed into the locker, trying to decide what he’d need. Fortunately, this car had come fully equipped. Boxy black shield packs hung from racks. Matching flak jackets and plates of mirror-smooth refractive armor accompanied those, along with mag boots and helmets. Lucien took off his comfy shoes in favor of the over-sized metal boots and hurried to activate them. His boot soles hit the deck with a comforting clu-clunk, and Lucien released his death grip on the door.
Next he donned a flak jacket, followed by the refractive torso armor, and finally one of the shield packs. None of it seemed to weigh anything at all thanks to the zero-G environment, but when he tried leaning and twisting his torso, he felt the weight of the equipment resisting his movements. He grabbed a helmet and strapped it around his chin before selecting a weapon from the rack on the inside of the locker door.
Brak passed over the choices of armor—he was fresh off patrol and already wearing his own custom-fit flak jacket and shield pack, which he wore in reverse, over his broad chest.
Lucien selected an automatic laser rifle and a stun pistol; then he clipped a pair of stun grenades to his belt, as well as a pair of the deadly plasma version.
Turning to Brak, he noted that the Gor hadn’t selected any weapons yet. Lucien scowled. “Hurry up!”
Brak nodded wordlessly and pushed him aside to look through the options in the locker.
Lucien imagined the blue-skinned aliens somehow finding his children and singling them out for some horrible fate. The one at the
comms had somehow known his name, and it had spoken Versal. Lucien had heard the initial news reports back at the station, so he already knew to expect that, but what he didn’t know was how any of them could possibly know his name.
Brak bent to retrieve a giant rifle from a case in the bottom of the locker.
Lucien blinked. “You can’t take that.”
“Why not?” Brak asked, hefting the massive weapon.
Lucien shook his head. “Because you won’t just take out your target—you’ll also kill whoever is standing next to them. Take something smaller.”
Brak snatched a stun pistol from the rack and clipped it to his belt. “Now I have something smaller. Happy?” Brak made no move to put the cannon back.
Lucien frowned. “We don’t have time to argue. Just watch your aim, okay?”
Brak hissed and bared his teeth. “Okay.” With that, he slung the cannon over his shoulder and grabbed a bandoleer of stun balls—seeker drones that would roll or fly out to their targets, latch on, and stun them into submission.
“Follow me, and keep it quiet. We don’t want them to hear us coming.”
Brak clicked his comms to acknowledge, and Lucien picked his way through the parking garage, sticking to the shadows behind parked hovers and support columns. Up ahead the doors to the shelter gleamed. Lucien armed his rifle, expecting to see blue-skinned aliens come boiling out through those doors at any second.
But nothing happened, and they made it to the doors without incident. Lucien checked the control panel. The doors weren’t locked. Before keying them to open, he ran a scan of the compartments beyond. He saw an empty corridor leading to a large chamber with a blurry smear of heat signatures huddled together on tiered seats. Shelter Twelve was a concert hall when it wasn’t being used as an emergency bunker. Lucien’s sensors weren’t calibrated to differentiate between humans and humanoid aliens, but he did spot a few heat signatures down on the stage that were noticeably cooler than the rest—three cold ones standing beside two smaller warm ones. Three aliens and two small human hostages? Children?
Half-turning to Brak, Lucien whispered, “I’m reading three potential hostiles through the doors, on the other side of a short corridor, in the auditorium. They have two hostages, so we’re going to have to stick to non-lethals.”
Brak hissed and set his cannon on the ground. His hands free, he drew his stun pistol in one hand and a stun ball in the other. Lucien shouldered his own rifle in favor of a stun pistol, too.
“Take cover. I’m opening the doors.”
Brak ducked behind the bulkhead and crouched. Lucien mirrored his position on the opposite side of the doors as he keyed them open. They parted with a swish, and Lucien peeked around the frame into an empty corridor. Another set of doors stood between them and the auditorium. “Clear,” Lucien whispered, and stalked toward the second set of doors. They took cover behind the bulkhead again, and Lucien keyed open the second set of doors. As soon as they slid open, Lucien heard the sounds of children crying and adults pleading, followed by another sound—the silky smooth, androgynous voice he’d heard over the comms.
“Welcome, Lucien! We have been waiting for you.”
Brak bared his teeth and his muscles bulged, his body a tightly-wound spring. Lucien gave a slight shake of his head, and mouthed: no. Then he stepped into view, his pistol up and tracking...
He found the aliens up on the stage, three of them as expected. They held their hands out to the crowd, clutching dazzling balls of light.
Weapons? Lucien wondered. There was a giant black scorch mark on the floor between the stage and the tiered seats around it, which seemed to confirm that thought.
The three aliens stood easily on the stage. They must have some kind of mag boots on.
“How do you know my name?” Lucien demanded, his aim finding the alien in the center of the three, assuming that must be the one who’d addressed him. The alien wore flowing gray robes, and a forked golden crown that rested just above a pair of glowing, ice-blue eyes. The other two with him sported bald blue heads and flowing black robes. Their eyes also glowed—one’s green, and the other’s yellow.
Lucien did a double take. These did not look like the technologically-advanced, space-faring aliens he’d expected. Where were their pressure suits? Their weapons?—glowing balls of who-knew-what notwithstanding. Lucien’s mind flashed back to news reports that said Astralis’s weapons seemed to have no effect against the alien boarders, and his brow furrowed, unable to believe that could be true. They weren’t even wearing any armor, let alone anything that might be analogous with a shield pack.
“How do I know your name... well, we have met before, you and me,” the crown-wearing alien said.
Of course, the Inquisitor, Lucien thought. His copy—original—had run afoul of these aliens eight years ago.
“But I knew your name before we met. After all, it is my name, too.” The alien grinned and licked his black lips with an equally black tongue.
Lucien blinked in shock. It could be a lie. But if it wasn’t, what did it mean that he shared a name with this blue-skinned monster?
Chapter 11
Astralis
Whether we share the same name or not, it doesn’t matter, Lucien decided. His police training took over: keep them talking. Distract. Get into position. Lucien shrugged and edged casually closer to the aliens—Faros, he remembered they were called from the initial reports.
“So, we share the same name,” Lucien said. “It’s just a name.” He kept his aim steady on the leader’s chest. King Faro, he nicknamed that one, noting the crown, and the fact that he seemed to be in charge of the others.
“Oh, it’s more than that,” King Faro said. “I wonder, have you ever met a human with that name?”
“No,” Lucien replied, and realized that it was true. He began to wonder how his parents had chosen that name, but he pushed his curiosity down. King Faro was starting to distract him. “My turn for a question: what do you want? You said you were waiting for me. You haven’t killed anyone yet, so you must have demands.”
“Very astute of you to notice the lack of corpses,” King Faro replied. He made a gesture to one of the other aliens, and a glowing ball of energy leapt from the being’s hand. It slammed into a man in the front row with a dazzling burst of light and a sound like thunder cracking. People sitting around the man screamed as the blast knocked them free and sent them sailing toward the walls and ceiling. The man who’d been hit drifted slowly above his broken seat. His chest was a black and sunken ruin: white ribs protruded, and glittering beads of blood dribbled out and hung in the air.
“Hold your fire, damn it!” Lucien roared, shock turning to outrage.
“I wanted to make sure you’d take me seriously,” King Faro replied. “We’re going to play a game.”
“No games, tell me what you want.”
“Yes, games.” The alien said. He reached behind him and hoisted a little girl high above his head. Her hands and feet were bound with glowing cords, and a translucent patch covered her mouth, making it impossible for her to scream. Lucien recognized her instantly. It was Atara. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her green eyes wide with terror.
No! His irrational fear that the aliens would somehow find and single out his children had just been realized. It wasn’t possible. How could they even know who his children were?
Coincidence. It had to be.
“Let the girl go,” Lucien ordered, hoping to hide her relation to him, but the quaver in his voice betrayed his fear.
King Faro grinned. “The girl? Don’t you mean, Atara? Your daughter?”
Lucien’s blood ran cold. He knew her name, too. “You heard me,” Lucien said. “Let her go.” It took a supreme effort not to pull the trigger and shoot the alien in the chest.
“Not so fast,” King Faro replied. “First, you have to choose. Save your daughters, or save everyone else in this room. Two lives for a thousand.”
Lucien blinked in shock. �
�Daught-ers? Where is Theola?”
“Right here.” King Faro hoisted her into view, also bound and gagged, baby blues red from crying.
Lucien lost it. He shook his pistol at the monster standing in front of him. “Let them go!”
“Just say the word, Lucien. I’ll let them go and kill all of the others instead.”
“You can’t make me choose between my children and a thousand strangers!”
Hushed murmurs spread through the room. Someone cried out, “We have children, too!”
Another cried, “Frek him! He’s going to kill us all, anyway! We’ll resurrect when this is over.”
King Faro inclined his head to that. “Wrong. I will abide by your decision, Lucien. But that man is correct about one thing: you’ll all be resurrected, so what does it matter who I kill? Really, it’s just a question of suffering. Would you want your children to go through the trauma of death—no matter how brief? Wouldn’t you rather spare them that?”
“Why me?” Lucien demanded. “What the frek does it matter? What do you care who lives and who dies?”
“I don’t, but I do care about your choice. It is of personal interest to me. Nature versus nurture.”
“What are you talking about?” Lucien said.
The alien shrugged. “I already know what I would choose...” King Faro replied. “But your choice—” the alien broke off suddenly, his mouth forming an O of surprise and pain as he rocked forward on his heels, as if he’d been kicked in his spine. Both of Lucien’s children broke free and drifted off behind the aliens, bobbing through the air and heading backstage at a rapid rate.
Lucien blinked. His children shouldn’t have been able to move through the air like that. Then he saw the pair of mag boots walking by themselves across the stage, and he realized what was happening. Brak had stripped naked, using his cloaking ability to creep up behind the aliens and steal Atara and Theola away. The boots hadn’t cloaked with him, but they were easy enough to miss.
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