Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3)

by Wearmouth

  “I’m Umbuwe, the coordinator for Farm 153. We were the first to heed your call and organize ourselves. I must say, it was like a call from heaven. Things were getting difficult for a time… but then you called, galvanized us, and gave us a common mission.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Augustus said, willing himself to be patient and let all the polite customs proceed. It wouldn’t stop him moving forward with more pressing plans. Umbuwe introduced the other farm coordinators. He didn’t bother to remember their names.

  “So,” Augustus said, cutting off some blather from one of the coordinators: a young man who looked no older than twenty-five and who appeared to be having trouble growing a beard. “You’re here. We’re together, united. I will command us to a better future. Without the threat of the croatoan council, we’re free to colonize and settle—as soon as we eradicate our immediate threat: Unity.”

  Augustus spent the next ten minutes educating the coordinators on Unity’s numbers, resources and levels of technology.

  The young man’s face stretched in a smile as he said, “With you leading us, Augustus, how can we not fail?”

  Although he liked the sentiment, his sycophancy just didn’t do it for him as it would coming from Zoe. Still, he took in the spirit as befitting his role and nodded his head.

  “Umbuwe, I’m putting you in charge of the two shuttles. From now on, you’re the line of command to your troops, answerable to me. Zoe, likewise, you’re in charge of this group.” He pointed to the battalions of humans and croatoans on the square.

  Both women saluted him stiffly.

  “We set out in three hours. In the meantime, you two will come with me and I’ll explain how the attack will happen, but before that, Zoe, I need you to do something for me. Umbuwe, you’re to stay and watch.”

  Zoe’s eyebrows came together as she asked a silent question. Augustus gripped her shoulder and led her away from the entourage until they were standing in front of their troop formation.

  “Among this group are ten traitors,” Augustus said. “We can’t afford to have any seeds of dissention.”

  “Of course not, sir. That would simply be… unacceptable. Do you know who they are?”

  Augustus stepped forward and walked down the front line of the formation, peering at each individual. Some held his eye, others looked away, but neither were an indication of guilt, for he knew there were no traitors among this group.

  Once he had walked the length of the formation, staring into the eyes of twenty men, women, and croatoans, he followed his footsteps back to where Zoe stood.

  “I do,” he said. “But it’s immaterial.”

  “Oh? I don’t understand,” Zoe said.

  Umbuwe and the other coordinators were watching with curiosity and—with what Augustus had hoped for—fear.

  “We need to set an expectation,” Augustus said. “We need to show everyone what’s at stake. Without that motivation, when the fight gets tough, our forces will crumble. They’re not used to combat. They’re used to working on administrative orders around the farm. We need to reach to that animal inside that will claw, spit, and thrash to survive.”

  “I understand,” Zoe said, her voice displaying a slight tremble.

  This was good, Augustus thought. He needed the officers and coordinators to feel the same fear and animal fury as the others. He needed them to know that their lives were at stake as much as those on the ground and in the trenches.

  This was his mistake when he was Roman Emperor: those at the top had grown soft and weak and were too secure in their positions. It clouded their judgment, made them choose the easier, safer choice, even if it meant defeat for the empire.

  He wouldn’t let that happen again.

  Turning to the waiting formation of troops, he noted their apparent nervousness by the way they fidgeted and looked to each other. Augustus suppressed a grin as the thought about a group of meerkats suddenly realizing they had a hyena in their midst.

  Addressing them, Augustus stepped forward and projected his voice so that it echoed across the square, rebounding off the small buildings surrounding them. “I want ten volunteers, right this moment.”

  At first nothing happened, but then slowly a few croatoans stepped out. He knew they’d be the first; they just didn’t understand what was going on without the direction of the council. The humans were warier.

  “I want the volunteers, right now,” August repeated. “If not, I’ll choose at random.”

  When none stepped forward after a few seconds, Augustus pointed out ten random human soldiers. “Line up in front of the formation.”

  The soldiers jogged out of the ranks and stood shoulder to shoulder, ten meters in front. Zoe and Augustus moved behind them. Augustus removed the pistol from his hip holster and handed it to her.

  “Execute them,” he said. “We teach the lesson now so we don’t have to in the future. There’s no discussion on this.” He didn’t even wait for her response. He turned his back and walked toward his private room.

  Most of the selected soldiers protested, but with each step he heard the crack of the pistol and one less voice questioning his decision. By the time he reached his building, ten shots later, there were no more dissenting voices.

  The entire place took on a deathly silence.

  He turned to survey the scene. Zoe stood over the bodies, holding the smoking pistol to one side. She looked up at him, no expression on her face. Augustus nodded once to her and then addressed the entourage.

  “All of you, including Zoe, are to see me in my room in five minutes as soon as you’ve cleared the bodies. We’ve plans to make.”

  When he received nothing but salutes, he smiled behind his mask and stepped into his building, knowing that he had learned from his mistakes and that knowledge was indeed power. He had this army exactly where he wanted it.

  Unity would fall, of that he had no doubt.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Denver ducked to his left between two solid benches at the front of the temple. He winced in agony as the high-pitched tone continued to blast through the intercom.

  Layla crashed to the ground next to him. The strip light inside her helmet illuminated her panic-stricken face.

  A bead of sweat rolled down Denver’s temple. He had fought aliens all of his life, but nothing like the scion.

  The prism remained in position. It seemed to float with an assured arrogance on the other side of the temple while inflicting torturous pain. The rifles had proven useless and Denver racked his brains for a plan.

  White bolts spat from the halo above the prism and peppered the walls around the temple. Stone chips pinged off Denver’s and Layla’s suits.

  Two tredeyan rifles fired outside. Denver guessed Charlie positioned himself by the door to assist in the fight. Vingo had also retreated outside.

  Denver took a deep breath, raised his rifle and fired a full magazine. The halo vanished and the prism’s rotation slowed as twenty rounds slammed into its solid rectangular body. Thin white wisps of smoke and yellow spark fizzed from its underside and shot across the floor.

  “Are you okay?” Charlie said.

  “I think I’ve damaged it,” Denver said. “Give it hell.”

  “You got it.”

  The temple descended into a murky gloom apart from a single white beam that shone against the wall above their heads. Denver and Layla edged along the back of the bench away from its focus. His helmet automatically switched to night vision and he peered through a gap in the seating. The prism had closed in on them and a circular light shone from its midsection.

  A bolt flashed over Denver’s head and punctured a six-inch hole in the wall behind him. The building shuddered and dust dropped from the ceiling. He grabbed a magazine from the magnetic holding position on his hip and reloaded.

  The prism whirred closer. Denver looked across to Layla. “It’s now or never. Let’s unload on the damned thing.”

  She nodded and raised her rifle toward the top
of the bench. They couldn’t simply hold their position against this type of enemy. Waiting and hoping it would retreat would prove fatal judging by the intent it had already shown.

  Denver sprang up. “Now.”

  He positioned the target in his visor at the beam’s source. Layla fired on automatic and sprayed it with tredeyan metal.

  The blue lights on the prism flickered. It slowly descended, attempted to rise again for a moment but fell almost immediately.

  Charlie rolled into the temple and ducked left. He glanced across to Denver and Layla, raised his rifle and fired.

  Denver stood for a better view. The scion had landed in a space at the center of the temple.

  A blue beam shot from the machine and focused on his visor. Denver squinted when it moved from one of his eyes to the other. He ducked back down again, guessing the thing was taking aim at his face. Charlie advanced forward and fired repeatedly.

  Electric snaps echoed around the walls. The temple fell silent. A thin veil of smoke filled the air.

  “I think I’ve done it,” Charlie said.

  Edging out into an aisle, Denver noticed all the lights on the prism were out. It sat there like an inanimate object, but that wouldn’t be enough for him to drop his guard. He moved to Charlie’s side while keeping the scion machine in his sights.

  Layla followed, her short shallow breathing audible through the intercom. Denver turned back. “Are you all right?”

  She smiled and touched the arm of his suit. “I’ll be okay.”

  Feeling his face flush, he looked away. “Better check to see if we really killed that thing.”

  “Cover me,” Charlie said. He took slow deliberate steps toward the prism while maintaining his aim, and kicked it. It didn’t move. “I don’t think we’ll be getting any more trouble from this one.”

  “You should’ve seen it,” Denver said. “Lasers and bolts all over the place.”

  “If the mech’s a bigger, badder version of this,” Layla said. “I’d say the tredeyans have got their hands full.”

  She knelt next to the prism and clanked the back of her gauntlet against its glossy sloped side. Denver didn’t want to touch it. He wanted to get away from it, in case it exploded into pieces.

  Charlie shook his head. “There’s some crazy shit going down here. I don’t see how—”

  Footsteps thudded up the steps. Denver twisted to the entrance and prepared to fire.

  Vingo’s helmet appeared through the door and he looked around. “Is everybody okay?”

  “We are, no thanks to you,” Denver said. “Where did you go?”

  “I guarded outside to make sure no clusps took advantage of our plight. The rifle fire might have attracted many.”

  “Bullshit,” Charlie said. “You weren’t bothered about them stalking us a while ago. You bottled it.”

  Denver suspected Vingo saved them in the caverns to be his bodyguards on his quest to get back to his own village through a war zone. As soon as the shooting started, he disappeared like a fart in the wind. It wasn’t a problem. They suited each other’s needs. At least they knew he couldn’t be relied on when the shit hit the fan.

  Vingo approached the prism, tapped his forearm pad and scanned it over the top of the machine. “It’s a worker drone. You’ve corrupted the collective.”

  “Which means?” Layla said.

  “When acting remotely, like this one, they have to assemble their own core power for movement and communications. If you damage the artificial intelligence controlling this, you can irreversibly corrupt them.”

  “Remotely from what?” Charlie said. “The prism in the sky? Is that ship a huge version of the thing we just killed?”

  “No. They don’t assemble to anywhere near that size. The croatoans told us that the scion build ships with labor and materials from other planets.”

  “Do the other planets give them full access to their systems and records?” Layla said.

  “Yes, and now they peacefully trade with the scion.”

  “Why couldn’t you do that? Seems odd that you choose potential destruction over a new overlord.”

  “The croatoans won’t allow us because we have links to their systems. Optax, for example, a mining planet, is independent. They have formidable ground defenses to protect themselves and set up a safe zone around their planet. If a ship enters without its weapons disarmed, it’s the last action it will take.”

  “Do the scion have any of your humans working for them?” Charlie said.

  “Not to my knowledge, but it’s possible. They may have taken them from other planets.”

  “When we have time to spare,” Layla said. “I’d like to know more about how you managed the humans, the numbers and where they are.”

  “I can give you information, but some things are beyond tredeyan knowledge.”

  Layla was bound to ask that question some point, but this was the wrong time to be going down a rat-hole.

  “Forget about that for now,” Denver said. “Let’s move the prism out of here. We need to stay focused on the current situation.”

  “He’s right,” Charlie said. “What if a couple of its angry brothers and sisters turn up?”

  “Moving it into the forest should be good enough for the moment,” Vingo said. “I expected a fighter to hit the temple, but it looks like we destroyed it in time.”

  “We?” Charlie asked.

  Denver picked up the object the prism was working on when they first entered the temple, a shiny black open case. Inside it, dull gray components were attached to a transparent circuit board. Colored lines interconnected each one to other parts. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a transceiver,” Vingo said. “They place them to have full planetary coverage for their ground force.”

  Charlie raised his left gauntlet above it and clenched his fist. “I suppose we better smash it up.”

  “No need. It’s incomplete.”

  Denver heard quiet clicking between Charlie’s and Vingo’s words. He went to raise a finger to his lips, but his gauntlet bounced off his visor. Layla smiled at him, until she read his serious expression.

  He thought his action was a mix of natural instinct and a reflection on just how good the suits were. In Tredeya’s atmosphere, he moved better with the suit on and had gotten used to it during the last couple of hours. Regardless of the reason, he recognized the distinct noise of a croatoan in close proximity.

  “Keep quiet for a minute,” Denver said.

  The group paused to listen. It was more of a silent flapping noise than a conversational croatoan click. The type Denver only heard when up close and dirty during a fight.

  Layla pointed at a waist-high wooden door to their left.

  Vingo, true to form, took a step back. Charlie put his gauntlet behind his back and ushered him forward. “You better speak to whoever is behind that door, because the only talking I usually do to croatoans is with my rifle.”

  “It’s a small storeroom that’s been empty for years.”

  “Something’s in there. Go on.”

  Without wanting to take any chances after the experience with the hunter in the caverns, Denver gestured Layla behind a bench and aimed over it. Hagellan may have helped them, but he couldn’t speak for the rest of their damned empire. It would be naïve to think that bringing down a mother ship and destroying their jump gate would go unnoticed.

  Charlie knelt to the side of Vingo. He shuffled toward the door and called out in gargled croaks without a response. He tried a few raspy clicks. The door creaked open.

  A croatoan the size of a typical six-foot guard, wearing a blue robe, sat curled up in the small space. A silver tube ran around the center of its head, covering the nostril holes. No doubt a hi-tech breathing apparatus. It clicked a long response to Vingo.

  Vingo replied and the croatoan crawled out of its cramped hiding place.

  “What did it say?” Denver said.

  “She asked if she was in danger, and says she hi
d here when the scion probe approached the temple.”

  Charlie scoffed. “She? That creature?”

  Vingo turned to face him. “Please don’t be disrespectful.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you think you are the special race and the rest of us are just creatures?”

  “I never said that.”

  “Male and female genders are not uncommon in the universe. Many are a lot more advanced than Earth, and nearly all have different—”

  “They invaded our planet,” Denver said, not being able to resist cutting in at the apparent lecture. “We didn’t want to personalize them during our fight. They were our enemy. Simple as that.”

  The croatoan clicked behind Vingo. He turned and listened.

  “She says we can stay here for as long as we want,” Vingo said.

  “Don’t you need to get to your village?” Layla said.

  “The sun rises in less than a unit. We can rest here and wait for nightfall.”

  Denver stood and walked over to Vingo, thinking it was time to get things straight between them. “What’s your real story?”

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “I think you do. That’s why you saved us, isn’t it, to provide protection on your way home? We’re nothing but your bloody meat shields!”

  “We have common goals. You’re free to leave and go where you wish if your association with me is so difficult.”

  “I don’t think so,” Charlie said. “We both want to survive, but the difference is we can’t get home.”

  “A possibility exists if you help me,” Vingo said.

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” Denver said.

  “Believe what you want. I don’t have anything to lose by not showing you a way back to Earth.”

  Layla gasped through the intercom. Denver glanced back. Her open-mouthed expression curled into a smile. He wanted to feel the same excitement but couldn’t. The more time he spent with Vingo, the less he trusted him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Maria slumped against the small table and inhaled the black coffee, hoping the bitter scent would chase away the clone memories of her forebear.