The Pathfinder Trilogy

by Todd Stockert

  Thus he was not surprised when he rounded a corner and saw three Kuth soldiers standing in the hallway ahead of him. Their rough, leathery torsos were covered by heavy metal body armor that looked to be impenetrable to both bullets and grenade fragments. The metal itself was scratched and dented from dozens of previous battles, with faint, faded green symbols etched along the surfaces. Each of the animal-like creatures also wore a heavy duty helmet and carried some sort of rifle. The three of them were busy studying the contoured walls, idled moving sidewalks along with the curving safety railings paralleling each. Clearly the starship’s colors and detailed design was unlike anything they had ever seen. But their instincts detected his presence immediately and they whirled to face him, red eyes glaring balefully at the Proteus alien.

  One of the Kuth immediately raised his rifle and fired it at Noah, its dog-like snout pressed against the bottom of the weapon’s long barrel. He stepped quickly aside, watching some sort of scarlet flash whisk past him with a loud, angry electronic snap of an energy release. Hisses from behind him caused Noah to turn, revealing another pair of Kuth soldiers moving into position behind him. Realizing that he was trapped between the five of them, Noah smiled and still said nothing. He continued to smirk as he resolutely stared down his opponents and began walking directly toward the three Kuth still standing in front of him.

  Sensing that their prey was helpless and trapped, the five Kuth closed in on him and then attacked.

  *

  As he moved down toward deck Two, Dennis Kaufield used his implant to keep track of the telemetry still flowing rapidly into his eye HUD from the Command Dome. The computers were set to self-destruct in less than ten minutes regardless of what happened from this point forward. He knew from experience that the two smaller ships had chosen deck Two for a reason. The soldiers boarding Pathfinder from each ship would try and reach the vital areas at the bottom of the ship, with their primary objective being the engine room and their second target the hangar deck with all of its shuttles and fighters. The other vessel, the one that Adam was moving toward, would have slammed into Deck One on the port side. He was willing to bet his eye teeth that their objective was the Command Dome, granting them total control of the starship.

  [“Firing at forty percent of maximum will stun and disable the Kuth,”] Adam’s helpful thoughts popped unexpectedly into his mind. He continued moving swiftly, accessing the Command computer’s tactical data so that he knew specifically where the enemy’s entry points would be. [“Anything above forty percent will likely injure or kill, especially when using narrower, focused pulses.”]

  [“Acknowledged.”] He was heading directly toward the ship that had struck the center of the starboard hull, knowing that its combatants would be heading toward the hangar bay. The second ship, now firmly docked along the stern would deploy troops to capture the engine room. They can have it, Kaufield thought crudely and somewhat regrettably. Losing his ship to enemy troops was never a part of the plan, but now that possibility was a reality and there was nothing he could do but salvage the remainder of the mission. The Kuth considered the engine room to be a prize, but in truth it was a meaningless target. All they would find there would be a traditional, fuel-powered Point-to-Point engine. If the Caucus leadership possessed any reliable intelligence data, their operatives would have known to go after the cargo bay and the prized CAS drive located there.

  Scarlet energy pulses suddenly flashed past him as he entered a “T” intersection, snapping large black weals in the metal wall behind him. Turning right, he saw the same thing Noah had encountered – Kuth soldiers wearing worn, painted metal body armor and helmets. They were firing some sort of focused, energy discharge rifles at him. Several of the pulses struck him and exploded against the crackling blue electricity that comprised his personal shield. Grinning, he watched the power indicators on his eye HUD as the power available to him actually increased slightly. Noah’s people knew their stuff, and his personal defenses were designed specifically to drain energy from the surrounding environment, using it to supplement his own.

  His body was blocking the only point in this outer corridor leading to the ladder wells descending down toward the hangar deck. As long as he prevented them from getting past him, they would never reach their objective in time to prevent the launch of the Ranger and Corona. Raising his arms in front of him, Kaufield retaliated with a forty percent powered energy pulse that threw half a dozen Kuth over the safety railings and onto the inactive sidewalks. They easily shrugged off the attack, leaping instantly to their feet and pounding toward him at full speed. Behind them, another eight or ten soldiers appeared in the corridor. Resigning himself to that which was undesirable but sometimes necessary, Kaufield held out his fists, mentally powering up the wrist guns.

  Then he sent a blistering electromagnetic pulse from hell itself rocketing down the corridor.

  When the azure flare of the energy died away, most of the Kuth soldiers were dead, their armored bodies lying flat on the ground, corpses still smoldering from the heat of the blast. Many of them were missing limbs, and a few had been disintegrated completely. The corridor walls themselves appeared to have melted – or at least warped – slightly. Dark ash and black stains along the walls and floor plating illustrated precisely where fragmenting pieces of biological matter had burned to the point where they were no longer recognizable. Several of the Kuth partially shielded by fellow soldiers were still moving, sitting up or rising to their knees in an attempt to stand. Gritting his teeth, Kaufield released a sixty percent pulse and finished them off.

  Moving forward, he was able to locate the still smoking breach in the outer hull where a hastily arranged docking collar connected one of the smaller enemy ships directly to the Pathfinder. Glancing through the plastic-like tunnel of fabric, he made a quick appraisal of the interior of the Kuth vessel and found it to be little more than a glorified shuttle. The stealth vessels obviously had been created on-the-fly and with little additional thought to anything other than shrouding them from traditional detection equipment. But you assholes never did tell the Yakiir about your directed energy pulse rifles, he thought heatedly to himself. Did you? Instead, you sent them into battle for CENTURIES using only standard, projectile-based weaponry.

  Grabbing one of the warped, melted walkway handholds securely with his left hand, Kaufield pointed his right fist toward the docking collar and fired a high-powered energy burst through it and directly into the enemy vessel. A hole instantaneously appeared in the opposite hull of the small shuttle, and then it vanished into deep space as the sudden depressurization of the corridor shoved it violently away from the Pathfinder. Kaufield held on tightly, working hand over hand as his enhanced strength allowed him to inevitably pull his body back to the “T” intersection.

  He turned left, toward the ladder wells leading down to the hangar bay, pausing only long enough to manually remove the six metal safety rods holding the emergency bulkhead in place. As soon as he pulled last of them, the bulkhead snapped close, instantly sealing off his corridor from the depressurized section. With gravity and full environmental conditions restored, he trotted briskly back the way he had come. I sincerely hope you bastards on that other ship don’t need to breathe, he thought rather cynically and with considerably more mischievous pleasure than he should have. And if you make it to the engine room, congratulations! You will have captured NOTHING.

  His task completed, he headed for the hangar bay to join the rest of his crew. He almost paused long enough to check in on Adam, sensing through the implant that something unusual was taking place. But he detected no fear or complex anxiety from his friend, nothing that would indicate his colleague required assistance. So he swiftly moved down one ladder well after another in search of the distant shuttle bay.

  *

  Adam Roh eased cautiously down the portside corridor on Deck One, moving directly toward the entry point used by the aliens from the third Kuth vessel. He was intentionally headed toward the
bow of the ship, moving forward from the rear third of the large starship. The approach was a deliberate one, recognizing that the soldiers – by now – would be aboard the Pathfinder and on their way toward the Command Dome and other key targets. His choice to confront them later rather than earlier was a tactical decision, since the Kuth would in fact be seizing control of computer systems that were in the process of self-destructing. The mission objective, after all, was to prevent any of those soldiers from cutting off access to the interior ladder wells, the ones that the crew would be using to descend all the way down to the distant hangar bay.

  The acrid scent of exploded ordnance was the first sign that he was closing in on his target. Wisps of gray and dark black smoke still hung in the air, swirling in curling patterns that were driven by the active, environmental systems working to clean the atmosphere of contaminants. Continuing to move slowly but confidently, Adam rounded a corner and came to a sudden halt. In front of him he could see twin holes in the outer hull, entry points no doubt used by the Kuth to board the Pathfinder directly from their own ship. What truly surprised him, however, was that at least three of them were still there. The one in the middle turned at his approach, its tongue lolling eagerly as the creature hissed at him in welcome.

  “I was hoping it would be you,” the alien managed to croak out in some semblance of an odd Yakiir dialect. The automatic voice translator in Adam’s implant rendered the words properly, but it was clear that the process of humanoid speech was uncomfortable for the creature. At least in its true form, anyway.

  Wary of anything out of the ordinary at this point, Adam came to a halt and sized up the enemy. All three of them wore heavy, reinforced metal body armor painted with the familiar Kuth symbols. The two flanking the speaker held large, menacing rifles at the ready, obviously bodyguards of some sort. All three of them stared at him heatedly with their fierce, bloody red eyes, hissing and cackling with anticipation of what was to come next. The Kuth in the center of the pair of guards held some sort of weapon too, a long cylindrical gray tube with a dark metal cap on the end pointed in his direction. One clawed hand held the weapon leveled at him, while the other clutched some sort of firing mechanism on the end closest to its torso.

  “Really? And just who might you be?” ventured Adam curiously, knowing full well that this delay was only serving to help his cause. While the unexpected confrontation took place, rail gun crews from the top of the ship were steadily, relentlessly making their way down toward the escape shuttles. He knew this via his link with Kaufield, who had completed his own mission and was assisting them in their rapid descent.

  “I am Bok’s mother,” the Kuth howled at him, her tongue licking the long snout as she watched him. Adam knew instinctively that if he moved in the slightest, all three of them would be on him in an instant. The only thing prolonging this very temporary stalemate was his decision to remain motionless. “Admiral Deek was a lifetime friend of mine, as were many of the others you killed from that convoy.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Adam in response. “Don’t you like having to fight your own war?”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” the Kuth continued, ignoring his not so subtle jab. “My full name is Nal Raf le Dor and I am one of the most powerful members of the Caucus. Those who know me long enough and serve honorably are granted the courtesy to call me Dor. You will never join that elite, small group of people. You will instead become just another casualty in the long history of casualties within the Wasteland.” A long hiss emanated from her jaws, dying out in a rasp that was almost a faint shriek. “As soon as I heard about Bok I gave the order for the construction of these stealth ships to begin. It was obvious you would eventually locate our foothold, so I made certain that I personally was ready to greet you when you arrived.”

  For a few seconds, the four of them simply stood there, sizing each other up. “I see,” Adam mused thoughtfully. “This seems to have all become rather personal for you.”

  “Indeed it has,” the creature sneered at him, waving the weapon she carried menacingly. “Over the past few weeks, I have heard nothing but rumors and speculation… flawed intelligence telling me about a Wasteland soldier who cannot be killed.” Dor paused, laughing in a manner that seemed half hyena, half hysterical. “‘This mighty warrior even names a warship after one of the Yakiir females as a symbol of rebellion, a rebellion that will bring an end to the Caucus’, the reports that filter in tell me. ‘The warrior lays waste to anything in his path, even slaying a fleet Admiral after deploying one of our quashing weapons.’” In a manner that would normally be incredibly intimidating, Dor moved several steps closer to Adam. His eye HUD, by contrast, detected no immediate danger and he responded by remaining completely motionless.

  “So you stayed behind, abandoning the Caucus to others, so that you could verify if this was true?”

  “Indeed I did.” Dor used her left claw to briefly gesture at the bodyguards. “We know from our own experience that technology is power. Those who have it may appear invulnerable, but that is never true. Any power curve can be pushed to its limit, and that is what I intend to do with you.” Dor gestured at him with the unknown weapon it carried. “This is a miniaturized version of the quashing weapon,” it told him defiantly. “The pulse it generates brings down entire stars, so I have no doubts that this weapon will kill you. Do you like it? It was developed at the very same military installation your ship briefly visited.”

  Adam’s tactical database had already analyzed the maximum output of the device, identified its energy source along with the smaller but easily recognizable warhead attached to the tip of the weapon’s barrel. Threat to his personal defenses: PROBABLY NEGLIGIBLE. Damn those mysterious, unknown metallic ores of theirs!

  “Why don’t you simply shoot me then?” he asked inquisitively, taking a few of his own bold steps forward while raising his fists. Dor’s quick back peddling, along with similar behavior from her guards, proved conclusively to him that the Caucus had already viewed surveillance videos of his wrist guns in use. His refusal to back down in their presence and ongoing confidence was clearly having a noticeable, psychological effect on them. “If you can kill me, what’s stopping you from doing so? Why don’t you take your shot at doing what no one else has been able to and get this whole situation over with? Go ahead,” he taunted heatedly. “Shoot me.”

  “I’m going to!” Dor nearly spat at him. “But first I wanted you to know who I was, and that I plan to take command of your ship and use it to torture as many humanoids as I possibly can before we are finally defeated. You have wrecked my society’s future and I intend to punish you and the humans for your shortsighted, disobedient actions. The humans in this space will…”

  Behind Dor and her guards was an intersection that turned right and headed deeper toward the center of Deck One. Additional soldiers suddenly appeared in that intersection, with only a brief instant that allowed Adam to catch a glimpse of bodies rolling across the safety rails lining the walkway. Then a cacophony of rifle shots resonated in a brief burst of deafening gunfire. Dor never saw the three shots that killed her, all of which passed cleanly through her upper torso. Dark green blood sprayed outward from the sudden holes that appeared in her body armor. He wouldn’t have thought at first glance that simple bullets would penetrate it, but they did.

  One of the projectiles vanished in a brief burst of golden fire as it struck Adam’s chest, since he was also in line with the shots. The other two passed by his left ear with an angry buzzing sound and pierced the corridor wall behind him. Dor’s pair of bodyguards whirled instantly to greet this new threat, but additional shots boomed loudly in the compact, confined space of the corridor and they were dead before they hit the ground. Beneath them, their green blood leaked out onto the metallic floor plating in rapidly enlarging pools.

  “THAT was for Tran Wuu,” the man with the largest rifle Adam had ever seen stated bluntly.

  He studied the trio of newcomers closely and
shook his head slowly, dismayed. “What am I supposed to do with you idiots?” he demanded to know, watching each of his three grinning Crasel friends warily to see how they would respond to his not so subtle jab.

  “Idiots?” Big Cren Hollis shouldered the huge assault rifle he was carrying, its barrel still smoking. He laughed uproariously at Adam’s assessment of them. “That’s exactly what we were going to call you for wasting so much time listening to that cretin boast. Honestly, she would have talked your ear off and still delayed shooting you. Talk about savoring a moment that was never going to arrive…”

  “Why didn’t you just shoot her and get it over with?” asked Arte Kasik, his scarred face wrinkling with puzzlement. “You weren’t actually afraid of that piece of junk she was holding, were you?”

  “No,” growled Adam more than a little defensively. “I was buying time for you and your dunderhead friends to evacuate to the shuttles,” he told them somewhat angrily. “Why aren’t you down there? They’re leaving very soon, and if you’re not there you’re likely going down with this ship.” He pointed at Hollis. “For that matter, what are any of you doing with our heavy duty assault rifles? Those things are as close to portable rail guns as we could get, and their armor piercing rounds absolutely, positively should not be fired aboard a starship. That is, unless you like hitting unintended targets for half a mile or opening corridors holding perfectly good atmosphere to open space!”

  “We knew where your armory was and I always get the biggest gun in the squad,” replied Hollis with a wry chuckle. “Based on recent events, we figured you would be all right, but when we heard you were confronting Kuth over on the port side of the ship we wanted to see for ourselves.”