by Dean M. Cole
Shortly after they'd started up the staircase, they began to feel grit underfoot. It had thickened as they climbed higher. Now a layer of tan sand covered everything.
Finally standing above the uppermost piece of broken hull, Jake helped Richard and then Newcastle over the rock. Sandy stepped up and extended a hand. He didn't want to take it. In his mind's eye, the image of Victor's head slowly sliding off of his neck replayed in an unending loop.
Anger flared in Sandy's eyes. She started to pull herself over the obstacle. Relenting, Jake took her hand and helped her climb into the portion of the staircase that extended into the enemy ship.
For better or worse, they were all in the dreadnought now. Jake closed his eyes for a moment, making a silent prayer for the latter half of that phrase.
Then he gave Sandy a hold gesture and silently mouthed, "Stay behind us."
Her eyes narrowed, but then she began to chew her lower lip. Usually, he adored that nervous tell. Today it deepened his worry. She blushed self consciously and quit chewing. Clenching her teeth, she eased the plasma rifle off of her back. After a deep breath, she gave him a short nod.
Already holding his rifle, Jake stepped past the other two men, cautious not to pivot a foot, lest grinding sand reveal their presence.
Approaching the top of the stairs, he found more of the gritty stuff. Now he could see it had poured in from inside the dreadnought.
That didn't make sense. Jake hadn't seen sand in the first Zoxyth ship.
He rounded the last turn, and blue sky came into view.
"What in the hell?" he mouthed silently.
Someone bumped into him. Jake looked down. Richard and Newcastle stood on the rung behind him. As they looked past Giard, the confusion on their faces matched his.
Beyond them, Sandy craned her neck. Then her eyes widened as another screech pierced the air.
All four officers flinched.
A clipped scream broke through Sandy's lips.
They froze.
The screech suddenly died. A deafening silence fell from the blue sky.
Then a roar like none before burst through the opening. Its vibrations sent a fresh miniature avalanche of yellow sand careening over the lip.
From the center of the tubular stairwell, the smooth, curving lines of four blue and silver GDF rifles now pointed toward the indigo sky like the stamen of a deadly flower.
The Zoxyth's roar continued but drew no closer. Jake kept expecting to hear the earth-shaking sound of the monster's running feet. A sound he'd heard before, the sound that had preceded the death of his young wingman.
When it didn't come, Jake pointed two fingers at his eyes again and then gestured toward the blue sky. The two men nodded, but looking at him with wide eyes, Sandy shook her head, mouthing, "No!"
Jake put on a brave face and winked at her. "I'll be okay," he mouthed back.
Turning from her, he started up the stairs.
A gust of hot air hit him. Then, flowing up the spiral staircase, cool air chilled the beads of sweat that had formed on his face. It ruffled his short hair.
Jake wiped the back of his gloved hand across his brow. The suit's nanobots soaked up the moisture.
Standing with his head just below the threshold, he took a deep breath. Giard's heart raced in response to the adrenaline dumping into his system. His ears rang with it.
Slowly, Jake raised his head until his eyes rose above floor level.
Under the overarching blue sky, the rippled surface of a desert floor extended to a distant horizon. He blinked as another hot gust peppered his face with sand. Giard struggled to comprehend the scene. Instead of a cavernous Zoxyth bridge, only sand-covered rock bluffs and green cactuses greeted him. Jake squinted into a mid-afternoon sun. It looked as if he'd emerged into the Mojave Desert.
Suddenly, the blue sky and sun disappeared, revealing a bronze ceiling. Overhead, islands of rock protruded from its otherwise smooth surface. Then the azure firmament flickered back into existence.
He had entered an Argonian terrarium.
When he'd jumped the Helm Warden into the battle, this part of the enemy ship had merged with a terrarium designed to mimic a desert environment.
A Zoxyth roar exploded from behind him.
Jake twitched and spun toward the noise. Grasping the kinetic rifle with both hands, he aimed it in the direction of the sound. His back slammed into the top few steps of the staircase.
Trembling, staring up through the long weapon's sights with one eye, Jake came to rest lying inclined on the stairs, a boot braced against one of the handrail's uppermost vertical support rods.
The beast was only ten feet away.
He was huge! Bigger than the last one!
The monster's roar tapered off, dying in a plaintive-sounding screech.
He came no closer. The Zoxyth only glared at him. Insane enmity burned from his red eyes.
Like the last Zox Jake had encountered, the reptile stood eight feet tall. Giard nodded as he realized that this must be the enemy commander.
Swallowing hard, Jake shimmied up the stairs, all the while keeping his gun trained on the monster. His shoulder blades skipped painfully over the stairwell's top step.
Now he saw why the beast hadn't attacked him.
The Zox warlord couldn't move.
Below its knees, the Zox's legs disappeared into a rocky terracotta bluff.
When Giard had jumped the Helm Warden into the dreadnought, the beast had melded with the terrarium's bedrock. Now he stood before Jake, stuck like a mouse in a glue trap.
He judged that at least a foot of the monster's full height extended into the rock, making him even taller than the beast Jake had killed.
Colonel Giard smiled. He knew exactly who this was.
Not taking his eyes or his weapon off of the warlord, he slowly stood. The boots of his spacesuit sank an inch or two into the sand.
Keeping the weapon trained on the Zox, Jake scanned the desert horizon. Squinting, he gazed up at the deep blue sky. Again it flickered out of existence. Now he could see that when the sky vanished, it took the horizon with it. They were actually in a room roughly the size of a skating rink.
Sky and horizon reestablished themselves. Once again, Jake stood in the middle of a vast desert. Cactus of varying sizes dotted the landscape. Some were part of the holographic horizon. However, several persisted even when the artificial horizon didn't.
The overarching indigo sky winked out again, revealing a wall that was half antiqued bronze, half stone. In that direction, the rock floor of the Zoxyth bridge rose above the desert floor in a gradual incline.
The monster continued to glare at him. Like demonic dewclaws, those damned forearm blades kept sliding in and out of the bastard's arm.
The beast they'd found aboard the first Zox ship had used his dewclaw blade to kill Victor. The razor-sharp appendage had cut through the young lieutenant's neck like so much smoke.
A deep rumble accompanied the Zox's every breath. It reminded Jake of the time when, as a kid visiting the circus, he'd stood next to a winded elephant following its performance under the big top. Like the circus animal, the Zox's massive chest rose and fell with each respiration. Green blood oozed from a deep gash in the beast's side. Through the open wound, Jake saw overlapping boney plates instead of ribs. They appeared to slide and articulate with each breath.
Giard scanned the desert floor. He tensed and did a double take. Two additional Zox—one almost as big as the Zoxyth commander—lay partially buried in the sand. However, these were not warriors waiting to pounce on him. Both had been decapitated. The empty eye sockets of one of the severed heads appeared to glare at him.
He turned back to the surviving alien. Around the standing beast, several consoles protruded from the desert floor. Those still upright listed, leaning left. They stood perpendicular to the buried, slanted floor of the enemy's bridge. The consoles looked similar to those Jake had seen on the first ship. Some of them appeared to be
inert, their electronic displays black. In front of the Zox commander, a dead, toppled pedestal lay in the sand. Jake studied its fractured top and sides. It looked like the beast had pounded it into submission.
To the left of the Zox commander, but well out of its reach, a green icon pulsed on the tilted surface of another console. Just behind it, one of the terrarium's native rocks stood ten feet above the sand. A green plant hung from its near side. Jake blinked as he saw scales on its surface. He smiled as he belatedly recognized the shape as an arm. There'd been an alien standing behind the control panel and its flashing green icon. When the two ships had merged, that one had received a lethal dose of mineral poisoning.
Ten feet beyond that console, a leaning, black stone throne jutted from the sand. On a display attached to its side, Jake saw Newfoundland's triangular island scroll under the formation of battered ships. It looked like they were now in the lowest part of the orbital insertion.
Their fifty-mile altitude had the formation skimming through the top of the atmosphere. Earlier, Remulkin had assured him that they had plenty of speed. Soon, as they continued along their southwesterly course, the formation of ships would pass through perigee and begin rising, having only lost a little velocity as they grazed the planet's upper atmosphere.
Training their weapons on the beast, Richard and Newcastle looked over the edge of the opening, scanning left and right. Giard stepped aside, and the two men climbed from the mouth of the spiral staircase.
Jake gave Sandy a reassuring nod and gestured for her to come up as well.
Her head emerged from the floor. Sandy froze as she and the monster locked eyes.
"Say hello to Lord Thrakst," Jake said.
Apparently hearing his name, the warlord turned his gaze to Giard with an indignant roar. The howl shifted to the mixture of screeches and rumbling roars that constituted the Zox language.
It was hard to read the reptile's facial expressions, but the bastard's indignant tone was unmistakable.
Jake held up a hand and spoke in Argonian. "Yeah, yeah, we hear you. Shut the fuck up, asshole!"
The monster's head snapped back is if Giard had slapped him.
Jake kept his rifle pointed at the bastard and looked at the CAG. "The prisoner is secure. What are your orders, sir?" He nodded toward the reptile. "Lord Thrakst isn't going anywhere," he added in Argonian, pouring disdain into the asshole's honorific.
Richard smiled menacingly. "I'd be more than happy to test fire my weapon. That big mouth would make an excellent target."
Newcastle glared at the monster. The muscles in the big Texan's square jaw rippled. "I'd gladly do it myself," he said.
Jake saw the colonel's index finger longingly caress the trigger of his weapon.
After a pregnant pause, the digit fell away from the mechanism. The CAG sighed. "But that'd be too good an ending for this bastard," he said, lowering the weapon.
He turned to Sandy. "Major, make your way back to my fighter. Use its radio. Let Admiral Johnston know that we've secured the enemy bridge. Tell them to bring in the space fighters and muster a few troops. Also, tell them we'll need some technicians. They can use the Phoenix Fighters to ferry personnel."
The colonel paused and pointed at the console that had the flashing green icon. "I'd bet a dollar to a donut that's the gene weapon's actuator. We need someone that can disarm the damn thing."
While the CAG spoke, Jake watched Thrakst. The beast kept looking over his own right shoulder, appearing to gaze at that icon.
Then the monster's eyes shifted from the console. He glared at the throne and its monitor. On it, the hooked shoreline of Cape Cod streamed into view.
Thrakst's tongue flicked again. Its pointed black tip dabbed at silver fangs. Jake had seen the apparent nervous twitch several times since he'd emerged from the stairwell.
After glaring at Giard for a moment, the Zox looked right again. With apparent longing, he stared at the flashing icon.
His tongue flicked again.
Jake's eyes narrowed. It looked like the warlord was getting excited about something.
As the formation of ships passed into the Earth's shadow, the lights of a vast city rolled into the monitor's displayed image.
Thrakst looked at it. His tongue flicked again and again. Spittle now flowed freely from the tip of each fang.
"Hey," Richard said, pointing at the monitor. "There's New York."
He was right; they were about to pass directly over the city.
Newcastle continued to give Sandy her orders.
Jake stepped closer to the beast. Still standing well out of its reach, he continued to aim his weapon at the reptile's ugly head.
"Something's going on here," he said over his shoulder. "Lordie here is getting awfully anima—"
Suddenly, Thrakst bent at his waist as if trying to touch his toes. His right arm made a violent right-to-left sweep.
Green mist sprayed the sand.
Somehow the beast's forward motion continued. It somersaulted straight toward Jake. In its wake, the stumps of the Zoxyth's lower legs protruded from the desert rock.
As the shortened beast lunged at him, Jake aimed at its center of mass and fired his weapon. A storm of sparks exploded from the rifle's side as it spat out a silver pellet. With a pitiful click, the kinetic round bounced off of the beast's massive chest.
An incredible impact launched Jake. Knocked from his feet, he drifted backward as if in slow-motion. As he flew through the air, sparks of other malfunctioning weapons flashed in his peripheral vision.
Then, with extreme prejudice, the universe reasserted its normal playback speed. Jake slammed into a hard patch of desert floor. It knocked the last remnants of air from his crushed chest.
An inky blackness flooded his peripheral vision.
Above him, the unreliable blue sky winked out again.
Suddenly, Sandy's wide-eyed face filled his narrowing field of view. Her lips moved, but he couldn't hear her over the roaring jet that seemed to be landing right next to his head.
Jake focused on her face. He fought to hold onto the narrowing thread of consciousness.
No! No! No!
The thread snapped.
Like a drowned man, Jake sank into the black void of unconsciousness.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
"Jake!" Sandy screamed again.
His eyes lost focus.
"Jake!"
She slapped his face, harder this time, not the gentle pats she'd given him on the Warden's bridge.
"Come back to me, baby!"
He didn't respond.
Sandy looked across the stairwell opening. Richard and the colonel were hammering the monster with their rifles. Their plasma guns lay on the ground where they'd landed. The two men had thrown the pistols at the beast after they had misfired as well.
Sandy had already tried to fire both of her weapons. They had malfunctioned, too.
Green blood continued to spurt from the end of the reptile's legs. Obviously weakened, the beast now crawled toward the gene weapon's activation button.
The impacts of their rifles weren't going to be enough. Somehow, the bastard kept moving forward.
Newcastle slammed his kinetic rifle down on the beast's head again. The long weapon broke in half. The colonel threw it aside. The big Texan took a step back and then lunged at Thrakst, slamming bodily into the side of the beast.
The Zox commander almost toppled. Recovering, he braced himself on two stumps and one clawed hand. His other shot out lightning-fast, backhanding Newcastle across the room.
The unconscious man crumpled to the ground next to Major Fitzpatrick, launching a spray of sand across her.
Jake coughed. His eyes opened. Looking sideways, he saw Newcastle. The confusion there evaporated. Her man scrambled to his feet.
Standing unsteadily, he grabbed the business end of her rifle and ran to Richard's side. Jake hoisted the inert firearm high overhead and began raining blows down on the bastard's head. Ric
hard had taken to hitting the monster like a batter trying to hit a home run, but the warlord's head barely moved under the continuous blows.
Thrakst kept inching forward, a trail of green blood in his sandy wake.
Nearing the weapon console, he raised up onto his knees. Even under the continuing rain of blows, the bastard jammed one stump and then the other into the sand.
Even shortened, the monster still stood a foot taller than the two men.
Jake and Richard made a last-ditch effort. They threw themselves at the beast.
Thrakst knocked each man aside. They flew like rag dolls.
As he took a lurching step toward the console, Sandy desperately looked for something to use as a weapon. The only thing in reach was a small cactus, a round collection of green spines that resembled a yucca plant.
She grabbed one of its pointed green spikes and yanked the cactus out of the ground.
Screaming, it squirmed in her hands.
Wide-eyed, Sandy looked at its base. Instead of roots, three rows of sharp teeth gnashed. As she held the squirming yucca plant-thing out, it contorted its body, trying to bite her.
"You'll do," she said and hurled the snarling thing at Thrakst.
It landed on the bastard's head, teeth first.
The warlord roared and batted at it. He forgot about the console, grabbing the little yucca plant-thing with both hands.
The tenacious little bastard refused to let go.
To either side of him, Jake and Richard scrambled back to their feet and started to run toward the monster.
To Sandy's horror, Thrakst gave up on the plant-thing and reached for the gene weapon's flashing icon.
She held out both hands and screamed, "No!"
