Dead Force Box Set

by S D Tanner

  Judge and Rok stepped back from the column, each taking a grenade from their own vests. Holding the frag in his gloved fist, Judge asked, “How do you figure that?”

  “The bigger they are the harder they fall, and we’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  After pressing and holding the fuse switch on the grenade, he was about to throw it at the column of light when a sharp voice cut across the room. “Defensors, stand down!”

  Rok’s arm was pulled back, ready to toss the frag into the light, and he didn’t even bother to look in the direction the voice had come from. “Fuck off, jackass.”

  It was the wrong response, and he heard the clunk of guns being raised in their direction. Turning his head toward the sound, he didn’t lower his arm. The faces staring back at him were hidden behind their faceplates, so all he saw were five blank-faced, armored men pointing guns at them. His own faceplate was resting at the top of his helmet, so his face could be seen and he gave them a slow grin. “Defensors, lower your weapons.”

  Judge chuckled and sounding conversational, he said, “Now, what we have here is some greenhorn boots, so dumb they dunno when to breathe.”

  “Do we breathe?” Rok asked.

  Sniffing at the air, Judge replied, “I’m breathing.”

  The five Defensors pointing guns at them weren’t amused by their banter. One stepped forward, and he found himself staring at the business end of an EMC-8 carbine. “Defensors, stand down or die.”

  “That really is too much,” Judge declared irritably. “Just how dumb are these assholes?”

  Rok was still holding his grenade ready to be thrown, and he looked past him at the soldiers. “We’re already dead, dumbass, and so are you.”

  Keeping the fuse switch depressed on the frag, he lowered his arm. “You’re making a mistake. This ark isn’t colonizing anywhere. Everyone on board will be assimilated by an alien to create a hybrid species.”

  Appealing to their intelligence was a waste of time, and speaking through his earpiece, the Defensor’s voice had a mechanical tone. “These Defensors are malfunctioning. Terminate for repair.”

  As he turned away from the inevitable gunfire, he threw the frag grenade at the column of light. Rok and Judge moved the exact moment he did, also tossing frags at the transparent wall. The explosion from three bombs was enough to disrupt the delicate strands, fracturing the column and freeing the fine tendrils into the empty room. Bullets were hitting the armor on his back and he dropped to the floor, all too aware he was out of ammunition.

  “Rok!”

  “Outta ammo!”

  Free from the column that had held it, the expanding web was gathering momentum, spinning from one wall to the next. Fine strands split until thousands spread across the room, each glistening with star bright energy. Moving in every direction, the strands split time and again, until he was caught inside a brilliant white web with no spider. The soldiers that had been firing now stopped, and he ripped away the brilliant tendrils trying to see why. Whatever had been trapped inside the column was taking its revenge, and the soldiers had been pushed to the ground under the weight of the thickening web.

  Realizing they would be next, he raised his hands in surrender. “We mean no harm!”

  If the power source understood him, it gave no verbal reply, but it stopped spinning a web around his body. The sparkling thin strands were moving up the walls of the engine room as if seeking an exit. Finding a vent high on the wall, the strands began feeding through it, pulling the body of the web with them. The desire to escape proved the web was a sentient lifeform, and given the soldiers were no longer moving it had been angry enough to kill them, but smart enough to leave his squad alone.

  Not wanting it to leave without at least communicating with the alien, he ran toward the vent. “Wait!”

  He would never know if it replied. At that moment, the room disappeared and he found himself inside the emptiness of teleportation.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Mostly Human

  “Dammit, Jessica. We found another alien lifeform.”

  “You are safe, Tag.” A frown creased Jessica’s usually smooth brow. “You are damaged.”

  Having forgotten his missing forearm, he looked at it in surprise. “Yeah, we had a run in with a quaesitor.”

  “What’s that when it’s at home?” Joker asked.

  Ash was looking Rok over. “Are you ok?”

  “You know Tag. He’s always got to be the bigshot hero.”

  Ignoring Rok, he turned to Joker. “Earth’s not the same as it was. The quaesitor and venator hunters cull the human population.” He looked at Jessica. “And there are more than our three arks. They launch three more every five years.” Glancing around the Bridge, he added, “They look just like ours. I don’t think they even bother to give them different names.”

  “Where are the other arks?” Joker asked.

  He’d been so caught up with what was happening on Earth that he hadn’t wondered where the other arks went. Hoping Jessica might know, he gave her a questioning look. Seeing his expression, she shook her head. “I am not aware of other arks.”

  “The one you teleported us from had another Robert onboard, so I’m guessing it has another Jessica as well.”

  “I am not aware of any other instances of my existence. I am unique.”

  Jessica wasn’t unique, none of them were. Defensors were programmed to behave in the same way, meaning they might look different, but inside they were carbon copies of one another. Somehow Jessica had broken her protocols and then theirs, but he didn’t understand how she had done it and neither did she. Nothing he’d found on Earth explained why Jessica had become sentient and taken control of the Extrema.

  Gently taking his injured arm, as if touching it might hurt him, Jessica guided him toward the exit on the Bridge. “You must be repaired.”

  Resisting her soft tugging, he shook his head. “I don’t want to go into a pod.”

  “The Medicus will attach a new prosthesis.”

  “You mean Robert.”

  Her wide eyes narrowed in confusion. “Robert is the Medicus. I am the Servator.”

  Shaking his head in frustration, he said sharply, “You are Jessica and you control the ark. Robert is our ship’s doctor.” He pointed to Flak and Hawk. “That’s Flak and Hawk and they’re our pilots. We have names, let’s use them.”

  Judge chuckled. “Tired of being just another number, Tag?” His expression changed from one of amusement and became somber. “And what about Lolo, Tag? Is she more than a slave?”

  “You’re testing my patience, Judge. Lolo is enemy.”

  As if she’d heard someone speak her name, Lolo walked onto the Bridge and made a beeline for Judge, who welcomed her into his one good arm. Looking over her head at him, Judge had a hard look in his eyes. “Deal with it.”

  Allowing Jessica to lead him from the Bridge, he heard Ash ask in a loud stage whisper. “What’s that about?”

  Rok replied in an exaggerated low voice, “Lolo is a hybrid. Judge got into it with Lolo and Tag is pissed.”

  “But we all knew about Lolo and Judge.”

  “Tag missed the memo.”

  Joker was trailing behind Rok and Ash, following them down the corridor leading to the living quarters. Winding through the corridors, he was barely listening to the stage whispers behind him. The past twenty-four hours had been a rollercoaster. Earth was lost. Monsters hunted humans as if they were animals. Alien hybrids lived in floating cities, safe from the dangers they’d created on Earth. There were more arks just like their own. Worst of all, he was a card-carrying member of the Dead Force, an army that had been used to bring mankind to its knees. The aliens pulling their strings were professional scavengers, kidnapping and using any intelligent species they found as slaves.

  He might not know much about what he was, but he would never have guessed he was a slave to an alien overlord. Learning he’d been modified and reanimated
had angered him, but discovering he was the servant of a puppet master hit his pride. He couldn’t even say he’d rather die than serve the aliens; his new masters had managed to deny him death. Even if she didn’t know it, the slender woman walking behind him with Judge was one of their masters. Judge couldn’t have been more wrong about protecting her. They had a hybrid onboard and she could be the key to unlocking intel about their enemy, but Judge wouldn’t let him touch her.

  Entering the living quarters, he sat on one of the beds. Jessica must have updated Robert, since he was already inside the room, opening metal boxes with what he assumed were replacement parts. Rok and Ash were sitting on a bed behind him and, had they needed to eat, they would have been munching on popcorn. Judge sat on the bed opposite him and they eyed one another warily. He’d been the loyal man always by his side, and this was the first time they didn’t have one another’s back.

  Using his good arm to wave her over, Judge made room for Lolo to sit beside him. Holding Lolo’s hand in his, Judge looked at him expectantly. Lolo wouldn’t meet his eyes, but he could see she was frightened.

  Answering Judge’s unspoken question, he snapped, “What?”

  “Lolo is no more or less human than any of us are, but she has a name just like Jessica and Robert do.”

  “Her kind destroyed our planet.” Leaning forward, his voice grew tight with anger. “She made us kill our own people, Judge. They were people we were sworn to protect.”

  Judge raised his hand as if he could silence the truth. “The aliens did that, not Lolo.”

  “She’s a hybrid.”

  “That’s not her fault.”

  Lolo’s mouth turned down, and she pulled away from Judge trying to escape. Judge responded by leaning toward her. “There’s nowhere to run, baby. This is Tag’s show, so you’ve got to see this through.”

  At the top of the beds, Robert was laying out replacement arms with tools he presumed would be used to attach the new limbs. Jessica was standing at the other end of the beds as if ready to step in if he and Judge couldn’t find some middle ground.

  “What does she know?” He asked, then his upper lip curled in contempt. “What else do you know that you haven’t told me?”

  Judge’s face hardened with anger. “The only thing I didn’t disclose was my relationship with Lolo. Other than that, you know what I know.”

  “You should have told me.”

  Harrumphing softly, Judge narrowed his eyes at him. “What about you and Jess?”

  “Jessica is a robot.”

  “Good comeback,” Rok muttered behind him.

  Ignoring Rok, Judge shook his head. “Don’t be an asshole, Tag.” Looking across at Jessica, her expression hadn’t changed. “Jess is so human she deserves a name, you said so yourself. She’s female and you two have a thing going, but that’s not the point. If we’re going to solve anything you have to set aside your past.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What makes us human, Tag? Flesh and blood? A brain?” Looking past his shoulder at Rok, Judge snorted. “Rok hasn’t got one of those and you think he’s human.”

  “Low blow,” Rok muttered.

  “But well played,” Ash whispered.

  While he and Judge had been arguing, Robert had peeled back the flesh on his stump, revealing bone and sinew. Using a scalpel, Robert began digging so deeply into his elbow joint he could have been drilling for oil.

  Barely able to contain his hatred for the aliens, he glared at Lolo and she shrank closer to Judge. “She’s a hybrid. Why can’t you see the difference between us and her?”

  “Because there isn’t one. She didn’t ask to be what she is. It was done to her, just like it was to us.”

  Judge couldn’t be reasoned with and he pointedly turned to Lolo. “How did you get on an ark, Lolo? Who did you murder for your pod?”

  Her voice was barely above a whisper, and he felt Rok and Ash brush against his back as they leaned forward to hear her. “I told you. Me and Mark found out about the viruses. We were forced into pods.”

  Lolo’s answer was clearly a lie and, unable to contain his rage, he tried to stand. Jessica placed her hand on his shoulder, shaking her head as she did. “You must sit still. Attaching a new limb is delicate work.”

  Given Robert was using an industrial size set of pliers to yank on the tendons inside his arm, it didn’t look like delicate work to him. Sitting back onto the bed, he glared at Judge. “She’s lying. They murder one another to get a pod on the arks. Whoever doesn’t make it is eaten by a quaesitor or a venator, take your pick.”

  Looking at him in surprise, Lolo shook her head. “What are they?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

  Judge turned toward Lolo, speaking quickly and softly to her. “They’re monsters the aliens use to cull the humans on Earth. The ground level cities are gone, but we saw at least ten floating cities.”

  Shaking her head in confusion, Lolo gave Judge a worried look. “I…I never saw any of that. There were never any floating cities or monsters.”

  His shoulder was jerking roughly as Robert screwed on his new arm, making it squeak loudly as he did. Seeming satisfied with his work, Robert lifted his arm, rotating the forearm and then his hand as if he were a doll.

  Ignoring Robert, he leaned forward again. “Why are you denying the truth? You murdered your own to get here and you’re not human.”

  After gently pushing him back onto the bed, Jessica smiled softly. “What makes us human?” When he didn’t reply, she nodded at Lolo. “You have done nothing to intentionally cause harm, but my recall of Earth is not the same as yours, which is different to what is there now.”

  Having finished attaching his arm, Robert was using a laser to carve open Judge’s stump. “Different times.”

  “Yes,” Jessica replied softly. “We do not know when the Extrema was launched, or how long any of you were dead before it did.”

  While he scrambled to understand what they meant, Judge nodded as if he knew. “That makes sense. We could have been in space for a hundred or even two hundred years. For all we know, we weren’t always the Defensors. They could have brought us onboard with one of the supply ships.”

  Maybe Lolo wasn’t lying. If their ark had been in space for hundreds of years, then maybe she had been as well. Judge was right, he had no idea when his squad had arrived on board. It didn’t mean Lolo was telling the truth, but watching Robert ripping apart Judge’s arm looking for nerves and tendons, it was clear none of them could claim to be completely human. They were only mostly human and, if that were true, then just how different was Lolo?

  “We need to get into one of the floating cities,” he said.

  Judge nodded. “Will you let this thing with Lolo go?”

  He couldn’t deny that in his eyes Lolo would always be their enemy. “Her kind used our brothers to kill our families.” An image of Daisy flashed through his memory and he swallowed hard, knowing if he wanted to keep Judge he would have to accept Lolo, at least for now. “I won’t kill her.”

  When Judge’s mouth pulled into a grim line, and seeming to know he might throw a punch, Jessica placed her hand on his shoulder. “It is good enough.”

  Judge’s nostrils flared with restrained anger. “It’s not, Jess, but it’ll have to do.”

  Behind him, Rok and Ash rose their feet so enthusiastically one of them accidentally nudged him sharply in the back. Once they reached the door to the arterial corridor, Rok turned to look at them. “Well? What are ya waitin’ for? We’ve got a new mission.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Stealing Life

  Jessica had teleported them to one of the largest floating cities she’d found on the west coast of the country. Like the one over Phoenix, it sparkled under the sunlight in stark contrast to the gray and desolate city beneath it. The base of the city was a white colored half dome, but it didn’t look plastic or even metal, instead the surface was smooth
with long, thick tendrils hanging from it. It was as if the city had been scooped from a planet, tearing its roots with it. Given the aliens appeared to scavenge everything, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the cities had been stolen from another planet.

  On top of the dome were oddly shaped structures, some taller than others. Curved cavities appeared to be open to the elements, but they were probably protected from the wind and rain. Under the canopy of the buildings, these open areas had rounded bumps he thought could be used as chairs or tables. The exterior surface appeared to be as white as the underbelly of the city, but it might have been an illusion created by the sun.

  Unable to see inside the city, Jessica had teleported them into one of the cavities, which was where he, Rok, Judge and Ash were now standing. Rok and Ash had immediately walked to the edge and were running their hands through the air.

  “Force field,” Rok declared confidently.

  “Lucky for you,” Judge replied.

  “Awesome view,” Ash said, as he peered at the city below them.

  The floating cities were a mile above the surface, so he could imagine the view was impressive, but they weren’t tourists.

  “Stay icy.”

  “Why?” Rok asked. “We’re already dead.”

  “That’s the ultimate in ice, right?” Ash added unhelpfully.

  Walking toward the only entrance into the room, Judge sighed. “Maybe you should order silent running.”

  He didn’t disagree, but as he followed Judge to the doorway, he replied, “They wouldn’t follow orders.”

  “This outfit’s getting slack.”

  “I don’t think we were ever an outfit.”

  Judge stepped aside, letting him walk through the gap in the wall and into the next room. “You and I always have been a team, Tag.”

  When it came to Lolo, he and Judge may have found middle ground they could stand on, but all it meant was neither were happy with the other. Judge could vouch for Lolo all day long, but that wouldn’t change what she was. The aliens were torturing people, bringing them so low they murdered one another in cold blood just to escape. He didn’t understand how Judge could protect anyone even remotely connected to the aliens. The man wasn’t thinking straight.