The Warlord's Path

by Michael Kotcher

  “What?” the other zheen replied, confused and nervous.

  “The flash grenades,” Proku explained. Tekre’ha removed his bandolier as his antennae curled. He readied them, waiting until the elevator reached the bottom. Seconds away, he primed the flash grenades. Once the lift cleared the edge of the entrance, he hurled the bandolier through the opening and into the room beyond.

  “Brace!” he yelled, and they all shielded their eyes. It was going to hurt, but the defenders more.

  Blinding flashes and massive bangs filled the air, and both zheen were slightly stunned by the noise. Another two seconds and the opening was large enough for the Secaarans to jump through and with tympanic membrane-shattering roars, louder even than the flash bangs, the rocky aliens charged out into the mob.

  All three crashed headlong into the defenders, knocking men and women aside with simply the bulk of their own bodies, then almost completely in unison, they gave their great weapons mighty swings. They battered the standing defenders, which were strung into a long line, were now clumped into smaller groups, killing several humans with heavy blows. From there, they continued bashing and hacking their way through the crowd, screams and moans of pain echoing off the metal room.

  The zheen, meanwhile, looked for targets of opportunity, picking off officers or anyone who looked like they might be carrying a heavy weapon. They also took down anyone who started to flank the siblings to try and shoot them from behind. They first took cover in the elevator, as best as possible though there was almost none to be found there. Proku took two steps forward, out of the lift and gave a hand signal for Tekre’ha to do the same.

  The other zheen slammed a palm against the activation button and hustled out. The elevator rocketed upward, at least twice as fast as it had come down. Its exodus sent a puff of air out over the battle, but no one noticed.

  ((--[][]--))

  Alex Marston shoved the two bodies off him and rolling to the side, retrieved his carbine. Grabbing it, he whipped around and trained it on the nearest of those brutal monsters. He clamped down on the trigger, spraying bullets.

  The beast wielding a huge war hammer bellowed in pain as the fusillade of bullets tore into its side. Marston was unsure of the extent of the damage, though it was clear a few of those shots managed to pierce the metal breastplate. In a great sweep of the hammer, the beast tried to hit him. Marston rolled to the side just as the hammer came down, rending a huge dent in the metal floor.

  Rolling completely over onto his belly, he sprang to his feet, only to be jostled from behind by someone. He felt something hot and wet on the back of his neck and he unconsciously touched it. His hand drew back blood. Marston didn’t have a chance to check who it was from before the Secaaran was on him.

  Marston ducked under another massive swing from the hammer, which clobbered three others. Two of his men died outright; the third had his ribcage crushed but was still clinging to life, much to his ultimate misery.

  Marston couldn’t worry about that, as the creature turned its gaze on him. He quickly changed magazines on his carbine while the beast recovered and then unloaded again on it. It roared, but the sound was more anger than pain. With astonishing speed, it came at him, swinging the hammer with ease.

  Marston tried to back off, once again managing to change out another mag. This time he fired right into the creature’s armorplast covered face. This time, it let out a screech of pain and it staggered, its swing interrupted, putting a hand up to its face. Marston leaped at the beast and raising his gun like a club, he brought the butt of the stock down on the creature’s head, causing it to stagger yet again. He raised the carbine up for another strike.

  And received what felt like a hammerblow to the chest. His head swam from the pain, but he was able to register that it wasn’t the armored alien in front of him that hit him; its hands were flung out to the sides. Then he saw a zheen by the elevator, a rifle leveled at him. Another shot rang out, one that he clearly heard over the melee and his own ringing ears and a bullet hit his chest, knocking him backward where he tripped and hit the ground hard. Unbelievable agony welled out from the wound, and it was almost a mercy when the armored beast before him recovered and brought the hammer down with all its strength. He only writhed in agony for a few seconds before the hammer ended his life.

  ((--[][]--))

  “That… rangle… shot me in the face!” Dragga spat, putting a hand to her throbbing head, fending off human soldiers with her hammer with the other. She yanked the shattered armorplast facemask off; it was useless now and she didn’t need the discomfort of sharpened plastic shards near her face. “Damn that hurt!” she all but wailed. As it should; the impact from the fusillade of bullets had smashed the faceplate, but it had also cracked her rocky facial skin. In addition to smashing her nose, breaking her right cheek (where a human would have a cheekbone), cracked the right side of her jaw and bruised both of her eye sockets. Only by sheer luck had none of the bullets actually pierced her eyes.

  “Walk it off,” Stryx replied unhelpfully, then grunted, swinging his heavy flail and striking another of the humans, crushing the woman’s head before she could open fire on him. He’d been shot a dozen times, though thankfully his shield had managed to block more than a score of more bullets and was riddled with needles. It looked something like a pitted cactus. “This isn’t war! This is sport!”

  Cromm’s war cries split the air as more gunfire chattered in the metal room. Dragga gripped her hammer in both hands again, pushed past the pain and went back to work, fresh determination on her face.

  Proku fired again, taking down another of the human defenders. More than thirty of them were down now, but that still left a lot of them still alive and fighting. The Secaaran siblings’ charge shocked and disoriented the defenders and more than a dozen were cut down in seconds. Squads were getting themselves organized however and were shooting back, the trio countered by wading right into the defenders, but even their rocky, armored hides could only withstand so much. The tide was starting to turn back to the defenders, however, and even the terrifying trio would be swarmed over soon.

  Their salvation was heralded by the arrival of the descending elevator. Twelve of Vok’s soldiers boiled out, weapons up and questing for targets. Gunfire erupted from the entrance as the lot of them fired. Soldiers for the Committee of Public Safety went down, over a score of men and women.

  One squad, far to the right of the elevator, realized what was happening and returned fire. Five of the attackers fell under the onslaught, and two more hit the deck, injured. There was no cover, but the remaining attackers dropped to their bellies and tried to use the bodies of their now-dead fellows as cover, with limited success. One zheen screeched as a needler tore off his left antennae. One of the human attackers cried out in pain as a half-dozen needles pierced his foot.

  More of the defenders fell and then in just a single instant, they broke. In an undisciplined rush, they ran from the entryway and the Secaarans.

  ((--[][]--))

  “They’re running!” Stryx crowed, raising his flail in defiance. “Cowards!”

  “We finish them off!” Cromm yelled, brandishing his long-handled axe over his head with one hand. He started forward.

  “Hold!” a voice cracked like a whip from behind them. The trio turned to face the descending elevator and War Leader Vok stepped off. “We’ll take care of them shortly, but you’re not rushing headlong into an ambush.”

  “We’ll smash the traps!” Cromm declared confidently, almost petulant.

  Vok raised a calming hand. “Yes, we will. But I don’t want anyone evading my troops, so we get more soldiers down here then push forward.”

  The Secaarans looked a bit put out by this. Dragga especially was breathing heavily with pain and fatigue. Vok could smell the tang of blood on her. She was wounded, though she would die before admitting it. He wouldn’t mention it unless it held them up. She was no frail human, needing to be pampered and coddled and would be angered
and insulted if anyone even brought up her injuries.

  “Forward!” Vok ordered when the next batch of soldiers came down. “They’ve had enough time to run.”

  ((--[][]--))

  The Chairman paced in his office. His soldiers had failed, not that he’d really expected them to prevail, but he had hoped. He watched on the security monitors as more and more chambers fell to the enemy, as more of his people were slaughtered. He stalked around his office like a caged animal, then winced when he watched another of those monsters brutally murder several of his men with a long-handled axe. An axe, by the stars! What sort of barbarians did that bug employ?

  He’d be finding out directly. It was only a short matter of time before the brutes broke through into the bunker office.

  The Chairman’s eyes strayed to the pistol he’d dropped on the small desk. The thought of ending things repulsed him, but the thought of being eviscerated by one of those things terrified him more. He was just reaching for the weapon, his hand rebelling against his mind when a thunderbolt slammed into the metal door, making him jump. His hand closed over nothing.

  The pounding began in earnest. His hand strayed to the weapon again, this time his fingers curled around the grip. Perhaps this is the best way, he thought, raising the weapon up.

  He saw a rectangular shape of glowing orange illuminate the doorway for perhaps five seconds. The light faded and with a crash, the door fell inward.

  On instinct, he brought the weapon up and pointed at the doorway. Before he could fire, the behemoth with the axe bounded through, batting aside his weapon with a rocky hand. The Chairman squeaked in fear, but the noise was cut off as the Secaaran’s massive hand clamped around his neck. The man tried in vain to pry himself loose, but how do you bend solid rock? His vision began to darken and his struggles grew weaker.

  “Don’t kill him, Cromm,” came a voice out of the Chairman’s field of narrowing vision. “This one was on the comms with the Warlord. Probably important.” A pause. “Ease up, Cromm. You’re choking him to death.”

  “Yes, War Leader,” a deeper voice replied and the hand loosened. The Chairman gasped as air and blood rushed back into his head and his body, through the granite grip on his neck remained. He couldn’t understand what they were saying now; the zheen was clicking and hissing in that vile speech. The bug was speaking over its wrist comm to some other bug, based on the clicking responses he could hear. The Chairman tried to struggle, tried to get loose. The rock man swiveled his head to look at the human, then gave him a shake, one so violent it felt that his head nearly separated from his neck. The zheen smacked the brute on the chest and said something, but the Chairman’s head was ringing so badly he couldn’t comprehend.

  A moment later, another zheen came forward, and the leader made some more clicks. The second zheen pulled a stunner from his belt, and the Chairman saw a blue flash… and then nothing.

  ((--[][]--))

  Proku led a squad of soldiers from Tsu Platoon into the last unsecured area in the underground. Tekre’ha was dead, killed by one of the shooters back at the elevator, and Proku was bothered by that. He hated the other zheen male, but they’d worked together for years, on many campaigns, boarded a great many ships, attacked a great many planets together. Every time he woke in his bunk, Tekre’ha was right there in the next bunk. They fought about nothing and everything. Argued over rations, booze, sporting events, and games of chance. Nothing gave Proku more pleasure than besting the little skrekt.

  And now he was gone. A stars-bedamned world without the bastard to fight with. Proku had avenged his rival, taken out his killer, but what little satisfaction he gained from that act was taken away by the knowledge that the loser was dead. Now Proku would have to find someone else to hate.

  Forcing his attention back to the present, they passed through the now empty science labs and toward a large door at the end of the laboratory compartment. Four of the human technicians, nay scientists, were still alive, and one of the squad stepped over to capture them. They dropped to their knees, cowering, raising their hands over their heads. Proku expected no trouble from them; none of them had any fighting spirit.

  He raised his wrist comm. “War Leader, this is Proku. We have reached the end of the lab and have discovered a large secure door. It looks almost like an airlock, but for cargo.”

  “Can you open it?” Vok asked, sounding intrigued.

  “Attempting now. I will report back.” Proku nodded to Sekk, the squad’s tech specialist. The zheen trotted forward, bringing out his datapad and jacked it into the small control pad on the side of the door.

  “Got it, Lead,” the zheen’s translated monotone came from his translator pack. He hadn’t turned it off, in fact, Proku was sure that the tech hadn’t noticed he’d forgotten to do so. “Showing atmosphere in the next compartment. A mix of a few chemicals, but nothing harmful. Might smell funny, but we can breathe.” Checking atmosphere was critical for boarding teams on spaceships, and it was obviously a habit the tech was unwilling to break here on the ground. Proku didn’t mind.

  “Open it up.”

  Sekk keyed the command, and the large cargo door slid upward. A puff of air hit them all and Proku discovered the tech was right: the air did smell funny.

  He felt a rush of energy flow through him, a sense of invigoration that had never hit him before. The greatest high from a drug cocktail called Wasteland he’d tried once made him feel weightless, as though he was flying, all his nerve clusters singing with pleasure. This was more. The drugs made him feel, but this made him feel alive, more so than he ever had.

  A glance around showed Proku that the other eight zheen in the squad were feeling similar effects, mouthparts, and antennae writhing. He knew his own were doing the same. He did observe Hanouk, the one human in the squad, who was wrinkling the nasal appendage on his face. He wasn’t looking as enraptured as the others.

  “What is this?” he managed to get out. “I’ve never felt this amazing. It’s what a god should feel like.”

  “I like it,” Sekk said laconically. He swayed a bit from side to side, then lazily unjacked the data cable from the control pad on the wall and stuffed it and his datapad back into the pouch on his belt.

  “What is happening?” Vok’s voice demanded from over Proku’s communicator.

  Proku brought the comm up to his face and stared at it dully for a long moment. “War Leader… War Leader.” He tried again to form a sentence without success.

  The lone human in the squad stepped up. “War Leader, this is Hanouk,” he said in his rough human dialect. No hissing and clicking here. “All the zheen in the squad seem to be drugged. We cracked open the door, there was this foul smell, but all the boys are just… high. Euphoric.”

  There was a pause. “A foul smell?” Vok repeated.

  “I sure think so, War Leader,” the man said. He choked, hacked and spit. “It’s like it’s gummin’ up my mouth. But they seem to love it!”

  Another pause. “Stay there. I’m coming to you. Keep an eye on the others, but don’t let them wander off.”

  Hanouk nodded, his bearded face alight. “Yes, War Leader. Might want a head mask or a breather. Don’t know why it’s only affecting zheen.”

  “Understood. Stay put.”

  ((--[][]--))

  It only took five minutes for the War Leader with the three Secaarans in tow to arrive. Heeding his soldier’s precaution, Vok was wearing a breather over his face, trying to breathe normally. Hanouk looked thoroughly relieved at the War Leader’s arrival, more so at the scanning device he was sweeping from side to side.

  “What?” Vok all but whispered. His antennae sprang to fully erect and then curled completely down. “How did…?” He looked and saw the man staring. “It’s not harmful. These… people were using zheen pheromones in some sort of experiment. They’re not hurt,” he added, gesturing to the dazed-looking zheen in the squad. “Take them back up the corridor. Don’t hurt them. Cromm, help him. Dragga, Stryx, with
me.” Vok held the scanner in one hand, his carbine in the other.

  At the end of a short corridor, they came to another chamber which looked like a mix of an examination chamber and prison cell. Vok’s mouthparts began to writhe and his antennae stood straight as his gaze swept the room. He stared dumbfounded for over a minute, while the Secaarans looked angry.

  Vok pressed the control on his wrist comm. “Warlord, this is Vok.”

  Two seconds later, Verrikoth replied. “Thiss iz the Warlord. Sspeak.”

  “My Lord, we have secured the underground complex and we have discovered a series of laboratories. The Secaarans are rounding up the half-dozen or so scientists and techs.” As he spoke, Stryx roared and charged, weapon up, as Dragga moved off to the right, saying nothing, but brandishing her blood-smeared hammer. The techs and scientists screamed and raised their hands, or dropped to the ground, cowering in terror.

  Vok went on. “We’ve also discovered,” and he paused for a second in disgust, “almost two score male zheen being held in captivity. They appear to be test subjects in different stages of experimentation. We might be able to save some of them; others may be too far gone.”

  “Very well done, War Leader,” Verrikoth replied, pleased.

  “That isn’t all, my Lord,” Vok stated, then hesitated. “We discovered…”

  “Sspit it out, War Leader.”

  “We’ve discovered a female, my Lord. A broodmother.” Vok looked up at the chained creature in the center of the room.