Galactic Champion 2

by Dante King

  “What does Tortengar look like?” I asked.

  I hoped when I found him, I’d know it right away. Then, the only decision to make would be whether to cut him in half vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. After I asked him a few questions, of course.

  “I don’t know,” Nyna said. “He dresses like he’s fancy or starving for attention, you know? All gold and red and shit like that. He usually has on a dress-kind of thing. A robe maybe. And a cloak, even when it’s hot. No hair on his face, and I don’t think he has any on his head. Maybe it’s normal for his kind.”

  She quieted as we walked between a couple of narrow buildings, ducked under a low-hanging, rusted metal pipe, stepped over another, and walked around a third that would have fit me inside that stuck straight up out of the ground.

  I craned my neck to see where it went, but it was swallowed up in the building overhanging six or seven yards above my head. A lizard-skinned alien was working on the side of one of the buildings with a small torch. The scaffolding he stood on was tied together with small bits of scrap wire and lengths of woven cloth. Keeping his job seemed more important than safety to the worker, even though starvation and falling 30 feet both resulted in death.

  “He’s tall,” Nyna continued as she gave a snoring alien who looked like a curly-haired porcupine and smelled of sulfur a wide berth. “Skinny, too. Which is kind of weird, because he’s super-wealthy. He could buy all the food he wanted.”

  Or something, I thought. So, I was looking for a skinny male of unknown species who liked to dress like a princess. Based on what I’d seen so far, I didn’t think I’d have any trouble finding someone dressed like he had all the money in the world.

  “He sounds like a typical slaver,” Beatrix scoffed. “They are weak, which is why they use intimidation to control others. I will take great pleasure in showing him what his internal organs look like.”

  I paused the team for a moment and tried to get my bearings. The streets—or the places streets might have once been—were little more than twisted, cluttered, winding dirt paths choked with waste, both mechanical and biological. We had to watch our step to avoid twisting an ankle or stepping in excrement. More than once, I heard an Ish-Nul curse under their breath. It was followed by the sound of a leather boot scraping against a conveniently placed shit-scraping surface.

  The crack and hum of a magnetic firearm caused us to duck and me to draw Ebon half way from its sheath. Everyone else on the street ducked, too, and took cover inside nearby buildings or by climbing into dark tangles of wires, pipes, and sheet metal.

  I couldn’t see who was shooting or what their intended target was.

  Nyna and I took cover behind a pillar that went to nowhere, which was twice as wide as my shoulders but reached only a few inches above them. Beatrix was taking cover behind a nearby building and had her tentacles woven into a tight braid. It was exactly like she’d done in the arena, and it brought back exciting memories of the first time we’d met. She was splitting her attention between peeking around the corner to see what our enemy might be up to, and what I was doing.

  She’s waiting for a signal, I realized. She learns fast.

  “That sounded close,” Nyna whispered. “A few dozen yards, maybe. Was that intended for us? Is someone trying to kill us?”

  I didn’t think so, but I also didn’t want to have a conversation about it, so I motioned for her to be quiet. Timo-Ran was behind a similar yet shorter pillar. He glanced my direction, then peeked over the top of his pillar when another shot went off and caused him to duck again.

  The rest of the Ish-Nul were behind him taking cover, sort of. Tila and Neb-Ka had gotten themselves tangled together behind a low pile of scrap that would barely provide enough cover for one of them.

  The next time Timo-Ran looked my direction, I motioned back toward the two Ish-Nul behind him. He turned his head, looked back to me and nodded. I could practically hear the groan in his expression. Welcome to leadership, I thought. Protecting your troops is all part of the job.

  Timo-Ran kept one hand on the pillar he was taking cover behind to keep himself from straying too far. “Hey,” he hissed, “hey!” Tila and Neb-Ka only managed to fight harder over the limited cover they’d found. I realized they hadn’t heard him at all, and he seemed to realize it too when he lifted his eyes to me, a worried expression on his face. Another shot, this one closer, caused Timo-Ran to duck and tuck himself close to his pole again. Tila and Neb-Ka struggled even more fiercely, and they began whispering harsh-sounding words at each other. I’d seen enough.

  Neb-Ka was twice Tila’s size. He should have seen it himself, left her there, and found better cover. Even if he were there alone, he wouldn’t be able to move without exposing himself. Now, both Ish-Nul were at risk. It only took me a moment to search for, find, and visually verify where he should be. It was time to move.

  “Stay here,” I said to Nyna. She gave me a look that told me she thought I was crazy to suggest she would do anything but stay nice and safe behind cover. I ignored her, drew my pistol, and pointed it toward where I’d heard the gunfire last. Then, I got up and strode across the street, gun held steady, Ebon still in its sheath.

  I got to Neb-Ka in three strides. He looked up at me a second before I grabbed a handful of his leather shirt and lifted him off the ground like a sack of groceries. Tila sneered at the man as I backed away toward the cover he should have taken. For a second, I was afraid she was going to kick him in the nuts.

  “Took care of a guard who had a bead on one of you,” Reaver said through the comm. “Looks like he was alone. He was drunk, or high, or something. And now, I have a rifle.”

  “Nice,” I replied.

  A few seconds later, I stood Neb-Ka up behind a heavy metal door, the only part left standing of a building that should have been torn down years ago. I planted him on his feet, none too nicely, and got right in his face.

  “Your job is not to save your own ass,” I growled, using the most intimidating voice I could muster. “Lesson one: your job is to save everyone else’s ass. Our job is to save yours. That’s the last time you get that lesson. If it’s your day to die, then it’s your day to die. Same with me. Same with our enemy. You get me?”

  He nodded, and the look in his eye was far from angry, offended, or hurt. It was shame. Good. Shame was self-directed. Shame was recognition he’d screwed up. Shame would drive him forward. It would be a lesson harsher than anything I could inflict on him.

  “Lesson two is this: our objective isn’t to die for our cause. It’s to make our enemy die for his.”

  His expression began to change from shame, to confusion, to a grim smile that made him look like a feral cat. It was perfect. I gave him a mostly friendly slap on his shoulder. He returned it, just as hard. That’s how men made up and remained friends.

  Moments later, I was back on my side of the street behind cover with Nyna.

  After a full minute, she peeked around her side of the pillar, looked around, ducked back, and turned to me.

  “Is it safe?” she asked. “Can we keep going?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Look around you. The locals are still hiding. There’s a reason for that. Always watch the locals. They know what’s what around here.”

  Not long after I spoke,, my suspicions were verified when I heard the thrumming of approaching hover-vehicles.

  “Incoming,” Reaver’s voice said in my ear. “Two hoverbikes. Looks like local law enforcement. I’m about 50 yards to your six. I’ve got you in sight. They just passed us. We weren’t spotted. Better hide the gun.”

  I took her advice and snapped my fingers to get everyone else’s attention. When they looked, I showed them I was concealing my gun and sliding Ebon completely back into its sheath. They got the hint and did the same with their own weapons, trying to look as harmless as possible, which wasn’t as easy for the tentacle-headed Beatrix. She tightened her tentacles to look as much like a tight bun as possible. We pretended to be jus
t another collection of concerned citizens waiting for law enforcement to save us.

  A few seconds later, two hoverbikes roared in from a side street and came straight for us. Their pilots were more of the one-eyed rushadas we’d killed when we’d rescued Nyna from the powerplant. They wore helmets that completely covered their heads, but the rest of their bodies were unmistakable leathery sacks of sinewy muscle.

  They carried short-barreled energy rifles, not the variety that had made the first noises earlier. If I killed the guards, I could take their weapons. My team could use them. I was the only one armed with anything for range. I wasn’t even sure the Ish-Nul knew how to use rifles, but a quick lesson could pay off huge dividends.

  Instead, I decided to wait and see what would happen. I made no move to draw Ebon or my pistol. The rushadas might take it as a threat and open fire first. I wasn’t worried for myself. I’d faced tougher odds against similar foes and knew how to handle myself. But I didn’t want them communicating back to their headquarters to call for more reinforcements.

  A moment later, another two shots rang out, soon followed by a third. The guards glanced at each other, probably speaking into their helmet communicators, and gunned their hoverbikes. They screamed past us, turned left around a tight corner, and disappeared from sight.

  “What’s going on?” Reaver asked.

  “Looks like they’re going after someone else,” I said. “Whoever’s shooting out there is about to—” My words were interrupted by the hiss of high-powered energy weapons discharging. “Correction: looks like someone just got what they were looking for, if what they were looking for was the attention of the police.”

  “Roger that,” Reaver said. “We’ll start moving when you do.”

  A few seconds later, the first dirty face peeked out from a creaking doorway into the street. It was soon followed by another a few buildings down. A third, the face of a small kakul—possibly the one Nyna had fed earlier—peeked around the corner of another building further down the street.

  “Now, we move,” I said to Nyna.

  She nodded and waved for the rest of the team to follow.

  I continued to guide the team in the direction of the most congestion. From what I could tell, the closer we got to the palace, the older the buildings became, and the more repairs and retrofits they’d been subjected to. It also meant our pace had to slow, as there were too many blind corners, obstructions, and sharp ends to watch out for.

  I could have cut my way through it all, but I couldn't tell what was important, what was powered, and what would fall down. Instead, we maintained our stealth.

  Reaver was having a more difficult time of it, though. As the buildings got closer together, her team was finding it difficult to keep us in sight. They were close enough that I caught a glimpse of one or all of them from time to time. Having our overwatch so near wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing.

  The palace came into view all at once. It was tall, but not as tall as some. It was wider than any building I’d seen within the city, though. Each of the two visible walls stretched to at least a thousand feet in width. It was well-constructed and looked like it could contain an entire town within its polished concrete walls.

  The exterior was tilted slightly inward as it reached for the sky, and, based on what I could see, I suspected it was octagonal in shape. From my vantage point, I also spotted a second tier, and possibly a third.

  There were no windows down low, but, starting about a third of the way up, the walls had horizontal indentations that were probably narrow openings. They traveled along the outside of the building in neat rows every twelve feet up to the top of the 100-yard-tall walls. It was an extraordinary amount of opulence compared to the city surrounding it.

  We’d approached on the side that seemed to have the main entrance. The palace was 50 yards away across open ground, which looked like it had been recently raked, then stomped into submission, then raked again. The dirt was parched and cracked. There weren’t even any weeds growing anywhere.

  There were two metal doors, the kind I used to see along the hulls of starships, and they presented a challenging obstacle. That, and the four-armed rushada guards, two hoverbikes, and mounted ship-sized energy weapon above the doors delivered the intended message loud and clear: Go away!

  I didn’t care about messages, though. Not when I had my own to deliver.

  “Damn,” Reaver said through the comm. “So, what’s the plan?”

  My plan was to charge ahead, draw fire long enough to allow the others to gain some distance, then take out the mounted energy weapon. The explosion would be enough to draw everyone’s attention, so I wanted to make sure my team was close enough to assist and help me get through the doors before reinforcements showed up.

  Immediately, my theory of plans existing basically to be changed was proven to be true, when reinforcements came ahead of schedule. Five large mechs came into view to my right. They walked close to the palace, weapons pointed toward the ground, so I didn’t think they were expecting a fight. They wouldn’t go down easy, though, so I began altering my plan in my mind, but had to change it again when something even more unexpected happened.

  As the heavy doors squealed open for the mechs, the third mech in the column suddenly turned on the fourth, kicked it between its legs, then punched it in its cockpit canopy. The others turned to see what was happening, already raising their weapons.

  “Surprise, poopy-heads!” the pilot of the third mech roared from its external speakers.

  I felt a wide grin spread across my face. Skrew, it seemed, had found a way in without attracting attention. I was growing more fond of this vrak every day.

  Chapter Nine

  The enemy guards turned to their left. The unexpected noise of one mech punching another was more than their discipline and training could manage. They raised their weapons, then lowered them almost immediately, unsure of what to do about the situation.

  “Hi, Jacob!” Skrew said over his external speaker. “Did try to hide for like said. But, someone did find. They say to come back. To get repair. So, did follow. Hold on.”

  Skrew picked up the mech he’d punched and set it back on its feet between himself and the others, who’d just started to raise their weapons. This way, Skrew could finish off the pilot inside the mech and use the unpiloted machine as a shield.

  “So, Skrew is here. Much smash, yes?”

  “Yes, Skrew,” I said over the comm. “Much smash!”

  Beatrix laughed, as did Reaver.

  “Shall we?” I asked both.

  “After you,” Beatrix said as she waved a hand toward the gate.

  I charged forward and shifted my pistol to my left hand so that I could draw Ebon with my right. The guards were jockeying for position, trying to get a clear shot at Skrew’s mech, but so were their allied machines. Skrew was an expert at causing confusion and mayhem.

  I wasn’t worried about the guards, even though I’d already learned how tough their kind could be. Nor was I particularly worried about the mechs, because Skrew was keeping them busy. My biggest concern was the huge, twin-barreled weapon slowly turning Skrew’s direction. Guns of that size were almost always found on capital ships or ships of the line. They were designed to punch holes in armor much tougher than any mech would be equipped with. If I didn’t take it out soon, Skrew wouldn’t last.

  I raised my pistol and held the trigger down to build up a charge. I wasn’t sure if there was any kind of invisible shielding around the gun, but a weapon like that was expensive to acquire, maintain, and power. If there was a shield, I had to destroy it right away. If there wasn’t, there was no such thing as overkill.

  Meanwhile, I caught a glimpse of Beatrix from the corner of my eye. She’d drop-kicked one of the guards, and as the creature skidded along the ground, she jumped on top of him like he was a skateboard.

  Just as I released the trigger on my pistol and sent a huge, sparkling ball of energy at the mounted weapon, i
t also released a shot. Two enemy mechs were vaporized on the spot. The one Skrew was using as a shield took only a minor hit, but the explosion of vaporizing metal was enough to knock him off his feet.

  My shot hit before the gunner could fire again. The bolt was absorbed by an energy shield that sparkled with gold-colored lightning before brightening so much that I had to look away. Several small explosions told me I’d destroyed the shield generators. I fired again, relying on muscle memory to aim, and was rewarded by the satisfying hiss-boom of capacitors going critical. When my vision cleared a moment later, the gun was on fire, and two guards who had been too close when the explosion happened were picking themselves off the ground, looking dazed. Another quick shot from my Fex-powered pistol caused part of the gun to explode and catch fire. The gunner fell to the ground with a thud, his burned, smoking flesh hissing on the way down. It was then I decided it was my favorite gun ever. I was impressed.

  The dazed guard on the left began growling and hissing at the others. He first pointed at Skrew, then at Beatrix. He was obviously the leader, and he was my next target.

  I shifted my aim and brought the sights in on the guard captain’s head, but before I could pull the trigger, his comrade stepped between us. So, I shot him instead. He fell to his knees, hung there for a moment, then fell to his chest into the dirt, which greedily began drinking his blood. The creature’s head looked like a burned taco shell.

  Two more guards approached from my right. I wanted to end the captain first, but he was backing up toward the rapidly closing entrance to the palace while his comrades were already rushing in, firing their weapons. The coward would have to watch his troops die until I could get to him.