Crimson Strike

by Peter Bostrom

  On my right, Rand was once more glued to his mini data pad, striking its surface so hard I thought he’d crack the screen. Apparently, his patent filing still wasn’t going anywhere. The constant bumps in the road probably weren’t improving his mood.

  Lopez was sitting with her torso twisted toward me. I began to smile, expecting her to let loose a barbed response to this prick of a soldier. But that smile quickly vanished when I saw that she had actually turned herself to stare blankly out of the transport’s long, thin window.

  I looked back at the soldier and narrowed my eyes. “Listen, I didn’t abandon anyone to get bumped up a rank. And I sure as hell didn’t call up the Dominion and ask them to please send a hundred more troopers to kick us while we were down. I did whatever it took to get rid of those bastards. If my my actions were awesome enough to scare the Dominion into sending more troopers and happened to get me noticed by Peacekeeper Central at the same time, then I guess that’s something I’ll have to live with.

  The soldier smirked. “She said you’d say that.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out the side of my mouth before holding up my Power Glove. “You see this? I didn’t ask for it. Well, technically I did ask for the glove, but not the … glowing gems. Anyway—just because your dinosaur brain is too small for philosopher’s stones, magical weapons, and a maintenance peon getting promoted to sergeant, well … don’t take it out on me.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” I continued, “it’s that I’ve been given great power.” I paused for dramatic effect. “And with great power … comes great responsibility.”

  Another soldier with a dark complexion and thick black eyebrows snorted loudly from the front end of the bench. “I’d like to hear you say that to the families of the good soldiers you put in jeopardy and let die out there while you were busy trying to get promoted.”

  Eyebrows turned his head slightly toward me and said, “Now, letting dirty civilians die, I can understand.”

  This got a good chuckle from several of the soldiers. He continued, lifting his plasma rifle and motioning it toward the window, “Look—that dirt-faced civvie out there’s the spitting image of Walker.”

  More laughs. I turned and saw us rumbling past a middle-aged man with an enormous gut and a stained beige tank top, sitting on something that was more reinforcement tape than chair.

  Rand finally looked up from his data pad, turned to the window, and shook his head. “Government housing projects as far as the eye can see. And by the unsurprising state of their inhabitants’ health, I don’t think it’s necessary to make an argument for the amount of damage that government involvement can do.”

  Leave it to Rand to turn a routine drive toward a potential battle zone into an object lesson on the hazards of big government. But I couldn’t get sidetracked now—I’d just been insulted.

  I turned to face Eyebrows and said, “At least I don’t look like an Easterling.”

  The soldier’s dark eyebrows knitted together so closely that they looked like an obese caterpillar having convulsions. “A what?”

  “Swarthy men, east of Mordor, enemies of the Free Peoples. Evil-looking sons-of-bitches.”

  The soldier snorted loudly. “Fantasy freak.”

  I clenched my fists so tightly I thought the gems on my glove might pop off. Before the Dominion invasion, I wouldn’t be caught dead saying something so clearly fantastical. But more and more, I’d let things like this slip. And the result was always the same—pure a-hole-iness.

  As I took a deep breath to let these idiots have it, I thought I heard a faint, familiar sound in the distance—something like the beautifully chaotic music of an orchestra tuning their instruments. I cocked my head to try and place the source, when suddenly the transport swerved hard to the left, pressing my crew against the wall and flinging the other squad off of their bench and toward ours. We noisily untangled ourselves and peered out the long, thin window which was partially obscured by an armor plate.

  Suspended in the air several meters ahead of our transport was a large, shimmering, rainbow-colored portal—exactly what we’d been sent to find.

  6

  THE SHIMMERING CIRCLE ahead of us swirled with bright ribbons of red, yellow, blue, and a seemingly infinite combination of those colors—like a rainbow fairy rave. It was made even more striking by the distant, dimming octagonal panels that made up the walls and ceiling of the city’s biodome. The shining object was about three meters in diameter and hovered close to a meter off the ground. This was why I had heard familiar music in my head just before we swerved—an oculus had opened once more from some other place. It was like a giant eye peering into my soul, calling me toward it, but luckily, the reinforced armor plating on the transport’s side kept me back. I’d seen—and heard—several of these during my last encounter with the Dominion. It meant something was about to hit the fan.

  But what was an oculus doing here, inside the biodome? All of the others had opened in spaces without any atmosphere. Something was different this time. And to be honest, I was a little scared.

  “Guess we won’t be needing our surface suits, after all,” I said.

  “That’s too bad,” Lopez said with her face pressed up against the window. “The unisex design is really flattering.”

  True to form, the undulating surface of the rainbow-colored portal was quickly interrupted by several armored figures pouring out of it and onto the street. They wore rounded, off-white armor, topped by a smooth helmet with a dark, T-shaped visor and trailing a bright red cape. A small, rounded metal shield was fixed to one of their forearms, which glowed a faint purple. And as soon as they landed, they raised their crossbows and began firing glowing red arrows at the transport.

  “Eggheads. We meet again,” I murmured.

  “Quickly—everyone out,” Lieutenant Stanton ordered in his crisp British accent as he opened the double doors at the transport’s rear and hopped down onto the road. “Take defensive positions and stay on comm.”

  The transport shook from the impact of the arrows—some of them were clearly explosive. Dominion crossbows with two crosses emblazoned on the handle were fun to shoot, but not so fun when someone else was doing the shooting.

  Stanton’s squadron shoved us aside as they quickly filed through the doors after him. Those without rifles removed their plasma pistols from their holsters and held them at the ready as they dropped to the ground. At the same time, I heard the driver’s door slam shut to join the others outside.

  As my crew waited for the mass of soldiers to exit, I pulled out a small canvas bag from behind me. I rubbed the spot where one of the high-density nutrient bars inside had been poking into my lower back. Earlier, I had downed a galactic-sized package of extra potent Twizzle Stix on my way to the transport to give my philosopher’s stones an energy boost, but I never left home without my snack pack.

  I tucked the small bag into the space between the edge of the seat cushion and the transport’s wall and looked back up through the vehicle’s narrow window. I counted nine standard Dominion troopers firing at us before a tenth emerged who looked different from the others. He wore olive green armor, a bright red cape with gold trim along its edges, and instead of a crossbow, he held a writhing, glowing red whip.

  “Aw, hell. Looks like they brought a commanding officer with them. Lopez—you’re tactical support. Lock up and let us know if anything weird happens.”

  “Well, ‘weird’ has sort of lost its meaning by this point,” Lopez said as she scrambled to the front of the transport. “But I’ll keep you posted.”

  Kovac, Rand, and I activated our in-helmet comm units, hurried out of the back, and slammed the doors shut. The other soldiers were huddled behind the corner of the transport, rapidly firing plasma rounds at the Dominion troopers and cursing loudly. Two of Stanton’s soldiers already lay dead on the ground with arrows sticking out of their bodies.

  Dammit—I was probably going to get blamed for their deaths now,
too.

  “Plasma slugs keep bouncin’ off their damn shields!” One of the other soldiers yelled over the comm as she ducked to reload her rifle.

  “Why don’t you just take their shields away?” I responded. She looked up at me, her mouth turned down.

  “Oh, that’s right—you can’t without a Power Glove,” I said, sticking my chest out. “Looks like you need a ‘fantasy freak’ to bail out your sorry asses.”

  I put a foot on the rear fender of the transport, grabbed the corner of the vehicle, and pulled myself up so I was roughly a meter above the other soldiers. I peeked around the corner and saw the Eggheads standing shoulder to shoulder in two rows—the first row was on one knee, glowing purple shields drawn, and were deflecting the pale blue plasma blasts of my fellow soldiers. This created a lumpy barrier for the row of troopers behind them, who were firing glowing red arrows at us Peacekeepers. A clever move on their part.

  I summoned the up-tempo tune with drums and electric guitar, threw imaginary golden lassos of truth around the shields of the five troopers on the front row, and yanked them off. My fellow soldiers cheered, apologized for how they had treated me on the transport, and offered to buy me drinks so I could tell them the story of how I used my newfound powers to defeat the Dominion on Pluto.

  At least, that’s what I expected to happen. Instead, the soldiers lurched forward momentarily, but quickly recovered. Great—it looked like the Dominion had learned from their last attack and had fastened their troopers’ shields directly to their armor.

  To make matters worse, a Dominion trooper fired an arrow that struck Eyebrows in the shoulder. Even over his scream, I could hear the high-pitched whine coming from the arrow that grew louder and louder as he tried to pull it out.

  But it was too late.

  “Everyone move!” I yelled as I looked away and tightened my grip on the transport.

  Only a few of the soldiers listened to me and leapt away from the screaming soldier. The rest looked on in horror. A moment later, the arrow exploded, knocking several soldiers onto their asses.

  Eyebrows lay on his back, his eyes wide and staring blankly ahead. One of his arms and part of his chest were missing. Poor guy.

  It was on me now to figure out a way for our plasma slugs to do any damage to these egg-headed bastards. So, I reached up, grabbed the metal ridge above the transport’s rear doors, and pulled myself up onto the vehicle’s roof.

  “Walker, what on earth are you doing?” Stanton’s voice sounded higher-pitched than before.

  “Trust me,” I replied.

  I quickly sounded the music that activated my rod-sword and began deflecting a barrage of glowing arrows by swinging it in short, tight yellow arcs of light. Once again, I summoned the drum-heavy tune of my glove’s orange gem, then imagined the same five golden lassos as before. Only this time, I wasn’t holding the lassos. Now, they were attached to a nearby streetlight—one of the few that worked properly along this road. The lassos dangled downward and were twirling in the air above the Dominion troopers, picking up speed by the moment.

  “Get ready to fire on my mark!” I said over the comm to my fellow soldiers.

  “Pardon me?” Stanton asked.

  “Just listen to Walker!” Kovac yelled to Stanton and the others as he tucked his large, brick-sized vibro-hammer into its holster on one side, pulled out a plasma pistol from a holster on the other, and leveled his weapon at the enemy line.

  I stopped the lassos’ rapid twirling and once again flung them around the shields of the front-row troopers. This was the moment of truth.

  “Now!” I shouted.

  This time, the lassos yanked the troopers’ shields toward their anchor point on the streetlight above them. And because the shields were firmly attached to the troopers’ arms, the first row was now crouching with their shielded arms raised high over head, exposing them to my fellow soldiers.

  Pale blue plasma slugs struck the troopers, the black entry holes now ruining the symmetry of the insignias in the center their off-white chest plates: a small blue circle above a stylized yellow sun, below which extended a vertical line that was crossed by eight short horizontal lines.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to puzzle any more over the meaning of the Dominion’s symbol, because Lopez’s voice sounded in my helmet.

  “Um, Walker—I think you have incoming.”

  There was a loud thump as the transport I was standing on rocked. I turned and saw the olive green armored commanding officer crouching on the opposite end of the roof, his glowing red whip sizzling as it writhed along the vehicle’s gray metal surface.

  Holding my glowing sword at the ready, I quickly stretched my hand out toward the whip and, using the power of the orange gem, tugged quickly at the trooper’s weapon.

  The whip quivered a bit, but remained firmly in my opponent’s grasp. Dammit—the small philosopher’s stone powering the whip was strong enough to bind itself to the trooper. He shook his helmeted head slowly, drew the whip back behind his shoulder, and snapped it forward.

  I ducked and the whip tore through the space where my neck had been. A split second later later, the luminous red cord sprang back toward the trooper. With the whip now in front, he began twirling its glowing length before him in intricate, burning patterns that hung in the air for moments before fading. This guy clearly had experience. All I had was the memory of space warrior vids and a couple mediocre picture books about said space warriors. Damn the Great Corporate Wars—my life would be so much easier if I could use the actual name of the franchise without the fear of serving a life sentence in prison.

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I didn’t stand a chance against this guy.

  That’s when I remembered something from a different show—one where the hero wore a wide-brimmed fedora, ran from boulders, and watched people’s faces melt. I remembered a scene where this hero was up against a man in black who was doing a bunch of awesome moves with his sword and it was clear that the villain would totally destroy the hero in a sword fight. Then, our hero did something unexpected to turn the tables.

  As the trooper kept twirling and swirling his glowing whip, I took a deep breath.

  I lowered my rod-sword, and quickly raised my Power Glove with my thumb extended and pointed my index finger at the olive officer. I summoned the low, ominous marching tune of my glove’s red stone—the one I hadn’t quite mastered yet. It was risky, but I didn’t exactly have another option at this point.

  When the trooper saw me lower my weapon, he cocked his helmeted head and halted his whip demonstration.

  Still pointing at him with my Power Glove, I quickly brought my extended thumb down.

  “BEEOOW!”

  A thick bolt of crimson energy shot from my finger with a loud crack. The trooper stood in the exact same position as before, only now there was a gaping hole where the center of his chest had been. His whip faded as he leaned to the right and tumbled off the transport’s roof.

  My self-congratulation ended before it could really begin, when a loud crackling noise sounded from somewhere directly ahead of me. About a block beyond where the trooper had stood moments before, I saw a power converter station with a hole in its side. Bright blue-white arcs of electricity raced across its surface before it erupted in a shower of sparks.

  Oops.

  Lopez’s voice came loudly over the comm device in my helmet. “Walker, get your ass down here!”

  “I didn’t mean to!” I said quickly. “I swear I’ll pay for it.”

  “What?” Lopez said, pausing for a moment before she continued. “No—just come down here. Now!”

  My eyes darted down to the battle just below me and I saw Kovac, Rand, Stanton, and a few of his soldiers firing plasma slugs and slowly advancing on the three remaining Eggheads. It looked like we had things under control. So what was Lopez’s deal?

  But then I looked just beyond the remaining troopers and toward the portal they had emerged from—it looked like it
had gone dark. As I leaned in to look more closely, I saw a small spiky patch of color along the top edge of the oculus and another short, thin strip of color running up from the bottom. Maybe the portal’s light was fading away—shutting down because we’d taken out most of their troopers.

  But then the narrow bands of rainbow light quivered slightly and I gasped involuntarily. That’s when it hit me.

  The color from the oculus wasn’t fading. It was obscured in shadow—a shadow in the unmistakable shape of a massive creature.

  7

  A HAIRY BROWN monster shot out of the oculus and landed on all fours with a snarl. It was huge—even larger than Kovac, which was saying something. But aside from the shaggy fur and canine facial features, it was surprisingly human-like.

  I’d watched enough twentieth-century vids with my dad to know a werewolf when I saw one. Granted, this creature didn’t possess the chiseled abs and perfectly white teeth one would expect, but it did check enough other half-wolf, half-human boxes that I could still call it a lycanthrope shapeshifter with full confidence.

  The crouching monster turned its head to reveal a hairless scar across one eye. It sniffed deeply several times and then snapped its fanged muzzle in our direction. It rose slightly, arched its neck toward the biodome’s starless sky, and let out a long, low howl. I felt my stomach go rock hard. It had been quite a while since humans had been prey to wild animals, but apparently my DNA remembered just fine.

  Judging by the stiffness of the other Peacekeeper soldiers in front of me, they’d felt the same primordial chill. That is, all except for Kovac. Rand had gone paler than usual, but he seemed even more terrified by being too far away from Kovac, so the two of them kept charging forward. Seeing this, the other soldiers soon dropped their shoulders slightly and tightened their grip on whatever weapon they were carrying. I felt a surge of hope as I watched these valiant warriors—though it might have just been the adrenaline in my system—and squared myself toward the oculus. Collectively, I was pretty sure we could take on a lone werewolf.