Alien Alliance Box Set

by Chris Turner

  The locust liquid? Possibly, but he was still damp now—or was. These questions swirled in his mind as he floated behind the creature as a bodiless entity, observing its questing tentacles, and raw, powerful flanks.

  The thing whirled about looking for him, head tilted back, tusked maw giving rise to a whining roar. The thing’s veiny eyes swam in their bulbous sockets, looking for its prey like a spider springing for an escaped fly.

  Miko floated back a pace, studying the creature curiously, like a scientist a lab experiment. Safe in his cloak of invisibility, he sensed his emotions settle, as if the event had never happened. His disembodied episodes always induced such calm. Why wouldn’t they? Without a body there were no worries. Of bodily harm. Of unsealed helmets and differing air qualities. It was peace and security. A place of feeling invincible.

  Miko debated whether he would pick up the blaster and end this violent aberration’s life. But no, too risky. If he were to suddenly morph back to solid form—the thing would snatch him and kill him.

  His space suit had been shredded beyond repair. The helmet was useless. The thing pawed at the place he had last been, sniffing at the broken glass suspiciously. A faint bluish glow continued to emanate from the surrounding walls, casting the monster in the most brutish light.

  He knew he had to lure the thing away from Star and Usk. He looked about for a means. The blaster, no. In the shadows, he saw the ship’s ghostly silhouette, balanced on rocks in a corner. It was a small Zikri rover, sporting twin stern fins, much different than the modern day Orbs. Its outerbody was dented and rusted, looking terribly ancient. It was of no use to him. With disappointment, he scanned for other possibilities. The walls were crumbling in places. It gave him an idea. With his astral will, he grabbed up several stone chips that had flaked from the wall, some no larger than pebbles. He launched one into the nearest side passage. “Ping.” The creature whirled about and loped over in anticipation. Aha! An easy way to bait the creature and draw it deeper into the complex. He had only to keep ahead a certain distance and propel more chips wherever he wanted to lead the thing.

  He glided around its hulking form and down the passage, only to discharge another.

  The stupid creature surged ahead, falling for the ruse.

  The presence of a ship here indicated there would be more of the same and that he was possibly near the honeycombed openings where he had first gained entry. A good sign, but, under the circumstances he must not transform back to human form. Almost as he divined the thought, Bzt. He could feel the painful solidity of body crowding back on him. Panic struck. He forced the violent emotion back in his memory, deep into his psyche. The crackling energy dissipated. Not fast enough. The thing had seen his shimmering and charged like a savage beast.

  He let it pass right through him. Miko brimmed with triumph. A further testament that his mutant powers could be controlled. He would have died then and there had he not been able to mentally will his emotions to keep him invisible. With restrained excitement, he resumed his earlier plan.

  While the thing snuffed about, tentacles wavering and polyped maw whining in frustration, he took care to lead it deeper down the shadowy corridor. Like a ghost, Miko drifted past more crumbling walls and on into another lofty hall of the proto-locusts. Surging ahead, he led the beast past more derelict ships, toppled alien statues and shattered tanks. Then he heard the echo of voices.

  Zikri chitters that he knew all too well. They echoed from a place deep within a side corridor. Miko quietly levitated a chunk of rusted metal that had fallen from a scavenged vessel. He projected the junk down the way. The creature lumbered in eager anticipation of its meal down the hall.

  The beginnings of delight stirred Miko’s resolve when he heard the tearing of flesh and rending of tusks. His bodiless grin curled from ear to ear.

  Time was ticking. There was much to do if he and the others were to survive.

  XARES: FINAL COUNTDOWN

  BOOK V

  Chapter 1

  Something had startled Star: a sound, some movement, a sinister and deadly rustle in the murk of the god-forsaken tunnels hewn by alien hands. A thick sweat clung to her skin, dripping down her neck and onto the small of her back. She lifted her blaster. Her long blond hair fell limp, in damp clumps down her slim shoulders. The air in her suit was humid and close and would be running out soon. Maybe better that the nightmare was over quickly, that she die here before she was caught and plunged into one of those horrible tanks.

  Usk, her locust ally, one of the Mentera race, hung suspended in the luminescent green fluid of one of the eerie tanks in front of her. His locust-shaped head lolled, protected in a kind of scratched and dented grey helmet. A dark red smear ran along the edge of his insectoid brow. The other three tanks were unserviceable, either cracked and drained of their water, or contained alien creatures she could not bear to look at: with horns, pincers and claws the only barely-recognizable features. Usk, human size, bobbed upright in his glass tank like a lab specimen. Though she loathed the very sight of the alien aquarium, she took two steps closer, reached out a trembling hand to the glass. The locust blinked, slowly lifted an answering pincer up in response. Now human finger and locust claw touched on either side of the glass in a classic pose of friendship. The locust’s space-suit was shredded, the wounds underneath considerable. The last battle against the Zikri squids had not been kind to the locust, but his hurts were fast healing in the brine. The liquid was like an elixir, some kind of ancient balm of alchemists long dead. It healed flesh and injury like quicksilver flowed over land. Miko and she had seen to it, dunking Usk in the alien liquid before Miko had left to discover a source of replacement oxygen and ways and means off this dismal world.

  The pale water rippled in response to Usk’s feeble movements. The liquid itself emitted its own eerie greenish glow. A companion locust drifted at his side with unseeing eyes, seemingly dulled from his long captivity in the brine. The stuff, Miko’d told her, had a faint odor like sulfur and peat and something else mixed in. She did not have to remind herself that it was the same brine in which other Mentera could feed off a captive like vampires.

  Miko had left her to guard Usk, that the locust should not fall prey to the squid-like Zikri. Damn Miko! She had never felt so alone in her life! Or vulnerable. These creepy tunnels were too much for her to bear. Around every corner lurked death. She was no warrior. No soldier of fortune or freedom fighter like the tales spoken of in the holo books, those crusaders of justice on the fringes of the known universe. Forced, more like it, into this wild, insane venture. Woe the day she had accosted Miko in a desperate plan to get off her home planet, miserable as it was. Followed him into the ‘Grand Skull’ casino in Skullrox City and practically thrown herself at him. Had she known she was getting herself into this hellhole, she would have gladly kept her old, boring life, rather than face the predacious menace of the Zikri on this dismal world Kraetoria.

  She stared in horror as several dim forms glided out from the far end of the chamber—Zikri! with their flashing tails and grotesque tentacles, making squishy sounds as they moved, chittering in their abominable voices. On the most furtive of feet, Star ducked in behind a rock pillar, the full weight of terror catching up with her.

  How they could survive in this environment without protective suits defied reason…their physiology must be super resilient, or capable of adapting to the thin atmosphere and extreme temperature by metabolic or convectional phenomenon beyond her grasp.

  The creatures came in twos and threes, gliding without effort on six tentacles and what could have passed for a set of two hind, lizard-like feet. She crept back deeper behind the cold stone tucked under an overhang of rock. Her heart pounded. Her blaster lay clutched in a quivering hand. Should she use that weapon, even a single burst, the brutes would be alerted and she would have the full wrath of them upon her. Perhaps that was the most frightening thing. Gang-attacked by a monstrous brood of unknown genus, knowing firepower alone would not
annihilate them. And yet, she could not let them just maul Usk and do god-knows what to him. She hesitated.

  Perhaps a second too long.

  A slithering tentacle shot out, leaving a trail of slime across her faceplate. She blasted the first of them full in the face, sending black and grey squid parts airborne in squishy, bloody heaps. Another scrabbled forward, incensed at the death of its peer. It curled a slime-pocked member around her waist and whirled her around. The shriek died in her throat. Seeing that loathsome thing’s dusk-grey rubbery face feet away from her sent her into a mad panic. She lifted her E1. Fired point blank. The offending appendage hung limp and half severed, but the rubber-jellied torso came waddling after her. More came in ever fiercer numbers. She scrambled back, a strangled cry catching in her throat.

  She clutched her weapon, spraying fire, but a part of her knew it was hopeless. The fiends would surely capture her and kill her. Usk was lost. Though a renegade of his own kind, he had been a valiant ally of her and Miko since the beginning. She caught a brief movement out of the corner of her eye: a Zikri probing with sucker-marked tentacles into Usk’s tank, hauling him aloft and glaring at him with a nearly eyeless face. The gobbling gullet of a mouth twitched.

  That Usk should fall to these creatures now, after all his courageous efforts, seemed ridiculously unfair. But then, what ever was fair in this nightmarish world ruled by squids and locusts?

  Star ran down a tunnel, cutting corners, weaving in and out, trying to evade the creatures fast on her heels. The slightly lower gravity was not helping. It made her overshoot. She banged into walls and pillars of natural rock, wreaking havoc on her scuffed suit, buffeted body and bruised skin.

  She recalled the grim prophecy of the Masters, imparted by the proxy left behind to continue the legacy of that cold, clinical diseased race, one that claimed to have created the Zikri and the Mentera. She shuddered.

  Where in hell was Miko?

  Chapter 2

  Regers frowned down at the nav console on Xaromar’s bridge. “Amazing this rustbucket is even fly-worthy,” he grumbled. “Those gauges ain’t looking too good, Creib. Sure, this ship’ll make it to Phallanor?”

  Creib patted the console with a proprietary air. “She’ll get us there, Regers, you’ll see.”

  Regers grunted. He smoothed out the lank black hair falling over his receding hairline and turned aside. Confidence. That’s what he liked in a crew member. Didn’t much like Creib though—too much of a fat boy and a crybaby. Yet he’d keep him in this loose Robin Hood-gone-bad outfit, so long as the chips were favorable. Deakes and Vincent were fine, working away at the weapons grid, perfect Rambo types for this sort of situation. Deakes the older of the two, balding, thickset, saw eye to eye with Regers. Vincent was a close second with his schoolboy face and trim brown curls. Ramra, the stocky Jakru with budding horns protruding from his temples, worked sensors and com console, a good yes man with medium to fair intelligence, loyal to the core. Jennings or ‘Jiminy’ as he called him, the fair-haired puritan, was the acting science officer or engineer. He’d already used up two, get-out-of-jail-free cards. One more slip and he’d set him loose at the next hub. Maybe troll one of the dives offworld for a replacement. Thugs galore down there. Possibly he could get by with only four recruits. The idea struck a chord. A lot of catchup to do in the next few days.

  Regers went over his ideas in his mind, how many explosives he’d need, neurotoxins, sniffers, poison drops, assault rifles, compact flares, the like. A man couldn’t be too careful in these troubled times with murderous squids jetting around in their war Orbs and those filthy locusts with their creepo, slimy tanks. He’d slipped up once, got caught by the squids, betrayed by one of his own, that motherfucker Yul, and thrown into a bug tank to die. But that would not happen again. No, not ever. And when dear old Yul and his pals met for a sit down face to face with Uncle Regers, there’d be a fierce reckoning.

  Regers relaxed. He flexed his replacement hand. Let the blood simmer down, Charlie. Too much angst was not good for the heart. He laughed. Understatement of the year.

  Regers stroked the fake skin on his left hand. The prosthetic looked realistic enough, fingers, nails, the whole deal. Never would he have guessed that hand was once a mutilated mass of jelly after the giant heptadoria had near chewed it off in the Mentera tank he was stuck in down on Phebis. He gritted his teeth. The strength of his new mechanical hand was greater than his normal grip, compliments of modern day technology. Hell, why didn’t they make all men titanium these days? Regers shrugged off the macabre thought. Heads would roll for that grisliness down there on Phebis in the crashlanded Zikri Orb. Lucky he had escaped and reached Alastra station in time to replace the lacerated flesh and have the clinic people install a working prosthetic. Had to dig into the bottom of his savings, what little was left now in his universal bank account.

  Next stop, Phallanor City. CEO Mathias had a little explaining to do himself, that same fuck who owed him for the contract out in The Dim Zone. If Yul, his faithless crew mate who’d abandoned him on the Orb, had made it back and delivered the alien plant specimens, Uncle Regers was owed his share. If not—well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Maybe big cheese Mathias of Cyber Corp would compensate him for his injuries incurred. Even contract him for some other work. Though this time he would not sell himself as cheaply.

  “We need supplies for this next gig,” Regers muttered. “Probably get ’em down on Phallanor, if we’re lucky. I sprung for food for a few days. Anybody with a few hundred yols in their back pocket?” He grinned.

  Blank stares greeted him.

  “It was a joke.” Regers mooned his eyes, exhaling a weary breath.

  “Not me, boss,” said Vincent after a time. “You know me, penniless to the end.” He turned to the others. “Anyone up for a couple of robberies to help pay for Regers’ replacement hand?—and some food to spare for a few starveling travelers?”

  Regers curled his lips. Threadbare funds. This little rogue posse was operating on a shoestring budget. “You’re reading my mind, Vincent. There’s hock shops everywhere that’ll likely go in for a bit of trade.”

  Jennings opened his mouth but Regers silenced him. “Before you start preaching about the sins of theft, Jiminy, let’s get on with the program. Get me full diagnostics on Xaromar—also a full report on probable heists on the nearest worlds, Delta sector. Robot parts, household bots, drifting ships, anything salvageable. We move a serial number here or nameplate there, strip out some general signatures, make it clean, saw off some circuits that don’t belong and pawn the wares off at the nearest hock shop. Should raise us enough capital to keep us afloat for a time—especially for this next venture.”

  Jennings tapped keys on the console with little enthusiasm.

  Regers coughed. A dry chill ran up his bones. He shivered and gripped the butt of the black, ten-inch E1 at his belt. Ever since he’d come out of the Mentera tank, he felt as if he were in withdrawal from some evil drug. This bridge space was too cramped for his tastes. Grainy holo screens scattered everywhere, low-tech scanners, various other equipment too, and instruments squeezed into a widening L, with dual viewports in fore, Captain’s chair set in back. Low ceilings made for a tight space even for midget Daulks. What he wouldn’t give for a seat on Albatross again, the state-of-the-art Alpha-explorer that Mathias had commissioned them for that doomed mission out in The Dim Zone. Xeses the uncharted alien world, with its strange, quivering plants and flitting moths, had been a lark. But the ship was dead, back on that forsaken moon Phebis in the belly of a Zikri pirate Orb, like the rest of his crew members. This lightfighter was a cozy fit for six. He preferred the roomier V-Zon cruisers or XL-4 explorers. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. This old Daulk model, captured by the Zikri squids who knows how long ago, had sat chained there in the Orb, until his boys had blowtorched it free and started her engines. Still, he’d have to thank his luck they got the lightfighter operational, otherwise they’d have been Zikri fodder. He kn
ocked his metal hand on the steel nav for good luck.

  Jennings turned and whipped back his blond-grey hair. His pale eyes glowed. “Deep profile scan indicates Varwol light drive showing a fluctuation of gamma andredine.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means we’re losing pressure of atoms—the ones firing on her radial-core. If they don’t fire at a specific rate, we get warp fatigue or Varwol misfire then are kicked out of hyperdrive.”

  Regers groused. “‘Varwol misfire’ or some shit like that. Hmmn, Jiminy. Sounds bad. Good thing we have you along to explain it.”

  “Any pursuit by the squids or Class B Orb action?” demanded Deakes.

  “Negative,” muttered Creib. “No such activity.”

  “Good, Creib, keep watching,” Regers advised. “I don’t trust those squidly beasts not to have some new gadget for tracking us.” He grimaced. “We gave them hell down there on the Orb but they could come back and squeeze the love out of us.”

  “How long to Phallanor?” asked Ramra.

  “0600. Give or take a half hour, depending on how our andredine fares.” Jennings murmured into his scraggly beard. The man was still dressed in his blue spacer uniform from when he was nabbed by the Zikri squids aboard his Aldebaran freighter. “I still say we go to the nearest New Order Alliance base and report all this…the Zikri war Orb and the horrors aboard and everything else we’ve seen. There were a hundred men and women down there floating in tanks, still alive in suspended animation, though god knows how. Who knows how many more in other bays.”

  Regers knew how many more there’d been as he’d scouted the lower levels before smashing the glass tanks to release his current crew members…those victims’d numbered around eight hundred.

  “I say we don’t, Jiminy. We’ve been through this before. We’re not the pirate police or any do-gooder Samaritans. You just sit tight.”