by Chris Turner
Audra glided toward the last sleek mantis left at the docking grounds. She thrust open the hatch and entered the bridge, claiming it as her own. Better this than one of the Orbs. She could use this ship to pass through the Mentera ranks, thus avoid pursuit by her own kind.
A memory flashed in her mind: how Miko had made efforts to save her. Though grudgingly, he had followed through. She had seen it in the human’s eyes, the struggle, the indecision. But he had acted with resolve. What to do with him? An age of subjugation and molding, bending him to her will had passed, and gone. The familiar impulse to hunt him down still surged through her veins, but now a new awareness dawned. The splicing of their cells by the shipboard computer on the NAVO craft had bound them in ways even her superior Zikri intellect could not comprehend. It had led them on an epic chase through the galaxy. For what purpose? Time to end it. The open galaxy lay ahead of her, hers for the taking…she would leave behind this unnatural war and the ghastly ruins of her misguided race. She wanted nothing to do with Nrog and his upstarts, despising what they’d become, and what she’d become in part, and their flagrant acts of terrorism against Miko’s race.
Chapter 32
Regers’ eyelids fluttered open. Glass enclosed him on either side. His heavy limbs floated in a liquid matrix. Ahead, beyond the thick glass, two Zikri worked at a command console, along with one of those dinky little locust munchkins.
A dim memory surfaced in the back of Regers’ fuzzy mind. Of struggle, capture and pain. Deakes and Jennings, struggling in the iron-thewed motilators of squids like those that had hooked his own thighs, popping bone from sockets before he had slipped into welcome unconsciousness. The pain of snapping and searing agony had now gone.
A vague memory of cold green water lapped at his lank hair. Then drinking deep. A few lungfuls. Fighting, thrashing, to no avail. Then an eternal bath. A deep dive into silence infathomable.
Days, or perhaps years later, a snatch of awareness tickled his brain. He looked over to see Deakes suspended in a green tank on his left, Jennings on the right.
Well, he’d be a damned monkey! The three dumb-dumbs, side by each.
He could see squids still vaguely moving about somewhere ahead in the dim space of what looked like a ship’s bridge. So, he’d been transferred to a locust craft. He recognized the cryptic design, the alien markings, the stigma-like toggles, artificial grav box and cluttered, low-sloping console. But why squids on a locust ship?
His mind worked with agonizing slowness.
Reckon he’d busted up an arm and a leg fighting those damn slime-bitch squids. All healed from what he could see, though he could barely lift an arm or a leg in this heavy soup. No matter how hard he willed it, no luck. No pain, just a blank, brain-dead type of numbness.
The ship impulsed above Xares. In the large holoscreen set above the control panel, he recognized the smalt blue disc of the human-colonized planet spinning below. Regers also caught a glimpse of a butterfly-moth taking a chunk out of a Zikri Orb. The pieces of the puzzle started to make sense. There’d been some fuck-up during the transfer of prisoners and all available ships had been called to fight the war in space. These nice squids had obliged, got caught up in the middle of it.
Lordy Lord. What was this world coming to? Jennings over there, gaping with a fish-white gaze, his face as long as a lank lizard’s with a grimace to match, as if his mother’d puked all over his breakfast. Deakes looking like the ghost who denied Christmas, eyes two pissholes in the snow.
And what do you look like, Regers, you dumb ass fuck? Some princess at a honeymoon ball?
No, he wasn’t going to be trading gags with himself for the next million years. He had to get out of this glass, monkey cage.
Not so easy with one’s limbs quasi paralyzed.
The two squids jerked to some disturbance in the viewport and he imagined Zikri chatter gushing through the com speakers. The war must be going sour for the squids, they’d nowhere to run. All it took was one buggered up light drive and then it was all over. He’d known it himself.
Something slammed into the hull. The tanks vibrated at the impact. The squids and the lone Mentera jawed over it, not in good spirits, safe to say.
Why have bug tanks on the bridge, though? Oh, right…this was a bug ship, wasn’t it? The crew could plug in, recharge on the fresh meat within.
Regers, you’re slow on the draw here. Gears ain’t working properly.
The short Mentera bobbed over on its hind legs, to check on the prisoners. It paused to gaze in the tanks. Its locust head dipped, yellow tongue darting out in interest while pincers twitched. One lifted to stroke the glass, until it snatched suddenly at the black cable that connected to the top of the tank. It snapped the other end into its navel.
Regers’ eyes widened in horror. Not this tank, you grubby fuck! Pick Deakes, not mine.
But not to be. The locust hitched in, started to feed.
Regers slumped, feeling gutshot, as the Mentera lolled by the tank’s side. It drank deep of his life energy, all the while Regers felt his bone marrow being sucked out of him as if it swirled up a tube and down a drain. He felt a terrible lethargy, as the bug drained his bodily and mineral resources.
Another violent shock jarred the glass: a deeper hit on the hull that snapped the cable at the tank’s top and pitched the bug back on its heels. It cracked hard, chitinous carapace against the wall. The squids went careening backward against the tanks.
The glass shook. The tanks rocked, spilling water from the loose top of Regers’ prison where the cable was. Regers saw a small hairline fracture develop down near the bottom of his tank. Green brine seeped out of the crack. Not much, but enough to drain the tank, if given time. Regers’ face twisted in a leer.
Squids and locust scrambled back to the controls, oblivious of the seepage. The shoulder-high locust gestured at the others as if giving orders like a miniature overlord. One little munchkin giving two hulking squids orders. What was wrong with that picture? The squids seemed put out by the posturing and overweening command the locust had and were getting pissed, judging from the agitated wavering of their front tentacles. Shell fire flashed across the starboard shields. The lightfighter yawed. The tanks leaned on precarious angles, more water spilling out of the loosened plug tops. The Mentera ship slewed to port. The little munchkin ignored the warning. It seemed to be shrilling more orders at the Zikri. One of the brutes lashed out a stinging tentacle that sent the little dwarf flying. If Regers could have laughed he would have.
The Mentera leaped up on its hind legs in bristling anger and fumbled for its blaster. It shot out a beam, tagging the squid. Little bits of squid meat went three ways as it smashed back in a charred ruin, half its grotesque face now a sunken cavehole. Regers looked on, enjoying the sport. Its squid companion glided in and smashed the locust back against the wall, engulfed it in a sandwich of killing motilators. Not a pretty sight. Not before a green ray shot out like a greased eel and cracked Jennings’ tank. Jiminy spilled out, all hands and knees sprawled akimbo, spewing green brine as he choked for air.
If Regers could bend over and smack the glass with his metal fist, he could accelerate the seepage. But he couldn’t. The water paralyzed him. He could barely lift a finger or flutter an eyelid as it stood.
The squids were in trouble. Their well-wrought plans had gone to batshit, as somehow they hadn’t counted on the dragonflies, moths, whatever the fuck they were, kicking ass and wrecking ships—coupled with Dez’s insidious mechnobot armor, a lethal combination. Gave them the surprise of their lives.
The ship was failing. NOA was on their ass, no light drive or they’d have hyperdrived out of here long ago. At least, death was coming fast and all the prisoners would be bonfires rather than spend the rest of their days vegetating in a bug’s liquid bath.
Careful what you wish for, Regers. You’re not a master escapist for nothing. No reason to give up and die now.
The water was draining out at a faster rate. Lips p
eeled back, head exposed, Regers gave an oily smile, as now neck and chest lay bare.
He jerked a limb as more foul water gushed out of his mouth. Coughing out a briny mouthful, he clenched his teeth and winced. His head swam, arms and legs still immobilized by the paralyzing agency of the water and residual effects of the bug’s feeding. Now his waist was clear and he crumpled in a ragdoll heap, head dunked back in the water.
Before his head had dropped though, he caught a glimpse of Jennings creeping nearby, trying to get a finger on the dead locust’s gun. Good ole rat bastard Jennings! The ship lurched to a new attack.
The last squid worked its way back toward the console, jerking in desperate measures at the controls to save the craft from annihilation. Jennings halted, a shadow in the shadows, dripping brine. He was hunched and tensed, looking as if he knew he played a risky game should the squid turn and see him.
Life was returning to Regers’ limbs in painful tingles. Fresh invigorating strength. Renewed resolve.
The water had drained to eighteen inches. He crouched down to batter at the crack with all his might with a metallic fist. One strike. Two… The glass spiderwebbed, gurgling out the last bits of water. He staggered out, his left leg catching on a jagged shard of glass and drawing blood. The squid turned.
His target was the blaster before it could wrap glue-slimed motilators around him.
The squid chittered a torrent of obscene syllables and bobbed over to deliver Regers a killing squeeze.
Jennings lunged.
Regers scrambled on stiff legs. The squid caught his left leg and tripped him. He gave a cursing cry. Jennings snatched up the blaster and targeted the squid before it could glide toward him and crush him as it had the locust. The thing rolled back in a smoking ball, fore-motilators whipping out, chittering and twitching in a most obscene fashion.
Regers grinned as he choked out a mouthful of water. His head rang to a seashell roar. He shook the cobwebs out of his skull and struggled to drag himself to his feet by hooking fingers on the console. The ship’s defense gauge light showed shields dropping approximately to 30%.
He heard a choking cough behind him.
Jennings, scrabbling like a rat, pushing himself between console and locust gore.
“Not this time, Regers,” Jennings rasped. He aimed the gun in Regers’ direction.
Regers squinted, while a shadowy form moved out of the corner of his eye—a snaking tentacle, charred but not quite dead, unfurling out of the dim blue shadows by the artificial grav box.
“Jennings, you dumb fuck, look behind you!”
“Not falling for that trick, Regers. Get over there!” Jennings jabbed the gun, a luminous, blue, baton-like shape at Regers’ chest.
A slithering wisp of movement darted. Then a flick, like the snap of a whip. The squid that’d been gutshot, lifted Jennings in a bear hug and wrapped its two still functional motilators round his middle. Jennings gave a fierce squawk and writhed and thrashed in dismay, his face a blurred, horrified white rictus, feet kicking with all their might, heels slapping on a slime-pocked torso as lower tentacles tightened in their crushing grip. His lumo-weapon went flying aside, firing off a round, nearly taking off Regers’ head.
Regers ducked just in time. He snatched up the fallen weapon. In a wild instant, he blasted the squid, taking out chunks of tentacles, even as Jennings’ eyes bulged and his guts spewed from his mouth under the strangling pressure of the squid’s last death grip.
The thing flopped in a sprawled jelly mass, Jennings along with it.
Regers’ lips curled in a distasteful grimace. That gave way to a savage yell of insane triumph. He was king of this castle.
“Die you motherfucking, shit-eating squid!” In a blind frenzy, he blasted it full of green fire as it danced and jerked, screamed and burned. He dipped both hands in the smoking blood and guts of the open chest carapace and ripped out entrails, and squeezed with all the strength of his metal hand. Black guck ran through his fingers and down his arms. He did a little ballerina twirl, stumbled in his dizziness, fell, ran the warm thick goop over his cheeks while all the time laughing such that tears dribbled down his begrimed cheeks. His eyes glowed pools of dark, blazing madness. “Uncle Regers always gets the last laugh! HAHAHA! Hear me, you fucking squids? Happy birthday, fuckers. You can’t kill me. Try but you can’t, you shitweasels! I’m the big bad horse thistle that keeps growing in your back garden! Try to pull me out! Just try it, you fucks!”
Laughing in senseless glee, Regers stumbled over to the nav panel. He tugged at knobs, hammered buttons, glared, squinted, cursed, as sensor lights blinked with dusky luminosity and squiggles of color, as the battle raged on. LU destroyers went up in flames, and lightfighters, bright balls of crimson, followed suit. Not quite all together, he had no inkling how to work the controls. He puked out more green water, wiped his lips, gave a series of sour belches. But he’d figure it out, Uncle Regers’d figure it out, if he had to raise that ugly squid over there from the dead and force it to pilot this evil vessel. Might even be other locusts on this tub, or even an evac vehicle cached somewhere.
Deakes stared out of the glass like a pickled herring. The thug was still mashed up pretty bad. Better to keep him pickling for a while yet, Regers mused. Green witch water would do him some good. Had some healing power which only the alchemists knew about.
Regers’ left leg was throbbing badly from the fresh glass cut, but he’d suffered nothing compared to Deakes’s injuries, including a leg bent on an awkward angle and his side pretty gouged up, as if his guts’d spill out any moment. Flesh was stitching up nicely though. The miracle water would see to that. He watched Deakes struggle to raise a finger, not nearly succeeding.
Regers wagged a finger of his own. “Yeah, I know, Deakes. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Don’t be a crybaby. Your turn’s coming.”
His eyes sighted once again on the mangled form of Jennings sprawled off to the side beside the dead locust with half its bug head hanging off. The reek of those fetid bodies would soon stink up this crib and toxify it. “Fucking pigshit, cricket-shit mantis. Just a matter of flying this crate out of here. And you, Jennings, a sorry sight. Jiminy, I told you’d get your ass plugged back in a tank and killed.”
There Regers, had your rant. Now settle down and think this scenario through before you end up getting yourself completely fucked. No more Uncle Regers in this world is a sad world indeed. Besides, there’s a little matter of unsettled business to take care of.
Epilogue
Yul looked over the smoking ruins of the slums. Downed alien ships lay in the streets, crumpled Orbs and mantis lightfighters bombarded by enemy fire, their hulls buckled and their dark metal crushing tenements.
A flurry of footfall pounded from nearby. Human militia, dressed in body armor with E1s clutched in gloved hands hastened to gather the living. They rounded up survivors and tended to the wounded. Yul hustled Cloye and Fenli to a dozen aid soldiers stationed between two piles of debris. He volunteered their services. A heavyset soldier directed them to a small group heading out to look for others.
Yul lay a hand on Cloye’s shoulder. He peered into her grime-stained face. Her pale blue eyes shone back with a determined gleam. Fenli stared in a daze. The experiences of the day had rendered him a changed man.
More activity reigned in the skies. NOA submarine-shaped bombers slid by like eels: on the prowl for stray enemy to kill. But none were left. It looked as if the humans had won this war. Yul’s face was set grimly. He wondered how many more battles would come in the times ahead…
* * *
Thanks for reading! For more space adventure, read Jet Rusco’s saga in the STARSHIP ROGUE series.
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Dragon Sea Chronicles
Avenger: a swords and skulls fantasy
Icarus
The Huntress of Caerlin
Beastslayer
The Dragon of Skar
Denibus Ar
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