"I see. In that case, you can assume it’s already arranged. The families might throw around threats and accusations, but I will stand behind you, or in this case, in front of you. I will be your shield and your benefactor. However, do not forget what you promised. You will owe me, and I do not ask for small things."
"Agreed. Unless you order me to kill myself, Lady Death, some of my other friends or anything similar."
"You are bad at this, huh?" Mikhail laughed. "You shouldn’t do any more negotiations once the time arrives. People are scheming and plotting scum. Have Lady Death do the negotiations once you return. Now, there’s one last thing I’d like to know. Why do you have two Armament signatures radiating off your body?"
I grinned, finally able to show off some importance.
"I’m housing two of them. Both Lucifer and Khepri. You should see me in—"
"Never use that name again! My brother is dead to us! Is that understood?" Mikhail boomed and slammed his fist against the table. Instead of shattering, the piece of metal slammed right through the floor and down into the hangar bay."
"We won’t," Gremory interjected quickly. I could feel Devil stir in me as his brother lost it for a moment. He wanted to be let out to do battle, but we both knew it was far too weak. Maybe one day I’d witness that battle. However, that day was not today.
"I apologize, benefactor," I quickly added. Surprisingly, Mikhail’s demeanor shifted back to his former happy go lucky attitude.
"No offense taken, child. Once you’re above Earth, make sure you’re seen wielding both Armaments. It will only add to your reputation."
"Oh? How come you’re so interested in us getting the upper hand?"
Mikhail shrugged.
"That’s not for you to know, and you won’t be getting the upper hand, but it will be quite amusing to see the looks on their faces when a double awakened human shows up. Now, how about you repair your ship and come home? Earth will await you in two weeks. Until then, everyone will have seen the videos your ‘ship’ gave me. Oh, and just for the information, Cafka showed me something different, but I saw through it very quickly."
"Thank you, Mikhail," I said and offered him my hand.
"Until then," he said, disappearing from the command center with a bright flash.
"Sensors?" Gremory snapped.
"Our sensors can’t see anything. It’s as if he was never even here."
I cursed, understanding what shit we’d gotten ourselves into.
"Imagine if it had been Ariel. We’d be dead by now for sure. She doesn’t tolerate any deviations from the norm. If we were slated to be destroyed, she would have done so with her own hands."
"Fuck that. We need to become much stronger. I don’t want to live and die according to someone’s whims. Any suggestions?" I asked, staring at Gremory.
She shrugged. "How about you go and clear out the Gebradim ship. Eat whatever you can and kill whatever you can. Once you’re up to tier two, your power will skyrocket compared to now."
"Very well. Come on," I said, looking at Samson and Levi. "It’s time to show me you aren’t a waste of good parasites."
Chapter Twenty
The hole in our hull which the Gebradim ship opened up, was welded shut. Still, the sight of the enemy hull inside our ship and the groaning of metal made the hairs on my back stand upright. The round, dark brown of their ship was quite stark in contrast to our sleek and light grey build. Not that it mattered much in the end, as the better man, or race, in this case, had survived and come on top.
I was surprised to see a familiar face down there once I’d stopped staring at the strange sight. It was BC Aiden. He noticed my surprise and grinned.
"You should have seen my surprised face when my former Lieutenant assigned me this post. I didn’t know if I should feel insulted or grateful," Aiden said, offering me his right hand. I shook it firmly and replied with a smile of my own.
"She and Gremory make a mighty fine team if I may say so. They’re wickedly smart and know how to organize both people and things," I replied, pulling him to the side. "So, how’s it been here the last couple days?"
Aiden shrugged. "Good, I guess. They never tried attacking since we welded the hole shut. Which is a good thing I suppose.
I nodded at his reply and looked back at the walls.
"They sure look thick. How the hell are we going to blast through?"
"What do you mean, Commander? Blast through where?"
"Through the door, BC. I need to board the enemy ship and kill everything that's left alive."
"There’s no need to blast through, Commander. For some reason, no matter what we’d tried, a port of their hull wouldn’t weld. There’s a hole big enough for you to pass through over there," Aiden pointed at a hole in the plating amidst four gun emplacements. A full battalion of soldiers was arranged around them in a defensive position. Not that they’d be any good against a tier two parasite.
"Show me," I said and bee lined toward the hole. Aiden stopped me and ordered some of the soldiers to check ahead.
"Clear!" one of the soldiers shouted before dropping down the hole, followed by three more. "All clear! The enemy is still arrayed on the far side!" the soldiers reported over our comms.
"It’s been like this since the moment they lost the battle," Aiden whispered as if afraid someone might hear him. "They’re dug in on the far end of the ‘corridor’ as we call it. We haven’t tried to go through, but neither have they."
"Hmm. Levi, I want you to stir up some shit. Fire two rounds at their position. I want to see what happens."
"Wait, what? They might attack!" Aiden panicked. I turned to the man, putting my right hand on his shoulder.
"BC, we’re here to end them. Do you really think the three of us can’t handle a bunch of Gebradim?"
"Is that a trick question, sir?" he asked, furrowing his brow.
"No. But never mind. Cover the entrance and shoot them if anyone manages to sneak past us."
"I’ll go in first," Samson said, pushing past me. He disappeared into the hole, landing with a loud thud a moment later.
"You okay, baby?" Levi called after him.
"Sure thing, babe! Come on down, and I’ll catch you!" Samson yelled back. I shook my head in disapproval. Sure, I was no military leader in the sense that I had a tight grasp on what I was doing, but I still tried to look as professional as possible.
"I’ll go first," I said, stopping her. Samson’s massive arms caught me as I dropped. He gave me a strange look as if disgusted by my act, and dropped me a second later.
"Hey! What the hell, man?" He groaned. "I don’t want to feel your ass all over me!"
"Whatever. Thanks for the catch," I replied, scurrying off into the corridor.
It was a dark, long hallway about six-foot-wide and ten high. It was a good thing to, or Samson wouldn’t be able to stand upright. The four soldiers had taken up a position behind some bent metal sheets and were observing the enemy.
"Get back up, boys," I said, waving them off.
"Sir, yes sir!" all four replied in unison, got up, and ran back to the opening behind. I shrugged as they retreated. It wasn’t their fault they wouldn’t be of any use. Samson chuckled from behind me, accompanied by Levi’s laughter. The two of them needed to get it together.
"Weapon out, Levi. And you, summon your Armament. Or at least a part of Atlas, just like I did with my arms," I ordered and activated Lucifer and Khepri.
"You make it sound so easy, don’t you?" Samson growled as he brought both hands up in front of him. "Atlas, lend me your power!"
I was about to burst from laughter but caught myself at the last moment. Even though it was an awkward way to activate the partial transformation, it worked. His arms bulged outward, and his overall body size grew double in size.
"What’s with Atlas and bronze? He sure likes to play shiny," I joked punching Samson’s shoulder playfully. While it didn’t hurt, the man seemed like he hadn’t even felt my half-assed attem
pt. He sure looked like Atlas was bred for him.
"You want me to shoot?" Levi interrupted.
"Yeah, go ahead. Two HE’s into the barricade. They’re about two hundred feet ahead of us, so it shouldn’t be that hard to hit them," I said and put up my arms defensively.
"Here goes," Levi said as she dropped to the ground along with the rifle, loaded a bullet seemingly from nowhere, and fired it. The loud boom shook the narrow corridor as the bullet streaked straight for the enemy. To my surprise, none of the enemies ran, even when the bullet struck and flames were everywhere.
"Are they even alive? Shit, come on, Samson. We need to see this," I ordered leading the way. The heat and flames dissipated before we arrived, leaving only charred bodies behind. Only it weren’t Gebradim bodies that awaited us, but Human ones smeared in a strange oozey liquid that gave them their identical color to the Gebradim.
"Shit. They may have been dead already, but it doesn’t make me feel any better," Samson cursed before he turned to Levi. "Come see," he shouted for her to move in.
A peculiar scent hung in the air, something I couldn’t place. Was it vanilla? The super sweet scent disoriented me for some strange reason.
"What the hell is it with this shit?" I cursed.
"You smell it too?" Samson asked. "I thought it was just me."
"Oh god, what the hell is it with this stench?" Levi added as she came running.
"No idea," I replied, looking around. "At least it doesn’t look flammable, or there would have been explosions. Whatever, we need to get up there and kill everything before Devil can consume the ship."
"Okay," Samson replied, staring up at me all puppy-eyed.
"Okay? Get your ass up there!" I barked.
"Oh, you want me to go first?" he asked.
"No! Maybe we can send Levi ahead. Would you like her to do your job for you?"
"Oh, hell no!" she hissed. "My insides still hurt, you nasty bastard. Get up there and see if it’s safe!"
Samson murmured something about slavery and climbed up the gaping hole.
"All clear!" he said over our tapper. "Let me check the corridor." We waited for a few seconds before Samson spoke again. "Come up. There’s no one in sight."
The insides of the Gebradim ship looked much as Devil did, except for the very tall and wide corridors. Even stranger was that were no Gebradim in sight. The lights were dimmed to a little more than darkness, and the air felt very stale.
"Shit, Samson, any idea of the ship’s layout?"
He stared back at me as if I’d just asked him how Devil’s propulsion system worked.
"You had no idea what we were getting into?"
I shook my head.
"What the hell did you expect? That I knew what I was doing? Hell, I just joined the legion a couple of months ago."
"Me too, me too!" Levi chuckled. Both Samson and I stared at her for a moment, then shook our heads.
"What the hell did you do to her?" I murmured. "Never mind, don’t answer. Levi, can you gain access to the ship?"
"Sure. What do you want to know?"
"Is there anyone left alive on the ship? If so, where and how many are there?"
"Hmm, okay, give me a moment. I’ll need to have access to any kind of terminal in order to do that. Go find one."
"Samson, take point."
He groaned but followed the order and moved out. The door opened ahead of us with a loud hiss, letting first Samson through, then me and finally Levi. We were again greeted by a muted silence and smooth, metallic walls that looked like they’d been polished to a high gleam, and almost served like a mirror. The three of us really did look frightening to the naked eye, or we would have if another Human saw us.
Samson waved for us to follow, so we did. The light fixtures overhead looked very strange in comparison to Devil’s equipment, and almost looked like eyes, the way they squinted. We soon stumbled on a wall screen with a console. Levi took her place next to the board and produced a small device as the two of us took up a defensive position to either side.
"Hmm, I have no idea what to do. I don’t understand shit," Levi whispered. "It’s all some kind of signs and inverted letters and whatnot."
"Ask Nyx. Her previous host was a Gebradim. I inherited military prowess and knowledge from Lucifer as well as language from Khepri, but only hearing, not reading."
She nodded and stood there, whispering and nodding her head, as if she’d lost it. Then her fingers started moving over the small device she produced. It took her only half a minute to get the screen on and bring up a schematic of the ship.
"Shit, just look at the layout. Who the hell came up with this?" I murmured. "It’s fucking stupid. The middle looks like a big egg surrounded by a wide corridor. So this thing goes all the way around?"
"No, you’re wrong, commander," Samson said. "If all of their forces were to focus on one particular area and dug themselves in behind barricades and walls, we’d have a much harder time taking it over than if they were all over the place. Just imagine what five hundred rifles would do to you instead of a few."
I frowned, annoyed his logic, but the man was right. I may have inherited some military experience, but if I had no idea how to use it, what good did it do? Another thing to make sure to take care of when I had the time. I had a lot of learning and reading to do in my downtime.
"We’ll need to have some strategy sessions when we get back. For now, what’s the best entry point? Can you try to find us something, Levi?"
"Hmm, let me see," she said, roaming with her finger along the corridors and the hatches, then stopped at a point which looked very small on the chart compared to the other entrances. "I think this here might be a back-door or an air duct. It drops from the upper floor directly to the Command room or something. I’m not sure. All of this is quite new to me."
"Tell me about it. What part this whole situation would be normal to anyone—well, normal?" I asked. "Anyway, how do we get there?"
"At the next corridor we go up and all the way to the end. We need to find the entrance there. It should be high up from the way this schematic shows."
"Oh, by the Devil, you people are a bunch of useless creatures," Devil groaned in my mind. "You assault a ship without any previous knowledge or preparation. How do you expect it to work?"
"Whatever. Just shows how useless the stuff is I inherited from you. How come all of it didn’t make me a commando or something?"
"It’s not my fault you have no idea how to use the gifts I bestowed on you, Human. Now, when you fight the next Armament user, don’t destroy or eat the head. I’ve got an idea for his parasite."
"Why?" I asked curiously. I had already planned to do so, but hearing him asking was a new thing for me.
"I bet you already know what kind of Armament he is, no? A doctor and a researcher foremost. If we gave him to the right person, we’d be on a fast track to improve our own military assets, and in more ways than one."
"Very well, I’m glad we think alike on this matter. Can I trust on you taking over if the need arises?"
"Sure. I’m quite interested to see where the doc can take this, though. Now, how about you three move it before they decide to come out."
"Come out? Why would they do so now?"
"They’re asleep at the moment. The Gebradim do so in their mating chamber which is located next to the command bridge."
I cursed and balled my fist.
"Hey, what’s going on? What you hissing and growling for?" Samson asked, putting his meaty paw on my shoulder.
"All of the Gebradim should be asleep and guarding the bridge from what I just learned," I replied and stared back at the man for a long moment. "Levi, lead us to the air shaft. The Gebradim might wake up any moment, fresh and healed if we don't hurry the fuck up," I said, pushing her in the direction of our new destination.
Chapter Twenty-One
The corridors looked mostly identical to one another, at least until we arrived at the northernmost point. What
awaited us there, was something out of this world; an observatory unlike anything I’d seen before. The walls were non-existent and fully translucent. It felt hard to the touch but had a smooth texture to it.
"Just look at that," I whispered, staring down at Gebradim Beta. The brown-yellowish planet was mostly a wasteland. Or at least it looked like one with the absence of oceans. A couple of blue lines here and there, along with a couple of blue basins was all the water of Beta. Dark grey and muddy blotches covered a good portion of the northern hemisphere and looked cold in comparison.
"Yeah. From what I know about the briefings," Samson coughed. "Sorry. Anyway, they don’t need much water. About a gallon for a month, be it salt or sweet water. That’s insane, no?"
"Tell me about it," I murmured. "Shit, we need a gallon every couple hours. Wish I had their metabolism."
"Trust me, you don’t," Levi said. "They’re disgusting, and basically can’t have any sex. A mother or queen need to lay thousands of eggs each cycle. That’s the only way to procreate. At least that’s what I found out from the archives. There’s a lot more info up there, but I didn’t find it particularly interesting."
"Whatever. Let’s open the air shaft and proceed with the mission. I want this shit over with," I ordered and turned from the splendid sight that had been occupying me for the last minute.
"Samson, can you push me up? I don’t think I can get up there by myself," Levi asked, looking up at the vent opening some ten feet above her. The big man lifted her with as much ease as if taking a single breath. I was up next. For some strange reason, the air duct was much more stable than any other I’d seen up to that point, and easily four by six, or Samson wouldn’t have fit up there.
"I think it’s down this hole," Levi whispered as we approached a wide gap and pointed down at the dark room. The absence of light wasn’t enough for me not to notice the stirring bodies down there.
"No shit," I whispered and turned to look at Samson. "Big guy, I got a plan. You’re not going to like it, but that’s tough luck. Are you up for it?"
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