Battleship

distinguish between friend or foe, and Beast turned and ran like hell, axe still in his hand.

As he sprinted down the hallway, he saw—to his relief—Hopper, with a couple of SCAT guys following him. “It’s right behind me!” he shouted, and suddenly something heavy struck him in the back of the head. Beast fell to the side, tumbling into a cross corridor, the world turning black around him, and he saw something bounce away from him. It was a valve from the steam lines. The alien must have ripped it off the wall and thrown it like a Frisbee. Son of a— was the last thing Beast thought before he passed out.

Hopper barely had time to cast a glance at Beast—just enough to affirm that he was out of the way—and then he and the SCAT team opened fire.

The alien moved forward quickly, its torso twisting and turning in response to the impact of the bullets assailing it. It kept one arm up as a shield lest any of the barrage get near its damaged faceplate. The armor withstood much of the assault, although one shot did tear off some of its knee. The alien did not, however, slow down.

“Fall back, sir!” shouted one of the sailors, and two men converged and formed a blockade between Hopper and the alien. This momentarily angered Hopper, because he wanted to be in the thick of the battle. It only belatedly occurred to him that they were doing exactly what they were supposed to: protecting the ship’s CO. In point of fact, he had no business being where he was at all. He should be someplace safe, ordering others into dangerous situations while he oversaw everything from a distance. But he wasn’t accustomed to thinking that way. Besides, he rationalized, the death of Stone and of the John Paul Jones’s captain and XO were proof enough that, in this situation, there was no safe place.

The alien continued to advance and, as if adapting its armor to up its protection, the impact from the blasts weren’t even slowing it anymore. It reached out and a low, angry roar came from within its helmet.

Beast’s “thug” snatches the glowing red weapons out of the hands of its assailants. They are hopelessly primitive, and nowhere near on par with the weapon that was actually able to do damage to the Regent they had captured. The Regent, however, has long since departed the ship, and now the warrior is finding that he can quickly assess and dispose of the other types of weapons the humans wield. These devices, for instance. They are easily broken, and can also be used against those who attempt to destroy him.

He snatches the weapons from the two humans facing him. The triggering mechanism is too small for him to utilize. Instead he simply reverses the weapons and uses them as bludgeons, slamming them onto the heads of the two humans. Their heads explode in a shower of bone and brain. The danger readout on both of them goes from red back to green. The humans go down immediately, leading the warrior to conclude that the inefficiently created humans only have one brain apiece rather than a far more elegant three. Poorly designed race. Next thing you know, they’ll turn out to only have one heart.

The two terminated humans had come together to prevent access to the third. This would indicate that the third is of some rank. This merits further investigation.

The remaining human fires its weapon at him—both the man and gun are glowing red. Its hands are shaking, its vital signs are at the high end of the scale and beyond. The human is terrified. That is good. At least it shows that the human appreciates the gravity of the situation.

He reaches the human and grabs the weapon from its hand. He snaps the weapon with no trouble as the human backs up. It bumps up against a wall and the warrior studies it meticulously, recording everything he sees. Of particular interest is what appears to be an insignia on its armor—extremely pathetic armor, it should be noted, being nothing more than some manner of thin material unable to repel even the most minimal of assaults. The insignia obviously denotes rank. This will be useful when it comes to deciding which of the humans to capture and which to simply dispose of. Certainly the higher-ranked ones will have demonstrably different brains and will be more useful and informative about the race as a whole when it comes to dissection.

Suddenly the human shoves him, which he had not been expecting. Does it not yet realize that he is superior in every way? That resistance is futile? Perhaps a more convincing demonstration is in order.

Hopper watched in shock as, with a whir and a click, something snapped into place on the alien’s armor. He didn’t have to be a scientific genius to realize it was some kind of blasting weapon, and it was targeted on him.

“Crap!” shouted Hopper as he yanked away from the creature’s grip, which happened to be on his uniform sleeve at that moment. The sleeve tore away from his shirt and he sprinted down the hallway. As he ran, he yanked out his walkie-talkie and shouted into it, “Raikes! Combat! Right now!”

He hit the bow deck running, the alien right after him, making a continuing, thundering noise as if it were a T-Rex in pursuit of its next meal.

Hopper burst out of the passageway leading to the bow deck, the alien in pursuit. Please be there, Raikes, please be there, he thought desperately. He could sense that, impossibly, the creature was gaining on him. A shot exploded just to his right, and then to his left, each accompanied by a high-pitched whine. It’s shooting some kind of ray blaster at me. Unbelievable.

He’d been able to avoid it because of the twists and turns of the corridor, but now he had the straightaway of the bow deck in front of him and the alien would have a clear shot. There was nowhere to hide, no way of avoiding it, and as he heard the shrill sound of the blaster powering up again, he braced his shoulder blades, certain he was going to be cut down any second.

That was when he heard a loud clang from behind him. He turned, his feet still moving, so he almost tripped himself.

Nagata had come out of absolutely nowhere; maybe from the shadows, it seemed, like a freaking ninja. Hopper wasn’t sure if that was an apt comparison or borderline racist, but he didn’t care at that moment. All he knew was that Nagata was holding a sledgehammer that he’d acquired from God-knew-where and had just knocked the blaster clear off the alien’s shoulder. The alien spun to face him and Nagata, with a furious yell, swung the sledgehammer and brought it crashing up against the alien’s faceplate. Half of it shattered and the alien let out an infuriated roar, grabbing at Nagata. The Japanese officer spun out of the way like a dancer and whipped the hammer around once more. This time it took the alien in the back of the helmet, staggering it. Nagata ducked, spun, ducked again, and swung low, striking the area of the knee where some of the armor had been shot off. This caused more consternation and fury for the alien, who seemed to be flummoxed over the fact that it couldn’t get its hands on the swiftly moving officer.

The human is formidable for one of its species, but it repeats its moves in a pattern that can be analyzed. It should attack with its weapon from over there… now.

* * *

The alien’s fist lashed out, seemingly in anticipation of where Nagata was going to move, and caught him squarely on the side of the head. Had it been a human fist that had made contact, Nagata might have been able to shake it off. As it was, it was like being struck by a boulder. Nagata went down wordlessly.

The alien took a step toward him, looking ready to crush Nagata’s head beneath its foot.

“Hey! Big ugly!”

Whether the creature understood what he was saying was anyone’s guess. Nevertheless, it slowly turned toward Hopper, who was standing at the far end of the bow deck with his hands cocked in boxing form.

“Come on!” he shouted. “You and me! Man to… whatever the hell you are!”

The visible half of the alien’s face stared at Hopper impassively, although Hopper realized that it could have been smiling or frowning or laughing uproariously and he still wouldn’t have been able to tell.

The ranking creature demands personal combat. Perhaps they actually have some manner of honor system. How very surprising. That being the case, the warrior has no choice but to respect that request, even though it will mean the certain death of the ranking human. Which may well be a waste since the human could have been of further use to scientists. He will endeavor to leave as much of the corpse as possible intact for subsequent examination.

The alien advanced on Hopper. It brought its hands up slowly, mimicking Hopper’s defensive posture. Hopper