He had taken point position on the spear, the other seven members of the rescue team fanned out behind him. As he blinked to clear his vision, he was glad they had come to this place wearing full armor. There was air in the corridor, but they had not known whether it would be breathable. He assumed the oxygenated atmosphere would be saved for the prisoners, mostly human, locked in cells somewhere deeper in the ship. The gravity holding them in place was not meant for comfort or safety. Rather, it was to keep the ‘product’ in prime condition during transport. Compliant. Damage free. Fresh.
Greig, his second in command, looked around grimly, gripping his weapon tighter as he murmured, “You sure we can’t get everyone out and blow this place to all hell?”
Taeger glanced back without answering. They all knew the answer, including Greig. They were Lumerian Knights. They couldn’t destroy the ship while there were people on board. They couldn’t kill the innocent.
At their backs stood the wall on the far end of the long, open corridor. Approximately a quarter mile long, so long that the corridor shrank to a tiny point in the distance. The space was nearly square with ceilings double his height. The walls were like carved stone, the markings on the black surface uniform and repeated. About every eight paces an inset appeared. Wide enough for four or five to pass abreast, the sliding doorways set back just a few inches from the main two walls of the corridor. Those were the holding cells, one after another. Dozens of them, with no visible controls to open the doors. They’d chosen this location for transport because the ship’s small control room was reported to be near, not quite centered, on this upper level.
They weren’t sure how many enemies they would face. Here, now, Taeger sensed five, and those five terrified him.
“I see one!” Greig lifted his forearm mounted weapon down the corridor. In his other hand he held a Sword of Ohm-Ra. The semi-circular weapon glowed a soft white, the latent energy ready to merge with that of their enemies, break their connection with the ghosting technology they’d been using.
“Fire!” Taeger ordered, lifting his arm, blasting the attacker as quickly as he could. On either side of him, Seth and Greig did the same. Their job was to slow the Dark Ones down so the warriors behind them could move into position and strike with their Rings and anchor the enemy to this dimension. Once they had them pinned to this reality, they would execute them with the Lumerian swords strapped to their backs.
“It’s not working!” Greig shouted.
“Keep firing,” Taeger ordered as the others fanned out to the sides, ready to close in on the enemy from behind.
“Damned thing’s too fast, and I think it can see us,” another warrior replied, his calm demeaner never faltering.
The deep, steady voice came from behind Taeger and to his left. Seth. A good man. A fierce fighter.
But there were four more. Somewhere.
And this one was smiling. Or whatever passed as a smile on its inhuman face. With skin stretched tight, black as the walls but dull, as its body absorbed all light and reflected none. The eyes were sunken into a matte black face, its expression unreadable. Bottomless. Predators’ eyes. Rounded pieces of bone protruded from the skin in a vertical arched pattern where eyebrows should have been, the pieces stark white and shocking in the dark. Similar pieces of bone erupted from flesh along the cheeks and around the mouth, down its chest in a macabre display meant to inspire terror.
The creature leaped through the air, falling from above, completely unaffected by the weapons they’d brought. One clawed hand, with fingers twice the length of Taeger’s and sharp, clawed bones at the tip, slashed through the armor of the warrior beside Greig like the suit was made of paper. Lyari’s scream was cut short as the Dark One slashed his throat.
Greig bellowed with rage, slashing at the Dark One. Evil eyes turned toward him as it fed on the downed warrior’s spraying blood, completely unaffected by Greig’s weapons. Unaffected. Amused.
Taeger grabbed Greig and dragged him back. “Seth’s right. Our cloaking doesn’t work on them. They can see us. There’s nothing we can do. We need to regroup.”
As Lumerians, they’d seen the results of this advanced technology, but did not yet understand how the Dark Ones’ multi-dimensional reality worked. This was their true enemy. The unwavering, vampire-like creatures known as A’nua Na-KI. The Dark Ones. Non-living. Non-life force energy.
All Taeger knew was that the Swords of Ohm-Ra they’d found deep, deep in the black market would somehow disrupt their ability to shift their mass into other dimensional forms, force them to coalesce and remain in one place just long enough to be vulnerable. For a few seconds, they could be destroyed.
Other civilizations had watched the Dark Ones devour world after world, bound by the Intergalactic Council to stay out of the way. Taeger and his men were Lumerian Knights, once bound by the same Council, but that was more than two thousand years ago. Lumeria was gone. Destroyed. He and his men had been on their own all this time. Survived the destruction. All Taeger cared about now was seeing justice done. For him. For his people. For the people unable to fend for themselves, destined to be destroyed by the A’nua Na-KI if someone didn’t stop them.
He and the other Lumerian Knights based on Mora Five had spent years preparing. Cultivating trade partners. Some legitimate. Some black market. They would do whatever was necessary to take down their enemies.
“Our weapons barely slow them down.” Taeger motioned to his men to gather closer, never taking his eyes from the gruesome creature feeding on his friend.
He had nearly a dozen of the white rings, and still he
