Aldo Moreno had been in love a dozen times, perhaps more. But this time, as he awakened beside Joelle Tolbert, he knew it wasn’t love he was feeling. His mind was filled with a heady blend of lust and triumph. It was a pleasant mixture of emotions by anyone’s measure.
He barely had time to watch her sleeping face and marvel at its smooth, carefree softness before they were rudely rousted from bed. A klaxon sounded, an irritating noise at the best of times. This morning, it was head- splitting after a night of drink and sex. Aldo rolled out of bed painfully, drew his power-sword and placed his thumb on the actuator. Joelle sat up and looked at him, blinking away her dreams.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. You’re navy, what’s that alarm?”
Joelle listened for a moment. “Proximity alarm. Something is coming nearby.”
“A meteor?”
“Perhaps. You’d best brace yourself, Aldo-”
She got no further before the ship lurched, heeled over and tossed her nude body rolling across the deck. Aldo had to twitch his blade upward to avoid skewering her by accident. Supporting himself by thrusting a hand through a loop that hung for the purpose from the curved ceiling overhead, he sheathed his sword.
The ship righted itself, then violently slewed in the opposite direction. Aldo helped Joelle get to her hands and knees.
“Evasive action,” she said. “There must be something on the detectors-something close.”
“At this speed?” Aldo asked. “We’d flash right by it. Why would we make more than one course correction, in any case? Once out of the object’s path, there should be no more maneuvers required.”
Joelle looked up from the floor at him with big eyes. He saw fear there, in her face. He reached down a hand and she took it. She struggled to her knees and tried to pull on her jumpsuit at the same time.
“A missile,” she said. “It has to be a missile. Gladius — they must have fired on us as we passed by, Aldo!”
He nodded grimly, finding her logic unassailable. They made their way out into the corridor. The ship had stopped lurching now, and seemed steady. There had been no pronouncements from the bridge. No word had come from the pilot or the AI as to what was happening. That fact was as worrisome as anything else about this shocking morning. What was going on?
Aldo affixed his headset on his head and heard nothing but static. He turned to Joelle in confusion. She shook her head and tapped at her own equipment. Nothing.
The lights in the corridor flickered and died then, leaving them in darkness for several terrifying seconds. Emergency battery-powered lighting kicked in after that and the ship was lit in a lurid red.
Aldo felt a cold sensation in his belly. He drew his sword again, and this time, he thumbed it into life. It blazed brightly in his hand, rippling and crackling with kinetic energies.
Joelle, for her part, had a pistol in her hand now. Aldo signaled her to be quiet. She chewed at her lower lip and nodded in agreement. She followed him down the corridor. There were strange sounds ahead, coming from the forward compartments. Then they heard the unmistakable ripping sound of a rattler firing. Someone must have opened up the armory. Aldo raised his eyebrows at that. He hadn’t even known they had automatic weapons aboard. Sidearms, certainly, but military-grade weapons?
The firing stopped and what came next to their ears was an odd, strangled sound. Aldo moved forward quickly. The best moment to strike any enemy was while they were engaged with another combatant.
He charged around the corner and saw a shrade wrapped around Captain Stanley Knox’s neck and torso. The man’s mouth was open, but he could not scream, having no breath with which to do so. He still struggled to raise the rattler in his numb hands, but could not get them to operate. His face was a mixture of palest white and blood-red weals. Buttons popped from his uniform as the shrade squeezed harder. A crackling sound came from his chest as his ribs cracked in a rapid sequence. The small noises reminded Aldo of a big man cracking all his knuckles at once.
Aldo slashed with the sword, slicing the shrade in two. He did not stop there, however. With deft strokes, he removed the head and the tail. Disconnected from both brains, the shrade relaxed and fell off the Captain with a heavy thud. The man’s eyes stared at nothing, and his dislocated jaw was torn half-way off his face.
Joelle fired then. Aldo turned, and saw her target for the first time. Ambassador Garant raced into the room, panting and bleeding. Behind him, a moment later, a killbeast charged into the room and lifted a rifle. Joelle’s pistol caught it in the chest, and threw it backward.
The killbeast bounced right back up again onto its horn-bladed feet. It had not even dropped its rifle. Joelle fired again and again, while Aldo advanced. The killbeast returned fire from the ground, but being shot repeatedly seemed to spoil its aim.
Aldo slashed it apart until it stopped thrashing. He looked back over his shoulder. Ashen-faced, Joelle stood with her back against a steel wall. She seemed uninjured. The Ambassador, however, had not been so fortunate. Aldo realized instantly the killbeast had not missed with its final bullets, but instead had chosen to finish its original target. The Ambassador was sprawled on the floor, covered in gore that was a mix of alien and human body fluids.
Aldo check both the Captain and the Ambassador, just to be sure. He found no pulse under his probing fingertips.
Joelle’s sides heaved and she signaled Aldo they should retreat into the hall. He shook his head, and motioned her forward. He knew from experience that when fighting the Imperium warriors, one had to kill them all until the last one stopped flopping on the deck at your feet. That was the only way to end the fight in your favor.
He reached up, and pressed the manual override that opened the hatchway to the bridge section.
Garth finally convinced Ornth it was time to leave their hiding place. Far from the initial bravado he’d exhibited back when first fighting the aliens on Gladius, Ornth had increasingly shown the natural reticence of his kind. He was a warrior compared to others of his species, but he still frightened easily. After having faced death on a dozen occasions over recent days, he’d grown more skittish rather than less.
Garth understood the mood of his rider well. He was no hero himself. Self-sacrifice had never been his strong suit, and nothing had changed. Violence came to him as a means to an end: that end always being his own survival.
But sitting aboard the assault craft hoping the Skaintz would be overcome placed entirely too much faith in the humans aboard this ship. Garth felt it likely they were unaware the assault was coming. There was even a likelihood the crew of the smaller ship was unarmed. Almost certainly, they would not be prepared to repel an invasion by these deadly alien warriors.
We must act to save ourselves, Garth said inside his own head, knowing his Tulk rider was listening.
Your opinions, rogue, are not as fascinating as you seem to believe.
I beseech you to listen. I’ve fought the Skaintz on several occasions. I’ve personally killed individuals on two worlds and in space. I know something about defeating these vicious beings.
And you advise me to expose our joint person to attack? You suggest we should leave a perfectly good hiding spot on the slim hope we can affect the outcome of this battle? Madness. I do not understand how you have survived so long. Blind luck is my best theory.
Garth felt a fresh wave of frustration. The Tulk were infinitely arrogant, frequently cowardly, and always condescending. My sole goal is survival. I find leaving matters to others frequently results in an unsatisfactory outcome.
Ornth hesitated. Garth knew a moment of triumph. The simple truth of his statement must have won through to the other.
You urge me to risk everything.
Only our joint lives.
No, Ornth said. You ask me to risk much more than that.
What do you mean?
I would not expect my mount to understand. But more is at stake here than our individual lives.
I will accept your assertion. But that changes nothing. The best path is still the one most likely to result in survival, no matter why survival is important.
