Unsung Heroes

Tola shook his head. He could have sworn Naomi had been standing in front of him, but he was hallucinating all along. She had seemed so real, like he could reach out and touch her. An odd mixture of feelings stormed within him: anger; regret; pain; resentment.

The last time I saw her . . .

Tola forced Naomi from his mind. His time with the Shock Syndicate had taught him how to effectively bury those memories, and he was an operative for the Earth Alliance now, anyway. Only in a time like this—with his mind starved of oxygen—had he let himself dwell on the past.

The last soldier in the room fell to Dex’s blade. Now the three ships in the hangar were completely unguarded.

“Get over here!” Dex yelled. “We need to pick a ship!”

Tola and the bounty hunter sprinted down the stairs and past the crates to the Latoroth. But before Tola could examine the ships, the hangar started to shake. Metal tore away from the walls like paper, leaving only a ribbed exoskeleton.

“Come on!” Tola shouted, darting toward the nearest ship, his way lit by his flashlight.

The ramp at the back of the shuttle was only a couple meters away. His foot hit the diamond plated slope, and he stooped low, about to dive inside.

Suddenly the ramp snapped shut like an alligator’s jaw. Tola slipped and landed on his back beneath the shuttle’s cockpit.

The ship started to moan. First the wings bent in, then the nose crumpled, showering the ground with glass as the windows shattered. The stabilizers snapped and the engine collapsed into a sparking heap. It looked as if someone was wadding the vessel up like a piece of paper to toss into the garbage can. Reacting on instinct, Tola rolled out of the way a split second before the ship smashed to the ground.

“Tsk, tsk,” a dark voice filled the room. “Now, Dex, did you honestly think I was going to let you and your friends leave without saying goodbye?”.

The sound of that voice made Dex’s blood boil.

It’s never going to stop. Janus will pursue me to the edge of the galaxy if he has to.

Dex turned away from the crumpled heap of a ship, his eyes falling upon one of the slain soldiers. Clipped to his belt was the very thing Dex needed: an electrical whip.

Dex stooped down and picked it up. The handle was heavier than he was used to, but it still felt reassuring to have his most practiced weapon back in his hand. Janus appeared at the hangar’s entrance, resting his hands on the railing above them.

Dex activated the electrical currents running the length of the whip, giving it a faint white glow. With his other hand he clenched the grip of his scimitar.

This ends now. One way or another.

“We don’t have time for this,” Tola whispered, heading for the second ship.

With a flick of his wrist, Janus telekinetically tore off the wings, disabling all but one of the vessels. An unsettling smile crept across his lips. “Make time. I insist.”

Janus jumped over the railing and landed on the floor only three meters from where they stood. He unsheathed his chainsword and activated it. Tola recoiled from the grinding sound, and Dex realized the hacker was the only one who couldn’t see through the black gloom.

“I’ve got an idea,” the bounty hunter whispered. “Think you two can hold him off without me?”

Yeah. That should be no problem, Dex thought. Anger surged through every fiber of his being. This was the man who had tortured him, mocked him, and tried to kill him repeatedly. If anyone deserved to die, it was Janus.

Channeling all of the rage and fury festering within him, Dex sprinted forward, his whip screaming toward his enemy. Janus leapt into the air, somersaulting over Dex. With his left hand the Latoroth brought his scimitar up, trying to skewer Janus in mid-air. The Biomancer deflected the strike with his chainsword and landed behind him. Dex spun around, using his momentum to deliver a powerful horizontal swipe, one that would have cleaved Janus in two, but a mighty gust of of telekinetic energy hurled Dex backward, causing his blade to miss by mere centimeters.

Taking a second to focus, Dex stretched out with his energy, trying to target the one gap in Janus’s armor to induce his mind with hallucinations. But Janus was moving too quickly for Dex to get a lock on such a small target.

The psychotic human responded with a flurry of slashes and jabs, his chainsword moving so fast it seemed to bend and curve. Janus fought with pure aggression, focusing on an overwhelming number of strikes rather than on power or precision. Using both weapons, Dex parried, twisted, and dodged, struggling to survive against the onslaught of slashes.

But Dex still had one thing going for him: Time. Janus employed so much energy in his fighting style that he would quickly tire out. If Dex could hold him off long enough, Janus would be too fatigued to stop him.

That is, if Dex didn’t run out of oxygen first.

Dex pivoted a hair too far on his next dodge. He avoided a lethal swipe, but couldn’t evade the roundhouse kick that followed, smashing him backward. The Latoroth flew across the hangar and crashed against the far wall. Recovering as quickly as he could, Dex surveyed the battle. The bounty hunter was using his computerized gauntlet, Tola was sneaking through the darkness, and Janus . . .

For the first time, Dex noticed what was so unusual about the Biomancer’s power-immune armor.

It was alive.

Racing up another sand dune, Loralona’s legs churned at full speed. The stinging in her lungs worsened each time she gasped in the frigid night air, causing her to cough and wheeze. Her legs felt like noodles, but she pushed on. If she didn’t make it to the abandoned ship soon she would freeze to death.

Cresting the dune, she saw the vessel nestled between two large boulders. The Varrcaran scum hadn’t made it to this ship yet, so it was completely intact. The vessel was twice the size of the Coming Storm, with the word RETRIBUTION scrawled across the side. Surprisingly the ramp was open.

Normally Loralona would approach a situation like this with extreme caution. A lifetime under the Varrcaran Regime had taught her that nothing was as good as it seems. But she didn’t have time for caution. Not now.

Darting down the dune, she sprinted across the valley and to the ship. Without hesitation she ran up the ramp.

To Loralona’s surprise, the ramp snapped shut behind her. The dull glow of the ship’s lights flickered once, then shut off completely. Instinctively, she reached into her satchel, pulled out a small flashlight, and clicked it on.

Her ankles had already disappeared in a fog of mist creeping in from the ventilation system. Dread formed in the pit of her stomach as the haze crept up her body. When it reached her neck, she took in a big breath and hoped it wasn’t her last.

Loralona sprinted to the cockpit. A motion sensor lit up an array of miniature lights all across the dashboard. Taking a seat, she honed in on the dull glow of a computer screen—completely blank except for the word LOCKED in English.

Typing as fast as she could, she tried some of the most common passwords: 1234, Password, but the screen didn’t move—those blocky white letters grating at her nerves. Her body ached for another breath, and her head felt woozy. After another failed attempt at the password, she screamed in frustration and reared back to punch the keyboard.

DEACTIVATING COUNTERMEASURES

EMERGENCY CODE 5E-71

Loralona let her clenched fist fall back to her side. The ship sprang to life. Lights flickered on, the poisonous mist vented out, and the engine roared.

As to what pulled Retribution out of stasis, Loralona had no clue. But it seemed the ship had an emergency errand to attend to.

Bathed in darkness, the maniacal Biomancer stood before them with a grim smile and his chainsword raised. Terrik grimaced behind his helmet. Plasma bolts couldn’t pierce Janus’s armor; he was out of grenades, out of fuel for his flamethrower, his bolas empty, and he had only one annihilator shot left. Not to mention the oxygen was nearly depleted.

Things weren’t looking good.

But Terrik still had one hope, desperate though it was. Dex launched himself at their combatant, buying the armored warrior the time he needed to enact his plan. Activating his computerized gauntlet, he remotely accessed his ship, Retribution, and started the engines. A small screen appeared in his visor, showing him the vessel’s shields, power, and weapons display. With a few minutes to concentrate, he could guide the ship toward the Black Scourge. The dreadnought’s power was still offline, so no weapons would target his ship, leaving Retribution clear to blast the hangar door open. If he could time it right, he might even be able to take Janus down with the explosion.

From his peripherals, Terrik saw Dex knocked back with a roundhouse kick. Janus advanced on him slowly, like a predator stalking his prey.

“How shall I watch you die, alien?” Janus asked mockingly. “Let your lungs spasm and burn as your brain is slowly starved of oxygen? Or run my blade through your heart?”

He certainly does like the sound of his own voice. That’s okay; just gives me more time.

Dex snarled and ran behind one of the crates to his left.

Janus only chuckled. “After all this, you think you can hide from me?”

A moment later that crate hurtled toward the Biomancer, propelled by Dex’s detonating ability. Unable to dodge in time, the crate smashed into Janus and pressed him against the far wall of the hangar where it exploded in a fiery cascade of orange. Terrik raised his arm to shield his eyes from the blast, amplified by his helmet’s night vision. Between the battle and the oxygen deprivation, it was extremely difficult to focus on guiding his ship. Terrik sucked in another breath of air. It felt thin and ragged against his lungs—they wouldn’t hold out much longer.

From somewhere within the crackling inferno, Janus stormed out with murder in his eyes. His armor was ablaze, but the Biomancer didn’t even seem to notice. Moments later, the flames sputtered and died out, unable to survive in the oxygen-deprived ship.

We probably lost another minute of air from that fire. Can’t waste any more time.

Janus raised his arms toward Dex but Terrik forced his gaze away. He had to concentrate.

Retribution entered the vacuum of space, and Terrik allowed himself a smile. Salvation was almost here.

Just then, warning sensors blipped within his helmet, informing him of approaching enemy vessels. Terrik’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. A squadron of snub fighters was heading from Moaz to intercept his craft, and Terrik knew there was no way he could maneuver past the enemy ships remotely.

Their last hope was about to be blown out of the sky.

That’s it, then . . . We’re done for.