Unsung Heroes

Emergency klaxons blared through the ship, warning them they only had two hours of breathable air left. Terrik stopped in his tracks and set his armor’s watch to count down the time remaining. The threat was most likely a bluff; the Regime probably hadn’t even considered that prisoners might escape one of their capital ships, and—left without a contingency plan—they’d turned to something desperate. Nevertheless, Terrik wanted to make sure he was long gone before his watch’s countdown hit zero.

Terrik moved through the Black Scourge with a sense of purpose, marching with the military obedience and diligence of a true soldier. With each chamber he entered he made a mental note of its purpose and direction, memorizing the layout as best as he could.

Two officers entered his field of vision, traveling the opposite direction. Terrik kept walking as though he was on a mission, neither looking at them or away from them.

“You! You’re not supposed to be here!” one of the officers yelled.

Terrik’s heart skipped a beat. Nervous sweat trickled down his shoulder blades, and it took all of his willpower not to raise his rifle and open fire.

“What do you mean?” he asked instead.

“No personnel is allowed beyond this point until the situation has been neutralized. One of the Biomancers is loose, and he’s tearing up the place.”

“What’s he look like?” Terrik asked.

“About two meters tall, broad shouldered, pale skin.”

“Wait—did you say pale skin?”

“Yeah. Why? Have you seen him?” The officer looked hopeful.

“No. I haven’t.”

So, it’s not Dex they’re after. Which means another Biomancer is running loose aboard the ship. That explains some of their desperation.

“Cyborgs have been sent to detain him,” the officer continued, oblivious to his thoughts. “Where were you headed?”

Terrik paused a moment, considering his options. Then he decided on a gamble. “I recognized the bounty hunter that was brought on board. Someone let him out of his cell. I was hoping to beat him to his armor and weapons so I could lay a trap.”

The officer rubbed his chin. “Hmm. Normally I would reprimand such insubordination, but we’re short-handed and we don’t need another fugitive on the loose. Very well. Carry on, soldier.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dex smiled from his perch on the upper catwalk. Four soldiers, armed with swords, were searching for him. Each Biomancer was blessed with different powers; some were known to block plasma beams with their thoughts alone. Dex wasn’t one of them, but as a result, many Varrcaran soldiers used laser-sharpened melee weapons to fight Biomancers. That suited Dex just fine; he preferred to engage his enemy up close and personal, anyway.

Dampening the sound waves surrounding a lone soldier, Dex jumped down from the catwalk and landed silently behind him, snapping his neck with one wrench of his massive hands. He picked up the man’s scimitar just as the other three soldiers turned to face him. Dex had extensive training with an electrical whip, but he was no stranger to bladed weapons, giving him more than a fighting chance against the three soldiers bearing down on him.

Never one for the defensive, Dex lunged forward, bringing his scimitar hacking down in a powerful two-handed chop. The first soldier made the mistake of trying to block, but his strength was no match for the Latoroth’s. Dex’s scimitar forced the other man’s weapon into his own body and scored a fatal blow.

Pivoting to the side faster than the other two could react, Dex evaded their clumsy swipes and stuck with an ascending diagonal slash. The force of his blow batted the second soldier into the third, bowling them over into a crumpled heap. Before the final trooper could recover, Dex plunged his scimitar into them both, delivering the coup de grâce.

With the hostiles eliminated, Dex turned his attention back to his surroundings. Only two doors were present aside from the one he had come through. Picking the one on his right, Dex blew the frame off his hinges and looked inside to see a small medical office.

Images flashed through his mind of the experiments the Coalition had put him through after the genetic-altering procedure. Determined to forge him into a weapon of destruction, Dex had been forced to train under a Biomancer named Janus. Like many of the Biomancers, he had adopted the name of a Roman god to make himself seem more threatening. A mountain of a man, Janus was, by far, the most cruel and sadistic person Dex had ever met. One fateful day the Biomancer had ordered Dex to strike down a mother in front of her son. When Dex refused to do so, Janus had flown into a rage, mercilessly beating him to a pulp with his bare hands. Just before he’d imprisoned Dex, Janus had whispered into his ear:

“Don’t die, alien. I still need time to cut out your mercy.”

For years Dex had endured savage torture as he rotted in a prison cell. Fate had given him a second chance, however. Jezebel, one of the other lucid Biomancers, had sprung him free, piloting him away from the Coalition’s influence only six months ago. She had nursed him back to health and offered him aid without asking for anything in return. In all Dex’s life, she had been the one being who had ever shown him kindness.

Dex clenched his teeth and drove out the memory. With life support running out he couldn’t afford distractions right now.

Destroying the other door, Dex stepped through to find himself in a control room. A man in a hooded cloak stood at the computers, his hands raised into the air at Dex’s approach. He was about a hundred-and-eighty centimeters tall, with a slim build, blond hair, and hazel eyes. Dex suppressed the instinct to attack—clearly this man wasn’t a Varrcaran.

“I was the one who released you,” the hooded figure claimed. “And with your help, I think I’ve found a way off this ship.”

“I was the one who released you,” Tola said quickly, “and with your help, I think I’ve found a way off this ship.”

This was exactly what Tola had hoped to avoid. He tried his best, sealing off all the doors that led to the control room. But the alien insisted on blowing through every barrier Tola placed. Now he was staring into the eyes of a giant Latoroth that had proven more powerful than he ever could have expected—and from watching him on the security cameras—even more merciless.

The alien’s gaze bore into Tola with feral eyes, but he hesitated, choosing not to kill him instantly like he did with the Varrcaran soldiers.

“If you’d just look at the computer screen,” Tola said, careful to keep his hands visible and non-threatening. The Latoroth didn’t say a word, but he humored Tola by looking.

Tola flopped into the chair and casually removed the smartphone he’d copied the computer files to. Then he pulled up the camera feeds. “This is the engine room. The life support was shut off from there. I can’t override it because they physically removed some key components.”

Tola looked warily over his shoulder. The alien was right behind him, watching the monitor. The hardest part was over: making the brute listen. Now all he had to do was sell him the plan.

Good, the ball’s in my court.

Tola pulled up another screen. “This is the door directly outside the engine room.”

The Latoroth said his first words: “It looks like thirty soldiers standing guard.”

“Thirty-nine, actually,” Tola corrected, flipping through the camera feeds again. “It’s the only place life support can be fixed, so it’s where they expect us to go. But the bridge only has eight guards patrolling.”

Tola paused, hoping the Latoroth would say something. It was much easier to sell a plan to someone who thought they came up with half of it. But the brute remained still, his expressions unreadable.

“This is where you come in,” Tola said, fidgeting slightly as he stood from his chair to face the alien. “I think we should storm the bridge and take the commander hostage. We could never fly the dreadnought ourselves, but we could make the commander order the life support restored, or use him as a human shield until we can steal one of the shuttles.”

“Go where they least expect it,” the brute replied.

“Exactly,” Tola said with a smile.

“I don’t like it; I’d rather kill the thirty-nine Varrcaran soldiers.”

Tola was at a loss for words. He had always been a smooth talker, but this Latoroth wasn’t thinking logically. He wanted to mow through as many enemies as he could, not escape by the most efficient means. Tola suddenly felt uncomfortable, hoping he wasn’t next on that list.

Then the alien’s eyes flicked to the computer screen over Tola’s shoulder, transforming his expression completely. Tola turned to see what he was looking at, but it was too late. Whatever the Latoroth had seen must have moved because the security feed was motionless now.

A chill swept down Tola’s spine as he saw a terrifying smile stretch across the brute’s lips.

“On second thought, I’m starting to like your plan more. How do we get there?”

Tola was baffled, but he didn’t feel like pushing his luck and asking what the Latoroth had seen. Walking to the far corner of the room, he turned a hatch and opened the emergency escape door. Inside was a cramped fire escape ladder running the height and depth of the ship.

“This oughtta do.”

As he relentlessly scoured the capital ship, Terrik was surprised by the lack of soldiers and personnel. The Black Scourge was eerily quiet, especially considering the ship was on lockdown. It was almost as if something had happened to the crew, and he was the sole survivor . . .

The hooded figure was no longer helping him in his passage—doors remained closed as he approached, leaving him to guess where his armor could be. Either the mysterious helper had been captured, or, more likely, he had left the detention block control room in search of a way to bypass the lockdown.

Terrik checked his watch: One hour and twelve minutes of air remaining.

One by one he searched the various rooms spiraling off the main hallway, but none offered him any clues as to where his armor might be. Frustrated, he found a computer terminal and booted it up. The entire network was encrypted, and he didn’t have any idea how to circumvent the firewall.

Looks like I’ll be doing this the old fashioned way.

Clenching his teeth together, Terrik left the computer and pressed forward, tearing through chamber after chamber, wondering how he would manage to escape once he found what he was looking for.

Suddenly he stopped. He heard footsteps approaching. Only these were louder, clunkier, like—

Like cyborgs.

The result of early biomechanical engineering, cyborgs were part organic, part machine. Physically they were superior to their original species—whatever that may have been—but still retaining the creative autonomy of their biological selves. This fusion produced extremely deadly soldiers that were physiologically bound to obey the Regime’s every whim. In theory, they were the perfect soldiers.

In practicality, however, they were not. Each cyborg cost hundreds of thousands of credits, and required a lengthy, intensive process to craft—most of whom didn’t survive. In short, they weren’t cost-effective—the very reason they had implemented the Biomancer project. Genetic modification had proved quicker, cheaper, and surprisingly more powerful, though—ironically—not as viable.

The officer had told him cyborgs were dispatched to handle the fugitives, and their auto-recognition systems would see right through his Varrcaran armor.

An instant later, both cyborgs were in view, heavily armed and armored. Knowing his rifle couldn’t pierce their thick exoskeletons, Terrik took off in the opposite direction. He heard the cyborgs sprinting after him, and cursed himself a fool; he’d never be able to outrun the mechanically augmented soldiers.

Ducking into the nearest room, Terrik found himself in a supply closet with only seconds to prepare an ambush.