Warlord's Invasion (Starfight Book 1) (8 page)

The woman stopped cowering and her blood soaked face brightened. She waved back, looking relieved. “Oh, thank god for marines!” She looked about thirty, obviously a member of the hospital staff. She smiled, a weak ash-filled smile when a hypervelocity slammed into the back of her head, which exploded like a firecracker. A sudden red mist of blood and gore expanded where her neck was. Before her body could fall to the ground, another hypervelocity round penetrated her torso. Pieces of skin, organ, blood, and clothing exploded in a well-blended fleshy fireball.

Explosive rounds. The enemy had a variant of the human incendiary armor-piercing round.

Kubersly’s first reaction was to be silent, but he knew the enemy probably saw the woman wave at him. Thus, the enemy that was out of sight had to know he was right there in the same corridor as the woman. As soon as the enemy entered that corridor, it would have angle of fire on him as well. His first idea was to wait, since he knew they were coming and could see them the moment they entered the corridor whereas, it would take a slight moment for
them
to see where
he
was. Then, he realized that the enemy probably had around-the-corner cams or worse—bite sized recon probes which could tell them where he was before they entered line of sight.

Suddenly, Kubersly found himself back peddling, so that he entered another T into the first corridor prior to this one.
He was now out of line of sight from the enemy if they chose to enter the corridor where the
woman was.
Then, he positioned his finger around the turn, so that he could see the woman’s scattered carcass and anything that entered her corridor.

He waited and waited, then he saw movement. A large piece of metal, a foot, entered the corridor from the opposite T and then the entire body of a large exoskeleton came into view. It had its gun aimed right at where Kubersly’s finger was, but it didn’t shoot.

The alien knew he was there.

It waited and waited. For the longest moment, there was a cold silence, only interrupted by the burning of plasticrete. What was the alien waiting for? Then, Kubersly realized it. The alien was waiting for him to dive around the corner and start shooting at it. Both opponents, him and the alien, knew the whereabouts of the other, but were just waiting for either to make move.

Too bad, his chassis wasn’t equipped with a XG-103 Doorman rifle, which could bend around a corner and use a camera as sight. Then again, those types of rifles didn’t have the acceleration chamber that could push a round fast enough to pierce armor.

He was left with only two choices. Wait for the alien to come to him, or come to the alien by diving around the corner.

Well, this is it. I’m not a person to wait. I’m gonna make the first move.

He retracted his finger that held the camera so both hands held his magno-gun. He readied himself for the charge by taking deep breaths. This was it. The moment of action was about to come.
1
…2...3. Here I come!

He intended to leap around the corner, then his helmet sensor alarm triggered like a siren. Then, before he could turn around the bend to fire at the first alien, a second alien approached in the same corridor behind him. The sensors at the back of his helmet had detected the intrusion. Kubersly swiveled around and aimed his magnetic rifle at the new intruder from behind. He saw the sudden emergence of a black alien exoskeleton and fired. The round sped through open air at 2000 meters per second, penetrating the second alien’s body, which exploded in a gigantic armored fireball. The wall behind Kubersly also exploded as alien incendiary rounds smacked into it.

Hard neoplastic debris flew everywhere, much of it bouncing off his carbon armor, throwing Kubersly forward. He almost lost his footing but then managed to stay upright. His helmet sensors could hear things besides the crackling of burning plasticrete or the bouncing of alien flesh and gore on the walls. He heard the loud footsteps of the first alien who was running through the corridor behind him towards the T, probably way past the dead woman. It was about to charge around the bend to fire at Kubersly at the earliest opportunity the moment it gained line of sight, now that the surprise ambush from its friend had failed.

Kubersly rushed towards the T and dove out into the open. He fired his rifle the moment he saw the alien, still running towards him.

The alien wasn’t more than ten meters away, its body massive in Kubersly’s scopes. He could not miss, nor could the alien, but it was Kubersly who fired first—his bullet traveling at a speed faster than the alien could press the trigger on its rifle. The armor piercing bullet entered the alien’s armored head and Kubersly saw everything that happened afterwards in slow motion, even before he fell onto the floor from his dive.

The alien’s head bubbled as shockwaves expanded from inside from the penetration of the round, not its incendiary explosion. These shockwaves broke every tissue in the alien’s torso before the miniature deuterium chamber inside the armor piercing round detonated. The plasmaball blew the alien’s head into a thousand pieces, as well as opened up the neck and upper torso. Fire, armor, yellow blood and flesh expanded in every direction, some of it hitting the walls and others bouncing off Kubersly’s armor.

How had he seen all of that in slow motion?

By the time he finally hit the floor due to his corner bending dive, he realized that he must have once again experienced what most war veterans and sportsmen called the Zone, where all the senses become extremely alert and everything is experienced in miliseconds.

Was it a purely a human ability? Or did the aliens have it as well?

He knew one thing. As long as he had it, it would take an army to stop him.

He got up, his breathing hard, and knew he would live to fight another hour. The hospital was crackling with fired-up aftereffects of explosive rounds, but
he
was still alive— and as long as he was, the aliens had one more member of the human race to resist whatever they intended to do.

CHAPTER THREE

Fourteen hours later

December 14
th
3986 AD

Planetary Defense Command, Meerlat

Operation Room…

I
t had been fourteen hours since the ground invasion began. The sun had fallen on one hemisphere of Meerlat and had risen on the other half. Over forty thousand military, paramilitary, and civilian police members had died resisting the alien ground forces. Most of them had perished in the cities. God knew how many civilians had perished. The alien footsoldiers were numerous, in the millions, while their tanks and air assault vehicles dominated the streets and the skies.

Every building that Streit’s battalions had put a resistance in had been contended by the aliens. Many were still in contention.

By the tens of thousands, they had died, but by the tens of thousands, they had also destroyed the enemy. Streit estimated that his infantry troops had killed over 50,000 alien troops through the streets and building battles. Was it all for nothing if the eventual result was the same? He estimated that in less than a day, Streit’s remaining 20,000 or so troops would be dead, their bodies having found forever martyrdom in the buildings and streets of Meerlat’s colonial cities.

The moment he saw the exoskeleton armor and infantry technology of the aliens, he had known this was one battle he could not win. Had thousands really perished for a lost cause? What would the aliens have done to his troops had he chose not to fight? What did they intend to do with the planet after they had conquered the population?

Streit sat at his interface console, thousands of images pouring through the holographic displays that surrounded him. The clear odor of well-ventilated oxygen kept the theater-like command room smelling fresh despite the anxiety and adrenaline that poured through the bodies of the men and women who occupied it. Men and women who were ranked too high to be in the street fights, or had administrative and technical skills that were more suited for the task of maintaining the command center. What would happen to these men and women when those outside dying in the streets were all dead?

The articles of war that existed between human nations prior to the unification of humanity had always ensured that captured enemy personnel be treated in humane manner. Prisoner of war camps, reintegration, labor extraction. These were the humane ways to treat enemy soldiers. However, theses aliens were a complete mystery. Did they have a policy towards treating enemy soldiers? It seemed they must have had a policy towards treating enemy civilians, or they would have bombed the living hell out of the cities long ago. These new aliens were not like the old aliens—the flat-headed Orions nor the chlorophyll-skinned Draconians. There had been no agreement or past precedence that Streit could draw upon to determine the fate of his army if he chose not to fight.

By surrendering, he could very well be ordering the execution of his remaining troops.

But they would die anyway.

They would just take out more enemy soldiers in the process. But did it matter? There were millions of them on the planet.

What possible alternatives could he be left with?

The enemy did not have a way to communicate in any known language, therefore he couldn’t even negotiate a deal. Nor did they even appear as if they would accept any deal.

For more minutes, he thought about it. Finally, he came to the conclusion that his only choice would be unconditional surrender. He had to hope that the aliens wouldn’t kill their enemies if they gave up. If they didn’t, his troops were dying out there needlessly.

Damn though—they could very well die just as quick
after
they surrendered.

He eyed the planetary hologram, portions of it flashing red where combat was still occurring in the cities. The minds of a hundred people in the room were still channeling their energies towards fighting the aliens. Streit knew they would until he ordered them not to. The question was…when would he do that? If the alien did treat enemy soldiers in a humane manner—or at least, not execute them outright—how would he live with himself knowing that he could have ordered the surrender hours earlier and prevented more deaths?

Colonel Streit stood up. He picked up a mic and pressed a button that would transmit his voice across the room. He cleared his throat.

For a moment, the room quieted in eerie silence as everyone turned their attention towards him.

“All personnel, we are going to surrender. Commence F8 procedures immediately. Purge the central datacore of all information. Relay the orders down the chain of command. All combat units are to follow F8 procedures and terminate offensive activities.”

Then the room rushed into a new flurry of sounds as the orders were sent down the chain.

He hoped he had done the right thing.

Bajor City, Southern Continent, Meerlat

Main Hospital Complex

Outside Building 8D…

“Everyone, lay down your weapons.” Kubersly’s voice came as a shock even to himself. After all that gruesome fighting, all that
killing
, he still couldn’t imagine himself giving up. The Black Cats—that’s the name he’d given them secretly after seeing inside their armored exoskeletons—had given him hell. Hell and back. They had killed off ninety percent of his platoon, and now he was giving up to them? He wanted to kill as many of them as possible, even if it meant dying, but he couldn’t disobey orders. If surrendering actually saved the lives of his two remaining
troopers, then he had to relay that order.

“But, sir,” Private Shelby said on the com line. “We have no way to
tell
them that we’re surrendering.”

“When everyone stops firing, they’ll know.”

“Then what?”

“Then we wait for their judgment.” Kubersly shuddered. He had personally witnessed
them
blow off the torsos of three civilian bystanders. He had watched the victims, two teenagers and an elderly man, run in fear before they disappeared in a blast of flesh and blood. How would the Black Cats treat him, who had actually killed two dozen of
their
soldiers?

Let’s hope none of them get rash or hold a grudge.

Throughout the city’s battlezone, the sound of magnetic whirring, gunfire, and explosions suddenly decreased, although not completely extinguished. For several minutes, he paid close attention to the officer level com chatter. Soldiers who had formerly been tough enough to weather hell and kill without hesitation were now frightened since they had no control over their fates. He heard one officer verbally narrate his encounter. From the fear and anxiety he felt, knowing the enemy could come closer and he could do nothing—to his final realization that this particular alien
did
, in fact hold a grudge—to his screams as he was killed outright.

The night basked in smoke and the sky held a golden glow from numerous city fires.

Then, Kubersly heard it himself. The pounding of heavy armored boots on blasted plasticrete.

Crunch. Clunk. Crunch.

The Sergeant sat behind a mound of rubble from a collapsed building. He knew
they
could see him, just as he could see
them
through the overhead nanosensors. The battle that had raged in the air between enemy and friendly recon probes had caused occasional blackouts in sensor information, but nanomachines were cheap and they were constantly being released into the air. Kubersly was not an expert at nanomachine warfare, but it seemed his side had fought the air war well.

Kubersly saw it through his sensors on the other side of the rubble. The Cat, black and menacing. With a two meters high armorsuit, holding a massive rifle, walking towards the position where Kubersly lay.

It walked slowly, like a victor.

Within seconds, it finished walking around the rubble and gained line of sight on Kubersly. It aimed its rifle at him and shouted in some brutish alien tongue.

“For the Federation!” Private Mizzi shouted over the com channel.

The Cat, ten meters in front of Kubersly, suddenly exploded in a fireball. Black armor blew in every direction. Bits and pieces of flesh and yellow blood scattered on the charred plasticrete. The alien’s armored legs flew apart and landed meters away with a clang.

“Idiot!” Kubersly yelled. Gun blasts exploded all around him. He instantaneously reached for his magrifle near his feet and knew this time, he wouldn’t get out of it alive—when suddenly a human-sized hovercraft levitated down from above and hovered two meters above his head. He didn’t recognize this type of drone but he didn’t need to. It pointed its barrel towards him in an obvious sign, ‘Move and Die’. In his in-helmet display, he saw Private Mizzi’s life signal blink from blue to gray to black.

Kubersly raised his hands in the air in a universal gesture of surrender.

On the outskirts of Meerlat’s (star) hyperlimit

Imperial Mothership Ro’Zur’Gur

Command Nexus…

A massive
one hundred
kilometer wide doomstar emerged through a flickering white hyperspace window—limitless cascades of photons blasted in every direction. Sizzling electrons scattered around the gigantic portal, a tribute to the raw energy required for a hyperlight transit, let alone one of this magnitude. After the enormous window fizzled and died, the ship hovered in real space momentarily before accelerating inward towards Meerlat.

The Cat who controlled this flagship, and the entire Ga invasion, was the Great Warlord Gor-Eben. He stood in the center of a massive chamber surrounded by hundreds of uniformed Cats dressed in various rank-designating colors. These Cats occupied the control interfaces that maintained the ship. Gor-Eben himself wore the ceremonious white coat and cloak that designated the highest echelons in the Ga hierarchy. His black fur was neatly trimmed and his blue, searing eyes revealed his concentration and ambition. As he gazed around the cavern, he saw dozens of holoprojections appear and disappear as workers manipulated their interfaces.

It was safe to say that Gor-Eben was not a being to be trifled with. He had commanded trillions of lives and taken killed trillions of lives to satisfy his objectives. As long as his ambitions fell in line with the Great Prince, no being in the entire half-galaxy spanning empire could object to his wishes. Only if the Great Prince did not suspect, of course.

The Great Prince, the most powerful being in the entire universe, one day Gor-Eben would dethrone that obstacle. Gor-Eben was the greatest warlord to have ever amassed power in the empire, and it would be only a few more decades before this power was enough to surpass all the fleets the Great Prince commanded.

However, to do so, Gor-Eben required more servants and loyal territory, particularly territory with large manufacturing bases and trainable populations. Another race of beings that could be conquered and then put to use into making warships and becoming footsoldiers for Gor-Eben’s future armies… this aim was like precious platinum in his burning, blue eyes.

All in the name of the Great Prince…Gor-Eben schemed.

“Your magnificence,” one of the comm operators in standard Gar said. “Subjugator Hal-Dorat wishes to report his progress.”

Gor-Eben nodded. “Bring him to me.”

A hologram of the fleet commander fizzled into existence in front of Gor-Eben. The bright-red uniformed figure wore golden shoulder sleeves and stood in a translucent gray background. It bowed. “Your eminence.”

“Rise, Hal-Dorat.” Gor-Eben gleamed at his subordinate’s space black fur, a true warrior. “Tell me that which you wish to speak.”

“All surface resistance has ended. The beings of bare-skinned bipedals have capitulated the system. We gained information on all their weapons and defenses. Primitive but courageous. Their surface population is six million sophonts. In addition, we have captured seven hundred survivors from their space battle. We have lost sixty thousand ground Ka. Our space fleet losses are negligible. Do I proceed with usual assimilation procedures?”

“You have done well, Hal-Dorat. Start assimilation protocols immediately. Do not give any information away but learn much from them. As usual, destroy all tachyon transmitters and receptors and all vessels capable of hyper transit. I will loan you my linguistic Lar, so we may learn how to communicate with them.”

“What do I do with their warriors, your eminence?”

Gor-Eben paused, stroking his golden whiskers. What to do with the enemy’s fighters was always tricky, especially during the beginning of the invasion before the entire race realizes that victory is impossible. The aggressive warriors may try to sabotage the assimilation process or, worse, attempt to kill fellow Ka. “Kill the most difficult dissidents, but leave the rest alive until our linguistic and social scientists have studied their psychology.”

“As you wish, your eminence.”

“Is that all, Hal-Dorat?”

“Yes, your eminence.”

“Then I salute you on your success, subjugator.”