Thankfully, none of the marines had been injured. To Orson, they were more valuable than any ship. Without them, his plans were dead in the water. The small gaggle of resistance members he had assembled were not trained soldiers, and whilst he had sent marines to their ships to begin teaching them, they were a long way off serving in the frontlines. Without the marines, boarding a ship or station was out of the question.
“Nguyen reports the captured ship is ready to follow, sir,” Johnson said. Like the rest of the crew, shaking loose the old military habits was proving hard. “Should be useful, a cargo ship like that.”
“It will, though it’s a shame about the crew. We could have used more people.” Orson shook his head. He had always considered that it could be a trap, that the Council could pretend to put forward recruits. That was why he always had them come aboard by shuttle, then sent that shuttle back full of his own marines. The people who had joined had always understood his reasoning, once their ship had been thoroughly inspected. Orson knew it wasn’t sustainable, not in the long term. They would need to work out some other system of recruitment before long.
“I think, sir, that we will always be needing more people. Considering the uh, size, of the enemy.”
“A fair point, Johnson.” Orson drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair. “I suppose I better go and talk to our guests. I wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.”
The doors slid open with a hiss, light pouring through the opening into the room beyond. Orson stepped inside, the guards flanking the inside of the door nodding as he entered. The thin insectoids were sitting awkwardly on the floor on the other side of the room. The guest quarters as they had come to be known, used to be a storage room, its contents emptied out and distributed amongst the growing fleet. The room had been intended to act as a makeshift brig, getting its name from a dark sense of humour common to trained soldiers.
“I demand to know what is going on,” Ivix said, her antenna jerking about furiously as she spoke. “Why are we being detained here?”
Orson allowed himself a smirk. “I would think you know that. Unless you plan on telling me you didn’t know about the armed people waiting aboard your ship. A lot more people than you claimed there were aboard, to begin with. You’re not going to claim that, are you Ivix? Let’s skip the bullshit why don’t we?”
“Go devour your mother you filthy mammal! You won’t get shit from us.”
Despite all the difference between Orson and Ivix, the chittering mandibles, the exoskeleton, the multifaceted eyes, the alien had reacted exactly as Orson had expected. It was the same as anyone he had interrogated in the past. First came the anger, the rage at being captured.
“Big words for someone trapped on an enemy ship with no weapons. And trapped you are. We have your ship. Your people fought to the last, so you can at least have pride.”
Enraged, one of the aliens began to launch themselves forward, diving with impressive speed. They weren’t, however, quicker than the marines guarding the door. There was a single loud crack as the rifle’s barrel flashed green and the alien’s torso exploded, a thick black slime made of blood and entrails splattering across its companions.
“You’re an idiot if you think the Council is going to stand for your actions. You’ll be crushed beneath their heel, like everything else.”
Orson crouched, bringing himself closer to Ivix. He wiped a fleck of blood from his shoulder. “When you spoke to me, told me of the Council laying waste to your forests, you were speaking the truth, I know you were. You really meant it. You hate them for all the pain they have caused your kind. And yet you still try to help them?”
“My world is ruined. Doesn’t mean my life has to be. The Council controls everything. That’s just the way things are. You play their game or get crushed. Handing you over to them would have set me and my people up for life. I couldn’t give a vilix’s ass about my planet then.”
“Very patriotic of you. So, you’re just vigilantes. Interesting.”
“You know what’s interesting,” Ivix said, her spittle dribbling down her mandibles. “That you think that you can just claim you’re some messiah and that people will come running to you. You think you’re the first person to try that? Knower of truths? You’re full of shit. More of a Teller of Lies, that title suits you better.”
“Maybe.” Orson stood up. “We’ll leave you on the next comms station we take. You’ll have some food, long enough for a Council ship to stop by. Hopefully.”
The tracks had led across the countryside, directly to a large cliff face that loomed over Michael as he stared at it. There they had stopped, almost like they had vanished into the side of the cliff. Michael wasn’t relishing trying to climb it, the fall was far enough it would do some serious damage. He considered making a call to Brekt, the communicator bracelet wrapped around his wrist, but Aileena had told Michael to hold off for the time being.
She was stood directly in front of the cliff face, staring at it. Something had gotten her attention, something Michael couldn’t see. She placed a hand on the rock face and began to climb.
“If you think I’m climbing up there, then you’re mad,” Michael said. His skin was still bright red, flush from the long walk, his breath coming back to him.
“Something isn’t right here,” Aileena said as she continued the climb. She stopped about three metres from the ground. “The rock face here, it’s… different. Something about it feels off.”
“Looks fine to me.”
“Advantages of having these eyes.”
Aileena touched the stone where it looked different to her and was surprised to find no resistance. The wall seemed to ripple for a moment as she pulled her hand back. She touched it again, this time sinking her hand in as far as her wrist. She could feel an edge under her hand and pulled herself through, vanishing into the wall. A moment later her head reappeared, floating disembodied on the rock.
“It’s a hologram. A really good one too, most races I think would never know the difference.”
“We’re going to go inside, aren’t we?”
“I’m already inside, so…”
Michael rubbed the sides of his temples. “This is a terrible idea. I’m just saying that upfront so we’re clear.”
Chapter Nine
Skorra ran, adopting a four-legged gait common to her people. They were arboreal in nature, excellent climbers that had once lived amongst the trees, before the coming of the ice. Skorra had spent much of her youth trekking out to the Sword’s resting places in the mountains, investigating the fallen starship. That had meant more than one encounter with the icy monsters that prowled the planet. Skorra was no stranger to fleeing for her life. What was new was needing to do it from a herd of animated beds.
The bots had continued their march, grabbing what scrap metal they could find and dumping it into the machine. Clive had tried in vain to stop them, his image vanishing as he dedicated all of his processing power to trying to override the machines. The production seemed to be getting faster, the beds being spat out at an accelerating rate. The herd had grown bolder as it expanded and was now trampling down the halls of the Sword. They weren’t aggressive, but like wild animals they were causing carnage simply from their size alone, knocking carts aside and threatening to idly trample people beneath their metal legs.
“Up here,” Clive’s voice said. A panel opened on the roof of the corridor, an access hatch unlocking. Skorra proved her species impressive abilities, leaping from the floor directly through the open hatch without even stopping her run. She found herself in a narrow maintenance shaft, tight even for her slight form.