Dark Crosses

The control center was in a panic as the battle below crumbled in real-time. The numbers kept dropping. 38%, 37%. Where were they located? Did he underestimate the human rats emerging from their burrows? What was killing fully armed, technologically superior creatures?

In the meantime, a support monkey was watching the gunboats on the tracker. "Everyone's being boarded on, master." He squinted. "Tags seem to be scattered, though."

"Doesn't matter," the Shipmaster said. "Send them to the barracks for suppression immediately."

The main screen displayed a few dozen frayed vehicles docking. The pilots were hidden in their cockpits, and the passengers were essentially in a pile, wounded at best, a pile of corpses at worst. The Shipmaster groaned. There was no use for this stock. Perhaps a shock and some kicks would bring his army back to life?

However, as the hangar crews approached the gunboats, the dead body pile began shifting. Hills of fur and tuft emerged from the top, pushing murdered lizardmen to the metal floor below. It was as if the desert had migrated to the Flock. They were so strange looking that the crew didn't realize they were armed.

The first volley of automatic fire cut a swath through the aliens, and within seconds, they were set upon, surprised and low on armaments. The man first into the fray with a shortsword was Captain Kalin.

"Secure the fortress!" He commanded. "Kill them all on sight!"

“Reverse engines!” The Shipmaster spat. “Get us into orbit now!”

Inside the ship's junctures, Sam and Vinisnu were assaulted with blaring lights and doors closing all around them. The vessel could lock them in at any moment, trapping the children in enclosed, labyrinthine corridors with no way to escape.

"Hey look, arrows!" Snu pointed. "Do you think we're getting somewhere important?"

"No, that's too obvious," Sam replied. "Then again, do we know if they're smarter than us? Do they think like humans?"

"I don't think so. They act like Marinads."

"Well, if we do find someone smart, let me do the talking."

"Talking?"

The centralized halls and ramps were spotted with weaker, more intelligent alien races, some familiar to the pair but all in a rush and unprepared for unannounced visitors. Sam sucker-punched the first of an ever increasing support staff and stuck up the others by the batch. There was no telling how much ammo they had left, but she could frighten them long enough to either scare them or have Snu put his tail to work.

Their clearing actions were caught on the bridge's local security feed.

“My lord, the intruders are right below us!”

“Seal the bridge then!” The Shipmaster didn't even look. “Get all security into sector 4. Block everything off!”

“My lord! They're breaking through the bulkheads!”

The Pandemian/Earthling party moved like a tidal wave. Not only did the sixty soldiers include the handpicked members of Kalin's hunting cadre but also veterans of the last Ublanethian war, Yapul and his gang, Betelgeuse's marines led by Warrant Officer Daniel and the cybernetic entourage of Devol's second son. Their ability to clear the confined spaces of the ship was second nature to them, and all of them were masters of CQC.

As they spread and conquered, the steel barricades raised to hold them back were dismantled door by door by Kalin, whose sparking hand either short-circuited the doors into opening or burnt their way through like a welding solder.

The Shipmaster clenched his teeth. “Get us out of orbit. Release all air pressure in Sector 4 once we're-!”

The Flock shuddered violently as if rammed by another battleship. The radar didn't detect anything just a moment prior. Was it the human vessel? Did it come back from a second assault? That was impossible, but something was out there, and it was holding on.

It took one camera feed to confirm the situation, as the gold dragon himself had returned with righteous fury. While small compared to the scout ship, the beast was maneuverable enough to leap and crash through the vessel's exterior, diving and swerving between the ship's point defense weapons with unimaginable grace and cunning. Carving a path up the ship's shell toward its more vulnerable engines. On the mighty God's back, a veiled woman rider acted as his master and kept the elder creature focused. Dozae-Rae obeyed, as Maed-Laio was the one who gave him strength.

“Engine block 3 is under attack, my lord!” Someone shouted. “We're losing thrust!”

“Shoot it down! Do something!”

The Shipmaster's sense of self was unwinding. The battle was won half an hour ago. His creatures were dominating the battlefield, his vessel reigned supreme. The valor and glory all belonged to him and his Flock. Surely they were still in control, yes? What were these but unfortunate happenstances? Not misbegotten errors on his part, right? As a Grey Man raised for leadership, his mind couldn't comprehend that. These humans, these rats, they were holding back, weren't they? He couldn't have just decided to lose, right? 

"Freeze, Mister!" Vinisnu shouted, guns akimbo. "Don't make a move!"

The Shipmaster sat there for a second, trying to comprehend what kind of babble was spouted at him. It took the gasps and panicked shuffling of his bridge servants to realize that the bridge had been breached. He turned to face them, and his eyes bulged from his sockets. Children? He was being invaded by mere children!? He pulled his sidearm out on reflex, but it was shot out of his hand by the Kainian, whose mark was beyond what he had expected.

"Why?" the Shipmaster snarled. "Are there human children on my bridge?"

The computer monkeys were trying to come up with an answer while anyone with a gun slowly reached for theirs. The room was icy cold for several seconds.

"That's enough. This fight is over," Sam said in Kainian, noting whoever understood her.

It seemed the imps perked up the most from the language, with the alien in the central chair proving most perturbed as if it was unexpected. The Grey Men, Sam remembered, were one of the few aliens who could comprehend humans on a verbal level. If she were to speak, she had to watch them first.

“I'm offering you a chance to surrender. Lay down your weapons now."

A monkey-like officer turned. "Sir, we have multiple breaches going through the central hull. We're being overrun!"

"What are you trying to say, Sam?"

“Get these humans off my bridge!”

Sam fired a shot into the ceiling, leaving a scorch mark.

“Watch ‘em, Snu,” she whispered. There were too many to track, but she could get a gist of their nature. They were scared, not of them but another factor.

A monitor showed security footage of all the firefights across the ship. From a quick glance, Sam surmised the situation and read the room. She didn't know a moment before if they were the last remaining humans onboard, but now she understood their terror and could exploit it.

"We have you surrounded!" she continued in perfect Kainian. "I'm allowing you to surrender to Planet Ka- to Planet Earth. Do so, and you will all be spared.”

The Shipmaster grimaced. “What nonsense. A Kainian would never allow an enemy to live. What a disgrace you are.”

“You're right. I'm only half Kainian,” Sam's brow unfurrowed, showing feigned weakness. “But as an Earthling, I have compassion for more than just humans.”

Sam saw a spark in the Shipmaster. A good sign.

“We will treat your people well and keep you safe from Kain. You have my word and my honor.”

Sam made some quick glances. The imps were still aiming for them, but less so, arms bending inward and heads turning away. However, the Shipmaster slowly grew more furious. Old wiring was animating the alien commander. They were in danger.

“However, I should mention the leader of the Pandemians attacking you is this boy's father.” She gestured to Vinisnu, who felt awkward about being mentioned. “Should anything happen to him, your death will be a hundred times more painful than any Kanian retribution.”

The Shipmaster gleamed as if he had found a diamond in the beach sand, his lips curling back and showing his teeth. “Is that so?”

Sam answered by pointing a gun at the back of Vinisnu's head. The boy shuddered. “Of course, I'll splatter him myself if you try anything.” She said. “I won't have any other option. Surrender to me, or die."

Vinisnu wasn't sure what Sam was saying. In fact, it was strange to hear her in an exotic tongue that was so foreign to him. She truly was an alien, a peculiar and powerful little girl, but there was one thing he knew for sure. He trusted her. If anything, he'd do the same for her.

The urge to annihilate the brats with high-density pulse rounds was high, but the Shipmaster had his hand on hold. The support staff still barked about the encroaching humans and their shrinking time frame. A new report would hit him every few seconds, pressuring him even more.

The Grey Man kept his eye on the girl but darted once or twice to all the members of his flock, whom he had trained and raised for years. If he were a younger imp, he would be reckless, full of bravado, and willing to fight to the last man. But he was older, and he was wiser. Such wonton loss for the sake of honor was meaningless. The girl made her threat clear, and he gave her that.

It was because of that he took the throttle and shoved it. The entire ship lurched and threw the kids off their balance, throwing everyone into a stumble as the Flock suddenly turned to the whims of the Shipmaster. The whole crew fell into his madness. He was an EVO Master, but he was also a member of the Cross.

“I'd rather die than surrender! Kill them!”

With another button press, the ship became strange. It whirled and spun so that anyone not fastened to their seats was tossed across the domed control room like a ragdoll. Sam tried to make sense of up and down. Gravity was all over the place. Either it was the gravity generator going on the fritz, or the device was turned off, and all of them were subjected to the g-forces of the vessel in motion.

Snu got his footing immediately and saw the aliens coming. They were even more scared than they were, and their barreling and shooting were undisciplined. It was a feeling the Pandemian couldn't understand, but only because he didn't understand the situation. This wasn't a trick to throw off the two children. This was what the EVO called a cull. Within 45 seconds, the ship was going to careen into Ublaneth below. Everyone within 10 kilometers of the Flock would die, and the crewman knew it, gone insane from the imminence but with no agency to disobey.

Sam found footing on the side of the dome, but plasma fire forced her to keep moving. There was no time to think, only to act. Sam launched herself into zero gravity, rifle ablaze. Every shot she landed on an alien was another eye off of her. For every shift in direction, the lesser chance that a stray pulse melts her body. Keep holding on, she said to herself. Keep going.

Snu stuck to the ground by slithering between the command consoles and attacking from below. His mind was focused all on his tail, which stretched long and thin, becoming an instrument of his violence. Of the two of them, the command bridge was scared of him the most. His danger was more basic, primal. He stabbed and sliced with his tail, morphed thin as a blade. It drove fear further than the assault from above, but it was more vulnerable. A lucky shot hit Vinisnu square in his tail's center mass. Snu's scream could be heard across the control room. In a rough, nasally sneer, the Shipmaster cackled.

“Yes! Scream for me! Your cries will be the herald of my arrival to the Man himself!” He laughed. “This isn't the end! I'll be back to claim more of you in the future! My destiny is preordained! I am invincible!”

The monster's laughter stopped as he sat meters away from the Kanian girl. While the ship's tumbling zero gravity had the girl flying upside down in a disorienting swirl of chaos, the Shipmaster remained secure and stationary, a beast in a chair, a central looming figure that made for a guiding light and, to his shock, an easy target.

With a determined aim, she opened up on full auto, and the Shipmaster’s command station splattered with melted slag and blood.

Sam skidded across the floor before gripping a nearby console at the cost of her empty rifle. She crawled back to the command console, knowing that mere seconds remained, and pulled on the lever with all her might. Please, stop the ship, she thought. Please, don't let it end this way. 

The lever easily returned to its normal position, but the ship was still falling. There was no turning back from a simple flip of a switch, and the device otherwise was utterly alien to her.

For the last couple of seconds, she turned back to Vinisnu. He was bloodied, panting, just able to pull himself up despite the aliens surrounding him. Their eyes connected, and even now, at the end of everything, he nodded back at her. If she had the chance to say goodbye, she would've, but that time had passed.

Flock 37, burning and spinning, crashed into the Pandemian sands.