Deep Space
Uhlek Badlands
ISS Belfast Windfall

The Medi-Tech droid’s motor whirred quicker as it spouted its programmed objection: “Doctor, the subject patient’s biological chemistry is undetermined. Course of action is ill-advised.”

Doc Biss ignored the fifteen-year-old automat, lifting a small bottle and a needle into the light. The syringe drew twenty cubic centimeters of unreformatted adrenaline – they called it “liquid high roll” – from the glass bottle. Biss flicked the needle with a slender finger, then shot a glance back at the monitors, guessing at everything except the obvious: the numbers were plummeting. She looked down at the drifting Leghk, covered with sensors, and set her red eyes to finding an artery.

G'Nunk Warship Regepple

They moved as quickly anything made of meat and bone, shoulder to shoulder, unrattled by the chaos, plainly executing the ancient battle drill. The Thrynn Marines slashed and gunned their way through the madness on the baptism deck, killing and moving. Corporal Rassyth gave a split second’s glance at his schematic, then shouted an order, guiding his squad toward the hatch.

Not much time, he thought. The blades and short stalks ripped flesh, but his trump weapon was the pure shock of their arrival, and that didn’t have a shelf life. The lizards bolted out of the baptism deck leaving an afterthought of clinking metal orbs.

Gannuzo dove behind the deejay booth and waited for the grenades to function, which they did, rounding out the slaughter. The G’Nunk Dozelord stood, looked at the grissly scene, then let out the horrible shriek of a wounded animal. In a blind white rage he hit a sequence of three buttons on his wrist controller, activating the bionic overrides on every member of his crew.

The Thrynn were seeking to take away his power. They wanted to destroy the dark lightning. Never, O Great One!

The Royal Marines sprinted down the passageway, blasting the odd G’Nunk crewmember who got in their way. Corporal Rassyth shouted a command and the squad rounded the last corner. Thirty meters. Two hatches. Good.

A hot blast of beam energy cut past Rassyth and bore a staunched tunnel wound through his communictor’s chest. The corporal’s mind focused, and the nanoseconds slowed, taking on the gait of decades. He turned back to face front, and the lightning bits of information started feeding through his mind:

He’s gone. Repeating weapon. Beam.

Another Marine fell, crumpling, his chest hollowed out and charred. Another second on the clock.

No time.

Smoke coming out of his mouth.

Kill the gun, or lose the momentum. Kill it, or die now. Tell Gazzansa...

“...proximity concussion!” he shouted to his grenadier.

A third dead body crumbled calmly to the metal deck, this one a decapitated husk, smoking from the neck. Another second.

Lance Corporal Gazz jerked backward under the recoil from his grenade launcher. Thoomp…two...three. The explosion deafened the Marines and it decomposed the G’Nunk laser team, leaving the path open.

Rassyth blinked, and time snapped back to its tempo. “Twenty meters!” he shouted, unable to hear himself. He caught Gazzansa’s eye and slapped his left cargo pocket. Get your plastic. We have to blast.

Aboard ISS Belfast Windfall

Biss drew the needle out of the last of the Leghk on her examination tables, cursing as the Windfall jerked hard to port. The effect was the same: a spike in vitals, a few moments of increased activity, then a dropoff. High roll wasn’t doing a thing, and it was the last card in the deck.

G'Nunk Warship Regepple

Dozelord Gannuzo shuffled down the passage, a growing horde of his fellow G’Nunk behind him as he led the way to the dark lightning. His eyes were wild with the anticipation of killing the intruders. With a putrid saliva running down his torso, Gannuzo jabbed a needle into his neck and squeezed a searing narcotic goo into his blood.

”Clear!” shouted Lance Corporal Gazzansa, lifting his hands to cover his ears. The explosion blew the hatch inward and a cloud of smoke plumed out into the passage way. The squad bounded through the shredded hatch, weapons at the ready.

“They seek to test their grit against the lightning-orb!” he howled, whipping his followers into foaming rage. “First they will taste the steel of G’Naen Sh’gar’s ruthless healers!” Behind him, in the smoky haze, his crazed wretches screamed and howled, their blood full of chemicals and synthetic hormones, gnashing at the thought of a fight.

The ghoulish mob rumbled to a halt at the starboard entrance to the containment cell. Gannuzo turned to his mob and screamed, “let She/It who hunts us watch from afar in rapture as we slaughter the Iron Dragons in the face of the horrid-sweet Uhl-child! Prepare now to die forever!” The howling reached a frenzied crescendo and, sensing the moment was ripe, Gannuzo opened the hatch. The throng poured in.

They were met by the silent white light of the dark lightning, floating eerily in the center of the enormous chamber. The Thrynn weren’t there.
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Next: “Workaround”
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