Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure, Episode One (6 page)

I took a step back, then another, then one
more.

My body was shaking. I even dropped the
wrench from my hand as a powerful shudder crossed up my arm and
deep into my shoulder.

I had… I had no idea what was happening to
me.

The alarm kept blaring around the compound,
louder now, so thunderous I was sure it would split my head in
two.

And yet even above that truly torturous
sound I still heard more cracking filter down from the cruiser's
hull far above. I twitched my head back just in time to see more of
those odd black protrusions split open, bots spewing
forth.

The prince saw it, too. I heard a
strangled gasp echo from his armor. “Move,” he suddenly snapped as
he ground a hand into my shoulder and pulled me up. He was so
strong my boots scattered over the ground.

He twisted me around and shoved me hard in
the center of my back. “Get back.”

Despite the momentum of his push, I still
twisted my head around, eyes pressed wide open as I stared at
him.

He thrust forward, holding that strange
purple blade high.

The bots snaked down from above, powering
towards him. Despite the fact there were numerous security guards,
many closer than the prince, the bots all concentrated on him.
Swarming down and around him like locusts.

I couldn't help but bring a
hand up and cram it over my mouth as I gasped. It was more than
that, though. Again my body shook as a surge of emotion came from
somewhere. It slammed into my sternum, pushed and
burrowed
until it reached my heart. It felt as if it would
wrench me in two.

Though the bots swarmed upon the prince,
he fought valiantly, brilliantly. Though his sword was undoubtedly
powerful, and his armor looked as if it were some of the best in
the galaxy, his ability accounted for more than his
advantage.

He spun around, flipping on one hand,
bringing the blade up and slicing it through two bots at the same
time.

By now the majority of the security guards
had streamed past me on their way to help the prince.

A full red alert was echoing through the
compound, and I knew my duty – I should help evacuate. But I
couldn't.

I couldn't move a goddamn muscle.

I watched in horror as the security guard
beside me tried but failed to shoot one of the bots. It sprang upon
him, sinking its metal arms right through his chest plate. They
were so strong and so violent that they sprang out the other side,
scattering blood over the rust-colored sand.

The guy dropped his blaster as he fell down
onto his knees, then onto his back, his body giving one violent
twitch until it lay still.

The blaster
scattered towards me, bouncing
against my boot.

I stared at it for a single second.

I heard the prince scream orders at his
men, heard them all scatter forward as the sounds of heated battle
filled the compound and mixed with the still shrieking blare of the
alarm.

And yet time appeared to slow down.

Something happened to me, to my body, to
my mind. I felt as if they stretched, as if that same ethereal hand
from before punched into my skull and began to smear me
thin.

Before I knew what I was doing, I jerked
down to one knee and clutched up a blaster, squeezing my sweaty
fingers through the trigger loop.

The frantic sounds of the battle drained
way as an eerie ringing filled my ears.

I jerked my head up and my gaze locked on
the prince of its own accord. There was nothing I could do to tug
it off as I suddenly thrust forward.

Several of the bots attacking the prince
suddenly veered off and shot towards me.

I fought them. Well. Though I'd managed to
push my way through 100 breakers only that morning, there was
something different about the way I fought now. Something natural,
elegant. It was almost unstoppable.

Two bots powered towards me, and though I
only had a blaster and they had sophisticated shielding, it didn't
matter.

I fired three rounds into the closest bot,
then ran into a sprint and fell to my knees, skidding under it as I
fired one round into the small hole where its legs protruded from.
My aim was perfect, and the blast aligned with the hole, sending a
charge of energy right into the center of the bot.

It was enough to see the
thing
explode
, chunks of metal spewing forth,
several dashing against my cheeks and cutting them.

I ignored the blood that splattered my
collar and pushed to my feet once more.

One of the bots swung low, its legs
extending towards my ankles, its intention clearly to chop them
off.

I didn't allow it. I suddenly leapt into
the air and landed with a foot right on the bot. I pushed off and
used it to leap towards the higher bot. I wrapped two arms around
it, clutching hold of its protruding legs. Then I pulled it right
out of the sky. I threw it down at my feet and shot it with the
blaster until it exploded in a cascade of metal and
sparks.

And like that, I fought. I couldn't tell for
how long. I couldn't tell how many bots I took down, though I knew
it was far more than most of the other security guards.

I kept fighting until the bots stopped
coming.

I paid no heed to the numerous injuries
that littered my form. I just didn't care. My mind continued to
ring, my heart continued to beat like a goddamn drum. As my
thoughts – every goddamn thought – continued to center on the
prince.

Finally
the dust settled, literally.
The red alert cut down to a yellow alert, the blaring pitch
thankfully quieting to a steady whoop.

The security guards began to pick themselves
up.

They inspected their injuries and clutched
at their weapons.

Me, I stood there, head still tilted back,
gaze locked on the hull above me.

I waited for more of the bots to appear.

Though it became increasingly clear that the
fight was over, I just couldn’t tell my heart that.

In fact, it took a hand reaching out and
locking on my shoulder until my thundering heart stopped, for just
a second. I turned around, heart beat a blare in my mind.

…
But it wasn’t the prince. It
was the man in the white and silver armor. Without a word, he
reached down and plucked the blaster from my grasp.

I locked my eyes on his helmet as I
clutched onto the blaster with all my grip.

His head ticked back, but rather than go
for the blade at his side, he took a step back, then another, and
ticked his head to the side. “You fought well. But I can’t allow
you to keep a Royal Arterian blaster.

There was something calm about his voice,
reassuring. This time I allowed him to reach down and clutch the
blaster in his white and silver metallic fingers. He pulled away,
checked the butt, and then locked it onto a holster around his
hip.

He took one more step back.

Then the man took his helmet off. It
receded into his back plating.

He was handsome, even by most alien
standards. He had the strong powerful features of an Arterian. He
also had almost mesmerizing blue eyes. He locked those blue eyes on
me.

Now I could see his face in
full, I could see his surprise, too.
“You know how to fight, human,” he
hazarded.

I nodded. “I’m human, I confirmed. And
yes, I can fight.” There was a slight shudder to my voice. It
shouldn’t be there, but at the same time I couldn’t control
it.

While yes, I could fight, no, I’d never
fought like that. I’d never been filled with such desperation.

And even now the prince had retreated back
inside his cruiser, my mind was still locked on him.

I kept telling myself that I had to be
sick in some way, that I must have been struck on the head during
my fight with the breakers this morning, and I just hadn’t realized
it.

Yet no matter how hard I tried to reason
with myself, I could not shift my attention from the prince. Even
though the war cruiser was truly massive, I was somehow possessed
of the irrational sense that I knew exactly where he was on
it.

I watched the man’s direct gaze flick up
to the sweat collecting over my brow. “You should check yourself in
to whatever medical facilities this refinery has.”

I didn’t even bother to make eye contact.
“I will,” I lied.

Assuming the conversation was
over, I turned on my foot and headed back in the direction of the
habitation compound, with no intention whatsoever of going to the
medical
bay.
Though this facility had one, it was to deal with major trauma, not
with… whatever the hell I was going through now.

I quickened my step as soon as
I made it halfway towards the habitation complex, heart beating
harder at the promise of throwing myself on my bed and closing my
eyes, giving myself time to understand…
this.

I didn’t get that opportunity. Halfway
across the grounds, I stopped. My hackles rose. The skin along the
back of my neck suddenly prickled, and my heart quickened to such a
thunderous pace, I felt certain it would shake right through my rib
cage. I clutched a suddenly sweaty hand to my messy tunic and drove
my fingers so hard against the fabric I almost tore a hole through
it.

Again I felt that ethereal hand reach
through time and space and lock on my shoulder. Its fingers seemed
to brush against my neck, then it jerked my head to the side. Just
in time. There was a metal shack several meters to my side. Nothing
more than a few broken walls barely holding up a slanting roof.
Several of the walls were so bent and misshapen they left enormous
holes near the roof that let in mounds of sand.

The shack was nothing more than an old
shed that had once been used to house refinery equipment but had –
like everything else on this planet – succumbed to the
sand.

Now I swore I could hear a metallic grating
sound issuing from inside it.

That ethereal hand remained locked on my
shoulder as another one pushed into my back and thrust me
forward.

Before I knew what I was doing, I ran into
the shack.

I had no weapon, but that didn’t seem to
matter – I simply couldn’t reason against the violent passions
thrumming through my heart.

I rounded the side of the shack
and pushed into a roll immediately, narrowly missing several laser
blasts. It was another of those
bots. My brain had half a second to
appreciate that fact before the drone slammed towards
me.

But something else slammed into me at the
same time. Mark. His helmet was still off, so I could easily see
the concentration pressing across his face as he pushed me to the
side, brought his blaster around, and fired at the bot. Though his
aim was true, it wasn’t quick enough, as at that exact second
another drone sprang from the shack and slammed into his side,
knocking the blaster from his hand.

I wasted no more time. I rolled to the
side, thrust into the shack, and picked the blaster up, all in one
neat move that couldn’t have taken more than a second.

I began firing at the bot, destroying one
before I locked my attention on the other. It shifted towards me,
metal arms outstretched, lethal laser beams slicing out towards
me.

I managed to dodge them all by pushing
into a roll and flipping to the side. With three bullets slamming
into the bot’s body, it too exploded in a hail of sparks. I’d
learnt my lesson from the prince, and destroyed each scrap of its
body until nothing but blistered contorted metal
remained.

By the time I’d pushed to my feet, Mark had
already pushed to his. He walked into the shack, whistling in a
long, impressed move.

“You can fight,” Mark said, cheeks pale
with surprise.

I didn’t drop the blaster as I swiveled my
gaze towards him.

Another one of those things blasted over the
top of the metal wall, claws stretched towards Mark.

I shoved forward, slammed into Mark with my
rounded shoulder, and doubled back.

The bot shot forward and crashed into me.
Its metal body ramming into my shoulder and shunting me
backwards.

I wrapped my arms around it, my blaster
flying from my grip. It slammed against the floor and skidded far
out of reach.

The bot rammed me across the room, my sweaty
fingers sliding over its smooth metal frame as my feet skidded over
the broken floor.

A roar ripped from my lips as the bot
slammed me into the far wall with such a thunderous clang, I
thought my teeth would be knocked from my mouth. Instead I bared
them as I wrapped my arms all the way around the bot’s body,
searching for its arm chute.

Just in time.

Two mechanical arms sprang out of it.

And I grabbed them.

Sure, the metal split the skin along my
fingers, sending blood splattering over the bot’s body and sliding
down my palms.

But I still managed to fasten my grip around
the bot’s legs and stop them from protruding.

With another grating cry, I ripped the damn
thing’s legs off.

Mark had pulled himself off the floor and
now stood, blaster clutched in his hand as his wide eyes nervously
searched for an opportunity to shoot the bot without killing me at
the same time.