Date Point: 3Y 08M 4W 1D 6H AV
Main escort of the Swarm flagship
It was an impossibility, an unthinkable idea, but nevertheless it was also the truth. The Swarm Alpha was dead.
When the enormous prey ship started closing in on the task force, the Swarm Beta laughed at their gullibility and desperation. Surely once they had seen the mighty fleet, the prey had wanted to negotiate the handover of a number of them, in exchange of letting the rest go.
The Swarm Alpha ordered the fleet to stand by and let the ship come closer, with the idea of disabling it with a controlled storm of plasma fire, and left them adrift, eventually to become an extension of the great banquet that awaited on the barren moon.
The disaster came when, with a few [9-second periods] remaining for the plasma attack to commence, the ship accelerated so brusquely that from the Beta’s point of view, it seemed to just had teleported into the Swarm flagship. The mighty vessel was violated by the lesser prey ship to the point of being spitted in two, with no apparent damage to the aggressor.
The Swarm Beta had never seen anything like it.
The cyber link filled with terror and shock, and rising above the undignified cries of desperation from the broodlings, the last command from the Swarm Alpha came through:
+<bitternes; disbelief>THIS HAS TO BE THE WORK OF MORE HUMANS.<command; authority>STORM THE PREY SHIP WITH THE WHOLE SWARM, FULL ASSAULT FORCE. DEPLOY ALL REMAINING HEAVY ARMORED GAMMAS ON THE MOON STATION+
+<dignity; control; might>The swarm will prevail or die. Meat to the MAW!+
An instant after the imperative broadcast finished, the maimed Swarm flagship gave up. Its forcefiled generators failed, and the vessel decompressed violently.
3,000 broodlings were silenced at the same time.
Commanded by their newly promoted Alpha, the entire swarm began to comply with the last order from their former master.
Date Point: 3Y 08M 4W 1D 6H AV
Celzi heavy cruiser Emeras
“Ship Master, the Hunters are launching hundreds of boarding pods!” Informed the terrified Bekdek.
Ship Master Drnkirz was barely holding it together. He looked at the human.
“Captain. What course of action do you suggest?”
The human pondered the situation for a few seconds.
“They are launching a lot of pods, Birdie. If I understand anything about Hunter psychology -and I think I do-, then they will be going all or nothing.”
“All or nothing? Explain.” Demanded the Ship Master.
“Did you see that fucking ship? It’s gargantuan. And we tore it apart, killed everyone inside. Their admiral or whatever they called it is probably fucking dead. They can’t have that. And they don’t want to just destroy us, these are Hunters we are talking about. They want to eat us.”
The bridge officers had their respective species’ equivalent of a chill on their spine. Maxim continued.
“They are sending everything they’ve got, I am sure of it.”
“Let’s try this: Fire three missiles on each Hunter ship. If they don’t respond, it means they are all coming to get us. Do not destroy the fleet, we may be needing it for later.”
“Needing it? What do you mean?!”
“We’ll see. Just fire the missiles.
And my recommendation, Ship Master, is for all hands to go and prepare their weapons and combat harnesses. Tell them to assemble in groups of twenty and wait for the intruders in open spaces. And seal the bridge with forcefields.”
“And what about you, human?” Asked Officer Bekdek.
“I will go get my shotgun and wander the ship through the hallways.” He said, walking towards the exit of the bridge.
He stopped when the double doors opened, and added:
“I highly suggest you don’t get in my way.”
Date Point: 3Y 08M 4W 1D 6.4H AV
Exit tunnel of the central mine
The spetsnaz team was travelling upwards through the tunnel, creeping forward and ready to drop to the floor at the first sign of danger.
There were no lights left in the passage, having them all being destroyed in the plasma explosion and leaving the tunnel in perpetual darkness.
There were charred remains of the robo-Hunters everywhere, and it all smelled like if someone had thrown a giant barbecue with rotten meat and asbestos.
All of a sudden, they saw a blue light up ahead.
“Get down! Now! Kuznetsov, suppressive fire!” Ordered the Lieutenant. They all jumped to the floor just in time, with the plasma projectile missing Alexei’s face by an inch.
The two leading men fired their weapons in the dark, until they saw and heard an explosion up ahead.
They didn’t risk it again, opting to crawl for the rest of the way.
They still had a long way to go.
When they finally reached the end of the tunnel, they did not found anyone on sight.
“There’s nothing here, it seems like we had killed them all.” Concluded Evgeniy.
“We must talk to the captain, the skies are far too calm for my liking. Something’s not right.” He pulled out his datapad.
“Captain Lyapunov, do you copy?”
A few seconds transpired.
“Captain? Do you copy!”
They heard the voice of the Captain through a curtain of noise.
“This is Lyapunov. Very bussy right now. Is Sergei Pavlovich ok? Did you killed them all? Over.”
“Yes, Captain, the enemies are dead.” He took a deep breath to gather some courage, and continued. “Kirichenko and Mazarev are dead too.”
There was no response.
“Captain, are you there?” Asked the alarmed Lieutenant.
“I’m here.” His voice was bitter. “Get on the shuttle and get back here. I’m fighting a whole fucking swarm by myself. Don’t worry about the Hunter ships, they will not touch you. Lyapunov out.”
“You have heard our Captain, comrades. Let us end this shitstorm.”
Improvised field hospital, Beam of Hope settlement
Sergei Pavlovich opened his eyes to be greeted by the Corti physician.
“Welcome back, human. Can you speak?”
He was inside some kind of metal stretcher, with a device hovering above his head. “Y-Yes. Doctor…”
“Treknak. Listen to me. Your body was extensively damaged. If they had not brought you to us in time, you probably would be dead right now. We have stabilized your wounds. You should be fine, providing that you rest and don’t do anything stupid. What worries me the most however, are the lesions to your brain. Our scan results suggest that you have survived an extremely close encounter with a nervejam device, at a distance almost lethal for a human.”
“Enough of that. Were are my comrades?” Inquired the Russian.
“Your ‘comrades’ went to the upper levels. They have stopped a massive Hunter raid. I’m sorry to inform you that two of them are dead.”
Sergei jumped up on his feet.
“What?!?! Dead!? Who?”
“I wouldn’t know, sorry. We have covered their bodies, but they are still by the tunnel entrance.” The little doctor placed a caring hand on Sergei’s side, a bizarre gesture for a Corti. “It would be best for you not to see them. You wouldn’t recognize them anyway.”
Sergei felt the weight of Dr. Treknak’s words deep inside his soul.
Dozens of lives were lost already, and now two of his human friends, his fellow countrymen, were dead. All because of him. All because he wanted to fulfill his stupid childhood dream.
He needed to put an end to all this.
“Thank you doctor. I will be going now.” He picked up his backpack and started to walk towards the exit, feeling a burning pain in his whole body.
“Human! You can’t! If you go now, you will die!” Warned him the doctor.
“So be it.” Sergei said mostly to himself.
Celzi heavy cruiser Emeras.
Maxim was running through his ship (it was his ship, let’s face it) carrying his Saiga-12 automatic shotgun, without ever stopping. Not even to kill the Hunters that were constantly appearing from the torn up structure of the ship. He was killing them on the go, his assault weapon disintegrating the invaders like a remote-controlled blender.
He was flying through the ship like a breeze of death, with a blind fury that clouded his judgement and didn’t gave him time to ponder the very likely possibility of a horrible death by nervejam.
When he reached the ship’s stern, he began to feel tired, and after dealing with three more Hunters, he stopped for a minute to catch his breath, leaning against a wall.
his datapad received a message.
“Captain, we are docking with the ship. State your position.”
“I’m at the stern of the ship. Meet me in the storage room on the back.” Replied the Captain, starting to move again. “And beware, there’s heavy Hunter activity on all levels.” He continued.
The four soldiers reunited with their Captain shortly thereafter. Evgeniy delivered the fallen comrades’ dog-tags to Maxim, in a brief but powerful moment that temporarily set them apart from all the carnage around them.
“They will pay for this. Each and every one of them.” Declared the Captain. “Now let’s move! For the motherland! For victory!
“HURRAH!”
Reinforced Hunter boarding pod, entering the prey nest
The newly promoted Swarm Alpha was the last Hunter to abandon ship. It had honored the former Alpha’s last commandment, sending the whole swarm to invade the impertinent prey ship, and the full company of heavy armored broodlings to assault the prey nest.
The battle was not going well for them.
First, the armored force was completely wiped out after only managing to burn two of the miserable humans. In that moment, feeling the demise of its broodlings, the newly promoted Swarm Alpha remembered what The Brood-that-Builds said when they presented this technology to its former Alpha:
“+<caution; advice; imperative> These are anti-human plasma weapon systems. A safe distance must be kept between them. If a plasma emitter explodes near another, it could easily detonate the other broodling.+ “
It had been so foolish of them. They had done exactly that, and on a massive scale.
The space battle wasn’t looking good either. There were 5 humans on the prey ship, breaking havoc among the invaders. The voices of the swarm were beginning to die out.
And the disgrace was still down there.
By order of the former Swarm Alpha, it was to be left alone. It was the Alpha who was going to take care of that, after the offenders were dealt with. Surely it was to become less than an Omega. Or perhaps to be thrown into the breeding pools to be devoured by the younglings.
This was their primary mission, and the newly promoted Swarm Alpha needed to ensure its fulfillment.
It landed on the prey nest’s main hall, and descended from its pod.
It was greeted by the sight of a bloodshed unlike anything it had seen in countless hunts. Its broodlings were lying in pieces. Everywhere. There was the smell of carnage, of death, the typical scent of the slaughter of sentient beings.
Only this time, it was also the smell of defeat. This time the prey were its own broodlings.
In the middle of the great hall, the Swarm Alpha could see the metal cage, exactly as described by the disgrace itself.
The Swarm Alpha approached the cage, with only the fulfillment of its mission on its mind.
He put itself in front of the Alpha of the extinct Bloodlusted Brood.
It was awake, inside the cage but unchained, looking straight at its seven eyes, with an enigmatic expression. It wasn’t shame.
It wasn’t hate.
it wasn’t pain.
It was madness.
The body of the disgrace was mangled, its once proud enhancements torn out of its body. It was naked as a youngling out of the breeding pools.
The Swarm Alpha fought the impulse to look away, and started a cyberlink with the pathetic being.
+<sneer; despise;> Greetings, shameful one. I have come to end your pitiful existence+
The disgrace tilted its head, all eyes still fixed at the Swarm Alpha with that indiscernible expression. It had witnessed all the carnage, all the attempts of the mighty Swarm, of their very best, to stop a single human. It had absorbed it all.
+<happiness; sadness; fun; boredom; longing> A Swarm Alpha visits me in my captivity. Such an honor. <fact; purpose> Yes. Death. The end of existence. The prey destroyed by the predators. Such is the order of things. <joy> And we, my Alpha, are the prey.+
The Swarm Alpha felt the deepest repulsion, its mind unable to properly process the profanity, the desecration that had been uttered by its former fellow Alpha.
+<revulsion; affront; hate> YOU FOOL! Your madness needs to be silenced. Prepare to die.+
The profane Alpha came closer to the steel bars.
+<derision; irony ;statement> It will be ironic to be ended by a lesser broodling like you, and not by the true predators. <enjoyment; fun> One last joke from this ridiculous universe.+
The Swarm Alpha was astonished.
+<rage; fury> LESSER BROODLING!? I AM A SWARM ALPHA!! YOU ARE LUCKY TO BE INSIDE THAT HUMAN CAGE, OTHERWISE YOU WOULD NOT RECEIVE SUCH A QUICK DEATH.+ It prepared its personal plasma weapon.
+<statement; scoff> The human can open the cage. He is right behind you.+
The Swarm Alpha turned around, and sure enough, scarce [meters] from it, it saw the battered human, pointing his weapon at it with an expression that the Alpha’s translator rendered as curiosity.
The disgrace spoke again.
+<fun; eagerness> Tell him! Tell him to open the cage! You will see the true order of things. The true nature of the universe. The chaos that will shatter your body, like the new predators will shatter our race+
The Swarm Alpha did not know what to do. But this insolence needed to be terminated, and the thought of slaughtering this monstrous, profane being, and letting it go thinking that it could had won against it, was too much.
It faced the hated human, and began forcing its atrophied vocal folds, releasing an unnatural sound that eventually transmuted into a harsh and freakish voice.
“O-o-Pe-nn. Caa-geee. Forr-Com-Ba-att” It muttered to the human.
The deathworlder seemed to hesitate, but after a moment he let out a barking noise, reached for his pocket and produced a little metal device. Without lowering his weapon, he slowly approached the steel cage. The Swarm Alpha faced the disgrace once again, disengaging its plasma cannon, while the human struggled with the door mechanism.
He finally opened the cage, and quickly moved away.
The emaciated and disgusting Alpha jumped directly at the Swarm Alpha, with an impossible energy that caught its adversary by surprise. It landed locking both its mechanical and natural legs on the proud Alpha in a tight embrace, while sinking its hungry teeths deep into its contender’s neck.
The Swarm Alpha winced in pain, pushing with its enhanced extremities to try and get rid of the deadly squeeze. One of the mad Alpha’s legs faltered under the stress and was severed from its body, making a disturbing, tearing sound. But it would not release its grip, nor the ravenous bite, ever sinking on the Swarm Alpha’s neck.
At this distance, the plasma weapon would kill them both, and it was impossible to get ahold of its other weapon systems because of the deadly embrace from the pathetic being.
The Swarm Alpha began feeling desperate, the blood loss from its neck starting to take its toll.
+<surprise; confusion; fear> release me. You fool. Let go. This is impossible!+
The Mad Alpha bit harder, deeper.
+<joy; righteousness; peace> Not impossible. Just the order of the universe. I am predator. I am prey. I am the destroyer. I am the destroyed. I am Hunter.+
+<terror; panic; extreme fear> Let. Go. Let. Go. This will. Not. Happen…+
The Mad One widened its bite. Its cluster of eyes reflecting its deranged jubilation. The Swarm Alpha’s neck finally gave up, and its decapitated head fell to the ground.
Sergei Pavlovich just didn’t know what to think, what to make of the shit he’d had just witnessed.
He approached the bizarre and macabre scene, limping.
The winning Hunter had just ripped the head off the talking one, and now it was happily devouring its body.
It was too much.
He drew his pistol and pressed it against the Hunter’s head.
“I’m sorry Misha, but I will have to put you down. You are fucking crazy.”
He pulled the trigger.