Eve of Armageddon: Defenders, #2

By Brenden Shouse

A cracked engine, A captain who can't go home, and a war brewing, what else could go wrong?

 

A war is about to break loose on a planet between slavers and abolitionists. The only place we can get supplies is is the only place we don't dare visit. As usual, the universe is smiling down on us. Can we escape the coming war before the Aligned Worlds show up?

 

Buy now to read this epic adventure!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenden Shouse
• Release date: Jun 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201497910

Brenden Shouse

Brenden Shouse was born in 1998 to two hardworking parents. His mother instilled in him a fierce love of reading. He is a writer of Sci-fi and fantasy. When he isn't reading or writing he's probably eating pizza. He lives in scenic, central Illinois in the middle of the endless fields of corn.

Book preview

Chapter One

Tango gripped his sword and pushed the sole of his boot against the guard's chest and pushed. The guard dropped onto the ground with a sickening plop. He flicked the edge of his sword and turned around to face me. He growled and leaned down, looking me in the eye.

What do you mean it isn't here?

I checked around the corner and gritted my teeth. Where could it be?

Raul clicked his mandibles. They couldn't have moved it that quickly, not unless they knew we were coming.

A chill worked its way down my spine. The Aligned World's must've known we were coming, but that meant...

Watch out for anything suspicious.

Davis might be here, Davis and the rest of his Evolved Squadron. The thought of my own squad mates hunting me sent shivers down my spine. Davis said that I was the reason two of them were dead. The rest of the squad wouldn't want to talk, not now.

Tango gave me a side eye. What are you thinking?

I took a deep breath. I'm thinking someone staged an elaborate trap.

He nodded; he must've been thinking the same thing.

Deb, get everyone back on the ship.

I'm already here, Zees is on her way back, it's just the two of you.

Raul sighed over the channel. We don't have a lot of fuel left.

I closed my eyes, of course we didn't.

We’d spent the last week running around, trying to find any sources of Amberite crystal. Amberite was what they put in Davis's helmet, it helped him fight for longer periods of time. The material acted as a sort of battery for Evolved abilities and helped amplify them. If I was going to have any hope of being able to fight Davis and survive for more than a few minutes, then I was going to need LOTS of Amberite crystal.

Tango spun in a slow, steady circle. He frowned and paused for a second, eyes closed.

I don't think we're alone.

I pulled my gun up a little bit closer to my chest and frowned.

You think?

Tango nodded. There's something… Strange about this place. It feels familiar, I don't know how to describe it.

Another chill worked its way down my spine. I knew what he was talking about, at least a little bit. No matter where I looked at felt as though there were always eyes staring at my back. I wasn't as battle hardened as Tango; how could I be? I'd still been in training when I'd run, He'd been fighting for years before I'd joined up.

I reached out, feeling with my senses, both of them. Nothing stood out to me. Everything felt the same, but Tango was right, there seemed to be some weird energy in the air. That was most likely do to the Amberite crystal that had been taken out of this asteroid. I couldn't feel any of the substance here. My range was still tiny, just a few hundred yards wide. This asteroid was miles across.

I've got a bad feeling about this place.

Tango nodded. I've had a bad feeling since we got here.

We back peddled toward the ship.

Tango stepped onto the ship. Something clanged in the distance.

Uh guys, I said. What's that?

Tango spun around and dropped onto his knee. He brought his gun up and looked through the scope. The lights at the end of the passageway turned off. The lights continue to flick off one after another until the hallway was dark. The lights on the hangar bay flicked off as well.

The only light was coming out of the landing bay on the ship.

Guys, is Zees back in the ship yet?

Static hissed for a few seconds.

She isn't in the medical bay. Raul said, clicking his mandibles.

She isn't in here with me. Deb said.

Tango and I traded a glance. The hair had stood up on the back of his neck. He pressed the button on his comm-link.

Find a way to get these lights turned back on.

A roar shook the floor. The sound was old and large. Another Behemoth. Tango slammed his fist against the landing strut. The titanium alloy clinked.

How many behemoths do they have working for them?

I bit my lip. If Davis had been given one to operate the Aligned World's had to have a lot of Behemoths under their control. I'd just assumed that the mission needed him to use one of an extremely rare and hard to get resource but, apparently, I was wrong. The Aligned Worlds must've had dozens, potentially hundreds of these creatures strewn around the galaxy. Those monstrosities plus the Project Starlight warship meant they would be able to take out just about any resistance.

I activated my comm-link.

Zees are you there?

Static hissed across the comm-link. I walked over to the console and typed a short message to Raul. It sent. I closed my eyes. Our communications worked, at least at short range, but something about this place was jamming her signal. If something like that was an effect of the facility itself then there should've been a way to counteract it. They did have a sort of mobile communication system, but it was locked. I couldn't hack it. Zees' quantum brain would have been able to crack the system's code in a matter of seconds, without her we were stuck.

I can't believe there's another Behemoth here.

Tango crept back into the ship and switched out his sniper rifle for a much larger gun. He came back with a rocket launcher. His foot wrapped around one of the ammo crates and dragged it toward the landing bay at the back of the ship.

I'm not sure, if Zees gets back soon enough, we won't have to find out.

I gulped and reached out with my mental sense.

I hadn't figured out a better name to call it. We still didn't really understand what it was.

Zees had explained the concept of a Reaper to me. It was bad, very bad. On Old Earth they'd hunted people like me down, one of the greatest monsters after the Ascendance had been a Reaper.

Zees was going to make me tell them, they had a right to know. I was dangerous, well, I would be far more dangerous if I survived long enough to truly experience the full benefit of my power.

My mental sense reached out through the area around us. I couldn't sense Zees but that was a given. The Aoao were known to be immune to readings by the Evolved.

I reached out, extending my sense as far as it would go. We'd eliminated the few guards who'd been left here to protect the facility. There shouldn't have been anything else here.

I still couldn't feel the behemoth, it was out there but it was outside of my range. I was still rather inexperienced when it came to my current power set so it made sense that I wouldn't be able to detect the Behemoth. The Behemoth was probably able to sense Tango and I. We were only marginally within the ships protection. Raul and Deb would be shielded so it couldn't detect them, since they were deep with inside the ship. If the Behemoth saw the Dragon it would go into a murderous frenzy and attempt to destroy our ship. I still hadn't completely worked that one out, as far as I knew none of us understood the creature's animosity to the ship.

Deb… The ship… Trap….

I froze and threw a look over my shoulder at Tango. He took another step forward and stepped back into position. Zees was getting closer; I still wasn't sure where she was but the audio signal should be getting clearer soon. If we could hold off until she got here everything would be fine. We could get everyone out of here safely in one piece.

I walked to the end of the hall and reached out again. There was a low, buzzing presence pressing against the edge of my mind.

I cleared my throat.

The Behemoth was here and getting closer fast.

I can't get the lights turned back on, if Zees was here, she might be able to break the encryption and gain more control but... I said.

It had made sense at the time, all the base's information was stored on a separate server that had no wireless communications. It required passwords to get in and too many wrong password would result in the implosion of the base. Zees was needed the most there. She'd be able to hack into the systems and wipe all their data, after making a copy for us of course. It made sense when she'd suggested the plan, we'd gain potentially months’ worth of intel we could use to figure out what to do next. Besides that, even if we couldn't find a use for the information, we could most definitely find a willing buyer for it.

The idea sounded a lot more foolhardy now, we'd had no idea what was waiting here for us. I cleared my throat and swallowed.

I reached deep inside of myself, to the part where my power flowed through me. I'd used up quite a bit of the second, new ability, but the power that fueled my shields was still there, and it was stronger than ever. The more I used my abilities the stronger I would become. I was only a few decades away from being able to harness as much energy as the Behemoths could, although, with my status as a Reaper, my abilities might end up growing stronger and faster than I anticipated. It didn't matter, our last confrontation with a Behemoth hadn't ended very well.

Guys can you… I'm less than three minutes… How's it going… There... Holdups… Zees said.

Deb started shouting at her but all we got was static.

Three minutes? We'd have to survive for another three minutes? I closed my eyes and rubbed the sides of my face with both hands.

Think Kane, I could do this. I could hold the behemoth back for three minutes so Zees could get on the ship. We'd already failed at our main objective but at least we would all be getting off this rock in one piece.

The behemoth roared again. The ground shook softly as it thundered closer. Now I had a slightly better understanding of why the Aligned World's hallways were always so wide, even in places where there were never going to be large amounts of personnel moving around at a time. They'd had these weapons in their back pocket for a while, and they'd planned accordingly.

I took a deep breath and blew it out. I created a shield at the end of my range and strengthened it as much as I could. A weight slammed into the shield. Zees, Tango, Deb, and Raul all began talking over the line at once. When it was just Deb trying to talk to Zees, I could filter that out but, four other voices screaming for attention was distracting me more than a little.

The weight slammed against the shield, I winced, and a dull, throbbing headache began building in my forehead.

I bolstered the shields strength and took a few steps backward.

I'll be there in less than sixty seconds, make sure you're all on board by then. Zees said.

I snorted to myself, easier said than done. I closed one of the doors and rematerialized the shield behind it between the door and I. The door screeched and the triple reinforced titanium bars bent inward with a squeal. I closed my eyes and gulped. That should’ve been impossible, Tango's rocket launcher would've needed to reload at least once before it would make a peephole to the other side of the door. The behemoth had just torn it in two with its bare hands.

I turned and ran for the ship, forming a small shield behind myself to protect me. There was another set of reinforced doors that led into the hangar bay but that would just give us another couple of seconds.

Where are you, Kane?

Tango stood up. He was back lit by the light streaming out of the Dragon’s cargo hold.

I see him, he's almost here.

Another shape flitted into the ship, the creature almost looked like a spiked ball as it flipped around, turning and over until it made its way fully into the ship. The spiked ball morphed into Zees, and she flicked her hair out of her face. Zees turned around and stared right at me.

She could see in