And alone. So alone. Not the usual loneliness that crept around inside me like poison, this was so much more. Like I’d die if that thing didn’t stand back up and touch me, like I’d fade into nothingness, into mist, and float away on a breeze. Like I wasn’t real. My body wasn’t real. Like I wasn’t really here…
Had that creature done something to me? To the implants Helion had put inside my head?
Fuck. I rubbed at the back of my neck, the base of my skull where the small lump of the implant was hard and unforgiving beneath my fingertips. I had to get out of here, back to the medical unit and Doctor Helion. He had to take the implant out of my head. Now. Right now.
Lurching to my feet, I headed for the entrance, toward light, away from the physical struggle as the two large, powerful creatures lunged and hit one another. Somehow, the beast was fighting for our lives and keeping track of me at the same time. He yelled as I neared the mouth of the cave. “Stay! Hive! Too many.”
I’d been on the battlefield with Atlan Warlords before, and was used to their beasts’ simple, clipped way of speaking. I got the point. Hive outside the cave, and not just the trio of Nexus. If an Atlan beast said there were too many, that meant lots and lots of Hive.
I had no doubt we were in trouble here. I’d been out there with my team before the Nexus group made contact. I hadn’t known the other Coalition fighters long, volunteers from all over the universe. We’d only been training together for a few days. But still, seeing them all dead on the ground outside had been hard. How had I been the only one to survive? Was it because the Nexus leader truly did want to connect with the implant in my mind, take over my thoughts and emotions, make me disappear into him? Was this thing in my head that important? Seeing the Hive swarm and envelop the entirety of the Coalition forces on the ground had been so damn hard to watch. We were losing this planet, at least at the moment.
I’d had my own mission, though, and because of it, I was trapped behind enemy lines. This beast, the one that loomed so large inside the cave, was trapped with me.
More in control now, I turned to find the beast still grappling with the Nexus creature. The thing was not as tall or muscled as the beast, but the Hive used microscopic implants to increase strength and speed to superhuman levels. And this one was special. Very, very special.
I wasn’t at all sure the beast was going to be able to beat him. They struggled, the beast’s muscles bulging like I’d never seen before, but he could not gain the upper hand. And there was no way I was going to be alone in this cave with that thing again. My head would start buzzing and I’d be screwed, completely under that monster’s control.
Pulling the ion blaster from my thigh, I yelled at the beast, “Throw him at the wall. I’ll blast him!”
I didn’t know his name, had no idea which Atlan warrior he was beneath his helmet. There were several hundred in my battle group and I didn’t recognize all of them in beast mode. In addition, the armor obscured his features even more, but it didn’t matter. He was on my side, and I needed him to kill that blue bastard. I had no doubt he was a bossy, arrogant, macho-man like all the rest of them. But we either worked together, or we both died.
He heard me. A second later, he literally picked the Nexus up off the ground and threw him into the wall of the cave.
The Nexus hit with a loud crash of his silver armor, but he didn’t fall. Not like I’d hoped. He twisted in midair and landed on his feet in a crouch like a fucking cat.
He stared at me, and the strange buzzing started in my head again.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Taking aim, I fired, hitting him square in the chest before I could think otherwise.
The blast barely fazed him, but I kept at it, hitting him in dead center again and again. I wasn’t really doing much, other than keeping him from attacking the beast.
The creature took a step toward me, but a larger blast came from the side, striking the Nexus in the head.
He fell to his knees and a thrill went through me as I shot him again. The monster’s weapon, bigger than mine, was still aimed at it as he approached the creature from the side, both of us firing as quickly as our weapons would arm. I gave a passing thought to the tech buried in his head, but I didn’t care. None of it would matter if I didn’t make it out of this cave alive. Helion would just have to deal with some fried circuits.
After several more shots, the Nexus stared up at me, a look eerily like pleading on his strange blue face as the bottomless darkness of his eyes filled in.
Watching it die was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. I ignored the beast, who continued to fire, and watched with sick fascination as the nothingness of his eyes changed and became something. Dark gray and opaque, solid, real, the dull color reminded me of an unwashed blackboard smeared with chalk.