Alexander’s rounds cracked through the thin air, but the cyborg twisted aside to avoid the attack in a feat of astounding acrobatics. The cyborg behind his target wasn’t nearly as lucky. The round tore through it and kept going. Despite the miss, Alexander didn’t stop firing. His gun tracked the cyborg as it wove around his fire like it was prescient, all the while getting closer to their position.

  Then his weapon clicked. He was out of ammo, and by the reduced sounds of gunfire, so were quite a few of the defenders.

  The Shican he had been firing at gave a feral grin, then roared before rushing straight toward him.

  Alexander cursed and threw the empty weapon to the ground as he pulled the handles for his polearm off his back and attached them to the blade. He had never expected to actually use the weapon, but he brought it just in case. Even with it being made from some of the strongest metal he had access to, he doubted it would be very effective against the cyborgs, but he knew range would be his advantage. He hoped that he could buy enough time for someone to shoot the thing.

  As he quickly assembled the polearm, he realized the Shican warrior probably couldn’t kill him either, but that didn’t mean he wanted to risk it.

  Alexander didn’t have time to take his eyes off his opponent, but he heard people screaming as the cyborgs reached the defensive line. The ranged battle, which heavily favored the humans, had turned into a chaotic melee that saw them at a significant disadvantage in not only skill but also numbers.

  The barely enhanced Shican were no match for the augment suits, but the remaining cyborgs put up one hell of a fight. Alexander spotted one unfortunate volunteer who had their arms torn off before three Asgardians put the cyborg responsible down.

  That was all the time he had to spare for the battle around him as his opponent raced in, drawing two kukri-like blades. As Alexander defended himself against the agile opponent, the radio crackled to life, doing its best to punch through the Shican ECM. The strike team leader was ordering a retreat to the backup location. He knew that the volunteers and academy cadets were required to retreat first, and he was relieved to know that Yulia would be safer once inside the facility.

  Alexander fought tooth and nail to keep his opponent from carving him up as everyone around him pulled back.

  The individual he was fighting was the same Shican who had dodged his ranged shots, and now that they were close enough, he could see the insignia on their armor. Thanks to Four’s knowledge, he knew what the rank marking meant.

  It was the Grand Commander.

  He was either incredibly lucky or unlucky to get such a skilled opponent, but he was also glad that he was the one facing the leader of the armada and not someone else.

  Alexander knocked a strike away with his polearm and tried to create some distance, but the Grand Commander didn’t allow that.

  Despite training with the polearm in his human form, Alexander was by no means an expert with the weapon. Most of his skill came from the speed and power provided by his body. The Grand Commander, on the other hand, was an expert.

  His short blades slipped past Alexander’s defenses time and time again, carving across his armor and looking for weak points to exploit.

  The augment suit was tough beyond measure, but it actually limited Alexander’s strength and speed. He had made the trade-off for the added protection, but now that was working against him.

  After another flurry of strikes, he managed to gain a bit of space, only to see a yellow blur come from his right to try to tackle the Grand Commander.

  Alexander wanted to scream at his daughter and ask her why she hadn’t retreated when the order was given, but there was no time. He accelerated his processing speed, and the world slowed to a crawl. He caught the moment the Grand Commander’s eyes flicked over to Yulia with contempt. Before his daughter could get herself killed trying to help him, Alexander acted.

  The armor gave a tortured groan as the servos ripped apart, trying to keep up with his true speed. The sound must have alerted the Grand Commander, and his eyes flicked back to Alexander with surprise as he thrust his polearm forward with a blur.

  In an impossible move for a human, the Grand Commander twisted to avoid the blow, while bringing one of his short swords down in an arc to chop across the back of Yulia’s helmet where the neck seal was.

  Alexander released his polearm and threw himself forward with all the strength and speed he could muster as he realized he wasn’t going to win a contest of skill. He crashed into the Shican Grand Commander with bone-crushing force, carrying them both away from the diving form of his daughter.

  Despite being tackled, the Grand Commander’s blade still came down on Yulia’s helmet. The blade barely missed Yulia’s neck seal, as it carved a line across the back of her helmet, while his impromptu attack sent them flying away.

  A moment later, they crashed into the ground, but the Grand Commander was already smiling in victory as he thrust his blades up and under Alexander’s own helmet. The seal held for a moment before there was a tearing sound.

  “I win,” the Grand Commander said in a triumphant growl of broken English.

  Alexander felt the weapons pierce the seal in his armor and slide up through his head. It was one of the oddest and most painful experiences he had ever felt.

  Before the Grand Commander had more than a moment to celebrate his kill, Alexander wrapped his hands around the man’s head and squeezed. In panic, the Shican leader tried to pull the blades free, but Alexander pushed his helmet down, clamping them in place with more force than even the cyborg could overcome.

  “No, you lost,” he replied in perfect Shican.

  There was a moment of resistance, followed by a metallic crunch. The Grand Commander’s head collapsed inward, spraying Alexander and the ground in blood, bones, and brain matter.

  After ensuring the man was truly dead, he stood and yanked the weapons out of the seal in his suit and threw them to the ground. It felt bizarre to be stabbed in the head, but there was no real damage to his body thanks to the living alloy.

  When he looked around, he could see that things weren’t going well for them. The defenders were retreating from the sheer number of Shican still storming out of the dust clouds, and he was about to be surrounded. His eyes quickly found Yulia, and he hurried over as she picked herself up from the ground.

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  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She nodded shakily.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded after he knew she was uninjured.

  “That I wasn’t going to let anyone else take my father from me again,” she replied angrily.

  He sighed. “You were reckless.”

  Then, before she could argue, he pulled her into a hug. “Thank you.”

  After a bit of shocked hesitation, she hugged him back.

  Their reunion didn’t last long, as the enemy forces were nearly on top of them. “We have to go, can you run?”

  Yulia nodded, and the pair quickly crossed the ground. Alexander only stopped once to crush a Shican’s face when it tried to target Yulia.

  They weren’t the last ones to the entrance, but they weren’t far off. Armored forms were gesturing to them to hurry. The moment they were clear, the defenders at the entrance started firing into the mass of Shican.

  The enemy was cut down like wheat, but it barely even slowed the suicidal aliens.

  Alexander and Yulia found someone handing out new rifles for those who had lost one. Then they grabbed more ammo and joined the defensive line inside the atrium.

  A moment later, the group guarding the door ran into the atrium, chased closely by a horde of Shican. The people behind the line covered their retreat, but even with that, the enemy cyborgs managed to take down two people before rounds tore them apart.

  The sound of rifle fire turned near deafening in the atrium before a static-filled radio call came through for people to hold their fire.

  The entrance tunnel was choked with corpses. There had to be nearly a thousand dead Shican.

  It wasn’t the dead that concerned him; however, it was the sudden silence.

  The silence was broken moments later by the sound of clinking steps. A Shican cyborg walked into view, holding its arms up in surrender.

  “Hold your fire!” Alexander called over the radio, hoping it got through the Shican jamming.

  He turned to Yulia. “Stay here. That’s an order,” he added before his daughter could argue.

  He jumped over the barrier and approached the lone Shican with his gun trained on the individual.

  The Shican stopped twenty feet from Alexander and spoke. “You are the one in command, yes?” he asked in passable English.

  “I am,” Alexander confirmed in Shican.

  The Shican Commander nodded, showing no surprise that Alexander could speak their language. “My name is Commander Kynel. Grand Commander Thesska placed me as second in command of the armada. I am here to offer our surrender.”

  “You’re here to surrender?” Alexander asked in confusion. He assumed their bloodlust would send them all to their deaths. “Why now? Why not after your people learned of our attack on your empire?”

  “You would have to understand Shican society to understand the full truth. In simple terms, we are programmed to obey the emperor in all things. I saw you defeat him and verified that he was indeed dead for myself.”

  “The Grand Commander was the emperor? I thought your emperor remained back in Shican space.”

  Kynel looked back at Alexander. “He did, before you killed him. And now you killed the new emperor. If you were Shican, that would make you our new emperor, but we could never serve prey.”

  The Shican Commander said those words without a hint of disdain. It was more like he was remarking on the weather. Alexander didn’t care for their opinions on humans, but this was a step up from the outright bloodlust they normally showed. Speaking of.

  “You don’t seem like the others,” Alexander admitted. “I expected your people to throw themselves at us until you exhausted all your forces.”

  “I’m not. My clan was cast out long before the Shican clan took over. We didn’t share their desire to clone perfect and obedient soldiers, but we learned to blend in regardless of the mindless bloodlust the Shican clan had ingrained in their people. For generations, we hid in plain sight, convincing the trueborn population to speak out against our species’ expansionist ways and maybe focus the empire on less violent pursuits. It was a slow process, and we were nearly there before your attack on the throne world killed off all of our allies.”

  “You didn’t give us much of a choice,” Alexander spat. “You also don’t seem all that upset about our actions. Why is that?”

  “No, we did not,” Kynel replied. “The loss of the trueborn is regrettable, but with the emperor dead, their purpose is no longer required. While it is a setback, my clan has faced many such problems over the generations. We will overcome this one as well, assuming humanity chooses not to exterminate us like the Shican Empire has done to other species since its inception.”

  “Why should I trust anything you have to say?” Alexander asked, tightening his grip on the weapon.

  Kynel flicked his ears, a sign that Alexander knew meant irritation thanks to Four.

  “I have no reason to lie to you. You have defeated the armada at nearly every step, and here we are, at your mercy. You will either kill us, or you won’t. You should know, however, that Thesska is not yet dead.”

  “He cloned himself?” Alexander made the logical guess.

  Kynel nodded slightly. “His clone would have been activated the moment the emperor’s chosen vessel lost contact with his technologue. I do not know where she is currently residing, but he did mention that she was working on building up their forces on a human world. If your people can travel as quickly as I suspect, you might be able to prevent them from leaving. If not,” he made a circling gesture with his upraised arm, “all of this will be for nought.”

  Alexander cursed internally before activating his radio. “Lucas, I need a direct line to Admiral Krieger.”

  “Sure thing, Alex. Is everything okay? I can see you and your guest, and the fighting on your side of the facility may have come to a halt, but there is still fighting going on at the other entrances. Some even bloodier than yours.”

  Alexander found that hard to believe.

  “I'm fine,” Alexander replied. “Can you work with the strike team leaders to transfer some of our forces to the areas that need help?”

  “I’ll get right on that. You are now connected to the Admiral.”

  “Alex, what’s going on down there?” Krieger asked. “We had to stop firing because we can’t see through the dust and debris kicked up by the nuke and the few ships we managed to hit with lasers.”

  “We’re holding out. Keep your weapons ready, but I don’t believe they will be needed anymore. I’m having a dialog with Commander Kynel, Thesska’s second in command. The Grand Commander is dead, but he just mentioned that the Grand Commander has a Shican cloning facility on a human world. Probably one of the Xin worlds, if I had to guess. I need you to send scouts out that way immediately. If they have ships out there, we have to stop them before they can run off and rebuild.”

  There was a short pause before Krieger’s response came back. “I’ve spoken with Char. Her forces are withdrawing to investigate the matter personally.”

  Alexander thanked Krieger before focusing back on his visitor. Kynel hadn’t budged an inch the entire time, even though he could hear every word.

  “You can put your arms down.”

  Kynel complied and slowly lowered his arms.

  “Can you get control of your people?” Alexander asked.

  “Some, perhaps,” Kynel admitted. “Others will be too far gone in the bloodlust to see reason. Your best bet is to kill them.”

  It was a very clinical response, and once again reminded Alexander that the Shican were not like humans.

  “Recall as many as you can, then pick one ship to retreat to. If a single Shican so much as ventures off that vessel, I will have my fleet obliterate it and everyone aboard. Do you understand?”

  Kynel gave a toothy smile. “Perfectly. And how may I address you, in case we need to speak further?”

  “You won’t be speaking with me. Now call your people off, or I have no reason to stop mine from attacking.”

  Kynel turned his head slightly and nodded. The sound of approaching footsteps fell quiet, and the Shican cyborgs, who had just come into view at the end of the hallway, stiffened and turned back toward the exit and their ships.

  “What did you do to them?”

  “I activated a recall command latent in all Shican cybernetics.”

  Alexander stared at the Shican Commander. “You mean you could have done that the entire time?”

  “No. The command overrides only reverted to my control after you killed Thesska. It isn’t foolproof, however. As I said, those consumed by bloodlust can disregard the command either partly or entirely. If you would like to discuss the topic further, I will be aboard the ship.” With that, Kynel turned and left the facility.

  “You okay, dad?” Yulia asked as she stepped up beside him, keeping a FE rifle trained on the back of Kynel’s retreating form.

  Of course, she had disobeyed his order. If she kept acting like that, she wasn’t going to make it far in the academy, and he wasn’t going to step in to save her if she went around disobeying orders, either.

  “I’m good, let’s go help the wounded.”

  f you'd like some more sci-fi adventures, go check out my new series, Corebound.

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