The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (11 page)

Nick looked
around warily. “Yeah…right. Personally, I’ll feel better once we’re back on the
ship.” Another chill ran up his spine. Something just wasn’t right. He couldn’t
put his finger on it. Just a gut feeling. He hated when he got those feelings
way down in his bones. They were seldom wrong.  And almost always bad.

Arya checked the
rest of the room. Not finding anything useful, she headed to the door. “Come
on. Let’s get to that power source. Maybe we’ll find some answers there.”

As the team
closed in on the energy reading, they encountered one dead body after the next,
scattered throughout the town. Every corpse had the same horrific look on their
face.

Nick’s heart
pumped harder with each new ghastly discovery. “Yeah, I’m definitely getting a
bad feeling. Let’s finish and get the hell outta here.”

Karg and Arya
nodded in agreement. Eyes wide with apprehension, they cautiously made their
way through the settlement, methodically homing in on the source of the
emissions. The team positioned themselves outside the front door of a building
in the center of town. The energy readings appeared to be emanating from within
the structure.

Karg glanced
toward Arya and whispered, “Ready?”

With a nod from
Arya, Karg kicked in the heavy door and they all stormed into the building.
They came to an abrupt stop just inside the shadowy doorway, all of them
listening intently for any sign of movement. But only an eerie silence greeted
them.

The dreary room
was filled with an array of strange, dusty gizmos and apparatuses. Arya scanned
the area for signs of life, but just as before, there seemed to be nothing
alive. Fanning out around the dark room, they searched for the source of energy
concealed there. Through the dark cluttered rows they crept. Shadows cast from
their gun-mounted lights danced through the odd assortment of objects and
across the floor, making the whole scene even creepier.

Nick’s heart
felt like it was in a race as it thumped away at higher than normal speed. This
was too much like being in one of those horror movies where someone or
something was about to jump out of the shadows and eat him.  A sudden tug
on Nick’s arm sent him into a frenzy. He spun around, screaming like a little
girl. “Aghhh!”

The light from
his gun landed on the face of a monster. Rows of razor sharp teeth gleamed in
the light as the beast lunged toward him. Nick jerked away, plunging backward
as he fired two rounds point-blank into the hairy creature. Unable to break his
backward momentum, Nick fell on the floor, the creature landing squarely on top
of him. He struggled under the stout beast and fired a few more rounds into the
monster’s chest as he screamed for help. “Help! Karg! Something’s got m—”

Just then he
heard the low roar of Karg’s laugh. The deep guttural chuckle snapped Nick out
of his panic. Nick opened his eyes to look at the creature on top of him. It
wasn’t moving. He felt no pain. Perhaps he’d killed it before it could hurt
him. As he looked up from beneath the thing, there stood Karg, his light
illuminating the hideous beast.

Karg reached
down and picked the hairy thing off of Nick and pushed it upright.

Nick stared at
it, confused for a moment. The damn thing was stuffed!
A trophy, perhaps?
It
looked sort of like a grizzly bear. A grizzly with a Pacman-like mouth
containing a hundred pointed teeth. No, maybe it was more like an ape. Whatever
kind of beast it was, it sure looked scary as hell.

Nick studied the
oddity as he got up and dusted off his pant leg. The eight foot tall beast
stood ominously on its wooden base, its long claws reaching out into the
darkness. The damn thing’s claw must have snagged on his vest, and he had
pulled it over on himself when he tried to run.

Nick shrugged
and glanced around, too embarrassed to say a word. He figured Karg wouldn’t let
him live this one down any time soon. He’d be getting plenty of grins from the
crew when he got back to the ship.

“Over here!”Arya
yelled. “The readings are coming from this device.”

The two rushed
forward, stumbling through the cramped row of equipment as they followed Arya’s
voice. They found her standing over a strange device which sat atop a table in
the center of the room. A corpse lay face down on the table, one emaciated hand
still holding something attached to the device.

Nick carefully
studied the apparatus in the dead alien’s hand. “It looks like…. A dead man’s
switch! We have to get out of here!” he exclaimed.

Arya rolled her
eyes. “Relax, the device has already been triggered. It’s not a bomb or any
kind of weapon. It seems to be more like an energy storage device of some kind.
Maybe they were hoping someone would spot the energy signature and come to help
them.”

Arya reached
down to flip open a cover on top of the device.

Nick
automatically reached out to stop her, but it was too late.

A green glow
radiated outward from a crystal embedded within the unusual device,
illuminating the faces of the team as they leaned in to take a look.

“Alright, we’ve
looked. Are we done? Can we go now?” Nick said nervously.

“Wait, I want to
take this back for study. Round up the papers on the table so we can translate
them,” Arya commanded of Nick. “Karg, grab this thing and let’s get back to the
ship.”

Nick pulled the
pile of papers together, glancing curiously at the diagrams and alien writing
as he quickly stuffed them into his tactical backpack.

The three left
the creepy, equipment-laden room, and headed back down the path to the
transport.

Arya’s scanner
suddenly emitted an odd beeping sound. She pulled it out of the pouch on her
hip, and with a quick glance at the screen, stopped dead in her tracks. “Sket!”

Tension soared
as the team surveyed the landscape in front of them, looking for any sign of
impending doom. Nothing but silence in every direction. Not even the buzz of a
single insect broke the eerie quiet of the foggy, alien forest. The unnatural
lack of noise had Nick’s nerves on edge from the moment he’d stepped onto the
planet.

“What is it?”
Nick whispered.

“I’m not sure.
This distortion is playing havoc with the scanner. I think it could be….
Dragorans! They must have found the transport.” Arya looked over at the alien
device Karg was carrying. “They’ll be able to track the energy source to us.
Maybe we can use that to our advantage. Get back to the village.”

The fog rolled
in thick as the team reached the courtyard of what was presumably the town
square. Karg placed the energy device at the center of the square and ran for
cover.

Arya removed her
com-badge and placed it behind the device.

“What are you
doing?” Nick asked, perplexed.

“I’m using the
scanner to configure the com-badge.” She continued pressing buttons on the
onscreen keyboard as she spoke. “I need it to amplify the energy signature
being emitted from the device.”

Nick gave her a
confused look. “Won’t that help them find us faster?”

“Yes. And no.
The added signal strength should help to mask our bio-readings in all of this
background interference, making it harder for them to pinpoint our location. We
better hide, they should be here soon.” Arya put her scanner back in its
holster and motioned to a nearby building and the second floor vantage point it
offered. Without so much as a glance at Nick, she turned and went off in the
opposite direction.

Nick made his
way to the second floor balcony that Arya had pointed to, and waited for the
advancing enemy. “Why is it I can never get a break?” Nick muttered to himself.
From the minute he’d popped into this part of the universe, people had been
shooting at him. It would be nice to have one day that his life wasn’t in
imminent danger.

Feeling
frustrated, scared, and even…dammit…a little hungry for a good old American
cheeseburger, he pushed his back into the dark corner of the balcony and
waited. He was barely settled in before a small pebble smacked him right
between the eyes and landed at his feet. “Ouch!” The whack in the head snapped
Nick out of his daydream. Glancing up, he saw an annoyed Arya trying to get his
attention from the rooftop across the square. Arya threw her hands up and then
pointed to a nearby alleyway. She was signaling the approach of the Dragoran
troops. He leaned forward and peered down vigilantly from his second floor
hiding place.

Within moments,
a group of three Dragorans cautiously approached between two of the buildings
at the edge of the square, pausing momentarily to assess the situation. Nick was
finally able to get a look at these reptilian aliens. They were just as big as
he had been told, with hard scaly skin that looked even tougher than a gator’s
hide.

“I’ll be damned,
they’re…red.” The reports he’d seen hadn’t mentioned their color. He expected
them to be greenish or brown like an alligator, but they were big, bright-red
reptiles. They stuck out like a sore thumb.

The lead
Dragoran stood like a confident warrior in his flashy metal armor, sweeping the
area with his eyes and tasting the air with his tongue. The big lizard
hesitated at the corner of the building.

“Yeah, buddy,”
Nick murmured. “The scene smells of an ambush and you ain’t falling for it.”

With a gesture,
the lead lizard sent two soldiers off behind him to circle around the buildings
as he stayed in the shadows, scanning the area.

The team needed
a clean shot. It would take all their combined fire power to take down the
Dragorans. From what Nick had been told, the lizards were cunning adversaries
but prone to over confidence. Apparently, Arya was counting on that weakness,
but they had to get all the Dragorans together in one place. If they didn’t
take them out all at once, they risked one of the lizards slipping away to warn
the others.

The team watched
the streets closely from their hidden vantage points, waiting for any sign of
the elusive enemy troops. Nick felt like he was in a vacuum, overwhelmed by the
silence of the moment, the eerie fog, the dead bodies of weird aliens strewn
about, and now a band of assassins speeding up his tailpipe. He felt alone and
damn scared out of his mind, not knowing what to expect or what direction death
would come from.

“Where the hell
did you two lizards go?” he whispered, one eye to the site of his rifle as he
peered down at the Dragoran leader.

They were going
to have to force the lizards out into the open, and, despite his fear, Nick was
already formulating a plan. Flipping off the newly added chamber ignition
switch on his rifle, he switched his ammo magazine to the specially modified rounds
they had used on the Mok’tu. He held up his weapon and gestured for Arya to
change her magazine as well.

Arya caught on
right away and relayed the message to Karg. Ammo changed, they were ready.

Plasma bursts
suddenly erupted from the tree line that surrounded the town. Unable to
pinpoint where the fire was emanating from, the Dragorans fired haphazardly
into the woods, trying to defend against their unseen enemy. Exploding plasma
blew dirt and rocks out of the ground near the Dragorans, driving them toward
the center of town to take cover. The shots appeared to be coming from
everywhere but nowhere. There were none of the tell-tale incoming plasma lines
as seen with normal plasma rifles. There was no way for the lizards to trace
where their enemy was hiding.

Nick watched
from his perch as the three Dragorans fled to the courtyard in the middle of
town and regrouped. He knew what they were thinking. The Dragorans would have a
better chance if they forced the enemy to come to them. They would attempt to
pick off their enemy one by one as they approached. It was a tactic commonly
employed by the scaly beasts.

The lizards
quickly took up defensive positions within the low walls of the center
courtyard. The leader sneered, no doubt confident in his strategy.

With the
Dragorans in the open, the team opened fire from three sides. The reptiles
wheeled in circles, desperately trying to pinpoint where the incoming rounds
originated, without success. Left with little choice, they fired wildly into
the fog, obviously hoping for a lucky shot. They never got one. One by one the
lizards succumbed to the fury of plasma blasts bombarding them from all sides.
After the last Dragoran fell to the ground, smoke pouring from its wounds, Nick
met Arya and Karg back down in the square to assess their victory.

“Okay, they’re
dead. Now can we please get the hell out of here?” Nick impatiently queried as
he glanced nervously into the surrounding fog.

“Wait, we need
the energy device,” Arya replied.

Nick glanced at
her, one eyebrow raised in disbelief.  “Are you kidding me? That thing’s
nothing but trouble. I say we just leave it.” 

“It’s okay, I
have a plan,” she said. “Most likely there are two or three more Dragorans
guarding the transport.”

Nick grabbed at
Arya’s arm as she tried to step around him. “Two or three more? Between their
armor and scales, they were damn hard to take down. I’m not sure we’ll be so
lucky next time.”

“If you have
another option, speak up. Otherwise we need to hurry.” Arya pulled her arm free
of Nick’s grasp and headed in the direction of the landing site.

Karg stepped
over one of the smoldering Dragoran bodies, snatched up the device and fell in
behind Arya.

Nick threw his
hands up in the air and stared upward into the thick fog for a moment, as if seeking
guidance from a higher power. “Yup, this part of space is definitely going to
kill me.”  

With a heavy
sigh, he dropped his arms back down to his sides, readied his rifle, and took
off at a jog after Karg and Arya, who were already disappearing into the dense
fog ahead.