Chapter 274: Fighting Aliens 1 [Edited]
The metallic screech of locking bulkheads echoed through the engine decks.
Heavy slabs of black alloy dropped from the ceiling, slamming into the deck with enough force to shake the floor. The ship’s emergency system was sealing off each section, trapping the intruders inside.
"Move!" Nicholas called.
The catwalk shuddered as a massive blast door slammed down between them, cutting the team in half.
"Zero! Selena!" Nectron’s booming voice echoed from the other side, followed by the heavy thud of his fist against the metal. "The lower passage is sealed off! We’re trapped near the primary turbine!"
"Do not waste energy trying to breach the blast doors!" Zero’s dry voice came through the communication system. "The ship will send more power to the doors if it detects repeated impacts. We will use the lower maintenance vents and regroup at the sub-light drive core!"
The communication crackled with static before dying completely.
Nicholas turned and quickly assessed the area. On his side of the barrier stood Vixen and Julie, who was clutching her camera to her chest with a look of pure terror.
"We are trapped in a dead-end corridor with zero cell service and an automated defense system trying to crush us," Julie whimpered, her oversized sunhat knocked sideways. "This is it. This is where my subscriber count plateaus forever."
"Julie," Nicholas said flatly, pointing toward a rectangular opening in the lower wall where a thick mesh panel had fallen away. "Get inside the cooling duct. Stay low, stay quiet, and don’t step out until I tell you to."
"A vent?!" Julie stared at the dark, narrow shaft before looking back at Nicholas. "What if there are space spiders in there?!"
"Then make content with them," Nicholas replied. "Get in."
Julie scrambled across the deck and dove into the shaft. Once inside, she turned around, hugged her knees to her chest, and propped her camera on the ledge.
"Going live on emergency broadcast," Julie whispered frantically into her collar mic as the red light on her camera flickered on. "Chat, if you are seeing this, the ship has locked us in. Ceiling tiles are falling, everything is glowing red, and my battery is at forty-two percent. Forty-two percent, chat! This is a crisis!"
Nicholas ignored her.
Beside him, Vixen stepped forward. Her sharp emerald eyes were fixed on the far end of the engine deck, where the red emergency lights reflected off a shimmering distortion in the air.
"Something is coming," Vixen said, raising her hands as spatial energy rippled around her fingertips. "The air is warping. It’s bending the light around itself."
The distortion stepped out of the shadows.
It was not a standard bio-mechanical beast.
Standing over nine feet tall, the Praetorian Sentinel was an impressive piece of extraterrestrial machinery. Its dark alloy armor shifted between deep violet and chrome. Unlike the four-legged shock-beasts they had fought earlier, it had a humanoid upper body with four long, jointed arms, each ending in sharp crystalline appendages.
Two of its hands held heavy focus staves that crackled with purple plasma. Its head was a smooth dome of obsidian glass that emitted a low, resonant hum.
The moment the Sentinel locked onto them, the air suddenly became heavy.
HUMMM.
A crushing wave of gravity slammed down. The metal catwalk groaned beneath them as the pressure increased, pulling loose bolts and pieces of broken ceiling plating to the floor.
Nicholas planted his boots firmly against the deck. His high physical stats allowed him to withstand the pressure, but he could still feel the weight dragging him down.
"It manipulates gravity and light," Nicholas said. "It’s using the distortion to hide where its attacks are coming from."
The Sentinel’s four arms moved together. Its two staves crossed, and a bright sphere of purple plasma formed between them before shooting down the corridor.
"I’ve got the blast!" Vixen called.
She thrust both palms forward, tearing open a vertical rift in space.
The plasma sphere struck the rift and disappeared. A moment later, another rift opened above the Sentinel’s head, sending the attack straight into its upper back.
BOOM!
The Sentinel staggered, smoke rising from its dark armor, but its shields absorbed most of the impact. Its four arms snapped outward, releasing a wide barrage of concentrated energy needles.
"Redirecting!" Vixen shouted.
Two more spatial rifts opened in front of them. The portals swallowed half the incoming needles and sent them harmlessly into the ceiling.
"I’m moving in," Nicholas said.
He didn’t manifest a heavy broadsword or greatshield. Against an opponent that controlled gravity and could redirect force, heavy weapons would only slow him down. He needed speed and precision.
Nicholas blurred forward.
The Sentinel immediately increased the gravity along his path.
Nicholas anticipated it. Instead of fighting the pressure, he used it, dropping into a low slide across the metal grating. He slipped beneath the swing of the Sentinel’s lower right scythe-arm, the crystalline edge passing inches above his face.
Plague Touch.
Dark energy gathered around his right hand and formed a dense, foot-long combat spike of hardened black plague alloy.
Nicholas sprang up from the slide and drove the spike into the Sentinel’s lower knee joint, where the armor plates came together.
CRUNCH!
The spike punched through the hydraulic housing and shattered the crystalline mechanism inside. Thick, glowing fluid sprayed across Nicholas’s sleeve as the Sentinel’s left leg buckled.
The construct released a piercing screech as its upper arms swung backward, bringing both focus staves down toward Nicholas.
"Behind you!" Vixen shouted.
A circular spatial portal opened between Nicholas and the descending staves.
The weapons struck the distortion, and their force was reflected back into the Sentinel’s chest. Its torso jolted from the impact, exposing the glowing power source beneath its neck.
Nicholas moved immediately.
He released the spike and condensed another weapon in his left hand—a razor-edged reverse-grip trench blade.
Vaulting off the Sentinel’s damaged knee, Nicholas planted one foot against its armored waist and drove the blade into the exposed power source beneath its neck.
SHIK.
The blade sank deep. Nicholas twisted his wrist, tearing the crystalline conduits apart and cutting off the main energy feed to the upper body.
Purple lightning erupted from the severed connection, shocking the construct’s internal systems. Its four arms went limp, twitching as the light inside its dome faded from bright violet to dull gray.
Nicholas kicked off its chest and landed several yards away as the nine-foot titan collapsed onto the catwalk with a deafening metallic crash.
Silence returned to the corridor, broken only by the crackle of electricity and Julie’s frantic whispering from inside the cooling duct.
"...Did you see that, chat?!" Julie squeaked into her camera, her eyes wide as she filmed the fallen Sentinel. "Spatial redirection into a knee-joint execution! Absolute cinema! If this video doesn’t break the internet, I am retiring to become a farmer!"
Nicholas dissolved the plague blade back into energy and shook the remaining sparks from his gloves. He looked toward Vixen, who lowered her hands and caught her breath.
"Good timing on the portal," Nicholas said.
"You’re not so bad yourself," Vixen replied with a faint, confident smile. "You took down an elite guardian without using an ability blast. Just pure physical dismantling."
"Weapons are tools. Joints are weak points," Nicholas said, turning toward the cooling duct. "Julie, get out. We need to find the secondary lift before the next patrol comes through."
Julie scrambled out of the vent, dusting off her khaki trousers and adjusting her camera rig.
"My battery is at thirty-eight percent! We need to find the exit right now, Phantom, or the world will be deprived of my finest documentary!"
"Then walk faster," Nicholas said, leading the way past the smoking Sentinel and deeper into the lower decks.