Alien Hunters_Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition Read online

  ALIEN HUNTERS

  by

  Daniel Arenson

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  AFTERWORD

  NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

  KEEP IN TOUCH

  CHAPTER ONE:

  MIDNIGHT'S FLIGHT

  They're after me. I have to escape. They're going to catch me. They're going to break me.

  Midnight grimaced and leaned forward in her cockpit. Her small blue starjet buzzed across the vastness of space. Behind her, the hulking warship roared in pursuit. The stars streamed around them, and Midnight's heart pounded almost as loudly as the engines.

  "Midnight!" The voice boomed out of the speakers on her dashboard. "Midnight, surrender yourself. You cannot escape us. Surrender now!"

  Tears burned in Midnight's eyes. She flipped switches madly, but they had seized control of her starjet's communicator. The sound of their breathing filled the cockpit; she could almost smell it. She cried out and pounded her fist against the speakers, trying to shatter them, to silence them, but she only bloodied her fist.

  "Midnight!" The voice rose again, deep, grainy, lusting for blood. "Turn around now, Midnight!"

  Midnight ignored the voice. She cursed, leaning forward in her seat, sneering. Sweat dampened her brow. She shoved the throttle so far forward it banged against the dashboard. Her starjet was small, only large enough for one person, not meant for the depths of open space. The slick metal vessel felt more like a coffin than a true starship.

  "Come on, faster!" she shouted, shoving against the throttle as if her will alone could speed up the starjet.

  She had to make it to the humans' planet.

  Earth, the old man had called it.

  I have to get there. I have to or the galaxy will fall.

  She stared forward out of the cockpit. Earth still lay light-years away. Even at this velocity, streaming through hyperspace at many times the speed of light, she would not reach Earth for days, maybe even weeks.

  Is it hopeless?

  The headlights of the warship behind her blasted across her vessel. The light streamed into the cockpit, and Midnight caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Her long imprisonment had been cruel to her. Her indigo hair seemed thinner than before. Her yellow eyes seemed huge in her gaunt, purple face. Across the galaxy, travelers called her kind—the mysterious pirilians—beings of beauty. They had obviously never met a pirilian who had just escaped both a burning planet and the most ruthless prison in the known cosmos.

  "Midnight, surrender yourself now, or we will blast you apart!" The deep, rumbling voice roared out from the speakers, deafening. "Your jet is low on fuel, Midnight. Turn around now and we will spare your life."

  Midnight shuddered. Yes. Yes, they would spare her life. She knew that was true. But the fate they planned for her was far, far worse than death.

  Fear flooded her belly like ice.

  If they catch me, she thought, they're going to harvest what's inside me. They're going to tear me apart, dissect me, install me into their ships, turn me into a million cyborgs screaming in anguish. She trembled. And they're going to use what's left of my soul to conquer the cosmos.

  She panted and bared her teeth.

  She would not let them.

  She would escape.

  Her starjet flitted onward, buzzing madly, slicing through the darkness as stars streaked in white lines around her.

  And still the warship roared behind.

  Midnight glanced over her shoulder. Her cockpit afforded a view in all directions, a view that right now she regretted. She did not want to see this starship pursuing her. She could not imagine a more terrifying sight. And yet she looked . . . and felt the blood drain from her face.

  The skelkrin vessel was massive, a hundred times larger than her own. While her starjet was slender and smooth, this ship was a mass of spikes, claws, and cannons. It looked like a great crab from the dark depths of the sea. There was no elegance to its design, but oh, there was cruelty. There was malice and bloodlust and ruthless strength to this ship. As there was to those who lurked within its craggy metal hull.

  The skelkrins. Midnight shivered. The most infamous predators in the galaxy. The beasts who had destroyed her planet. The creatures who had captured her, tortured her, who would rip her apart if they caught her.

  And they were gaining on her.

  "Surrender now, renegade vessel!" rose the booming voice again. "You cannot escape."

  No, Midnight realized. I cannot.

  A strange calmness filled her.

  But I will not let you take me alive.

  She grabbed the starjet's joystick. She yanked it left. She roared out her pain and fury as her ship spun in space, turning to face the warship. Teeth bared and heart pounding, she thrust the throttle forward again—as far as it would go. The engines roared as she charged toward the towering skelkrin vessel.

  If I cannot escape you, I will take you head on.

  She jabbed the two red buttons on her joystick. Blasts of plasma roared out of her jet, streamed across the darkness, and slammed into the skelkrin starship.

  Fire blazed against the spiky iron hull.

  Midnight screamed, tugged the joystick backward, and shot up in a straight line, skimming the edge of the skelkrin warship. Its metal claws snapped, grazing her tail. Her ship rattled madly. Sparks flew around the cockpit. She blasted upward, made it past the top of the warship, then spun and swooped.

  She was as small as a baby attacking a giant. Yet she fired her weapons again, and again fire exploded across the skelkrin hull.

  For a moment Midnight dared to hope. Dared to dream that she could defeat them, at least damage them enough to escape.

  And then the skelkrin vessel fired back.

  Midnight screamed.

  Its weapons were a terror, a nightmare of black fire and smoke and blazing white light. The skelkrin cannons bellowed with the sound of shattering bones, collapsing planets, the cries of dying races, dying suns. They screamed with the sound of Midnight's own people blazing in the nuclear inferno. They roared with the sound her heart had made when her planet had burned.

  And those weapons slammed into her starjet with the fury of gods.

  The black fire blazed around her. She could no longer see the streaming stars. Her jet tumbled. She tore free from the seat, smashed against the cockpit glass, crashed against the controls. Glass cracked around her. One of her jet's engines tore free; she saw it whip through the smoke outside, still sputtering out flame.

  With a scream and pop and the smell of burnt metal, she crashed out of hyperspace.

  The stars, previously white lines streaming all around her, slammed into tiny dots.

  Down in the dis
tance, perhaps only ten thousand kilometers away, a small green planet slowly turned. A strange planet. Still light-years from Earth.

  With a flash of light followed by looming shadow, the skelkrin ship slammed out of hyperspace behind her. It towered above Midnight's crippled jet, as large as an expanding sun spreading toward a fragile moon.

  The cockpit was cracked around Midnight. Floating in the darkness, her body bruised, Midnight stared up at the hulking warship. She had hoped that her weapons had crippled it, but the damage seemed so minimal now; her blasters had left only a few pocks. The bulk of the warship—its cannons, spikes, thrusting mandibles—remained untouched, glittering black.

  A mouth yawned open in the ship.

  Midnight's jet shook as the tractor beam grabbed her and began sucking her in.

  She growled. With her jet's last ounce of power, she managed to spin it around to face the enemy again. She pressed her two red buttons, prepared to fire her plasma.

  Only sparks left her jet's guns.

  Damn it! The weapon systems, like her hyperdrive engine, were fried. The hatch opened wider on the warship ahead, and the tractor beam kept tugging her closer and closer.

  Fear flooded Midnight.

  She closed her eyes, struggling to breathe.

  Again, in her mind, she saw it—her planet burning, turning from a lush forested world into an inferno. Again she felt it—the skelkrin knives cutting her, probing, trying to extract her power. Again she screamed, thrashing against her bonds, trying to escape, to free herself, and their needles driving into her, and—

  She sucked in air.

  She opened her eyes.

  "Will this be my fate again?" she whispered, eyes damp.

  The human with the long white beard had saved her. He had smuggled her out from the skelkrin prison. He had given her this starjet, told her to seek the Earth, to find shelter there with his son.

  "You are important, my child," he had whispered, helping her into the starjet. "Perhaps more than you know. You cannot let the skelkrins catch you."

  "Come with me!" she had begged her savior, a man with many names in her people's lore. The traveler. The wizard. Aminor.

  He had only shaken his head. "There are other tasks for me. Other battles to fight. Now fly! Fly to Earth. Find my son. He will care for you."

  She had flown away—by the gods, it had been only yesterday.

  And already the skelkrins were reeling her back in.

  Midnight growled and spun her jet toward the planet. She shoved down on the throttle, engaging her thruster engines. They roared out flame, and she blasted forward a few hundred meters. Within an instant, her jet slammed to a halt, and Midnight flew forward and banged against the cockpit glass. She cried out in pain. Her engines thrummed, but the tractor beam was too powerful.

  Shadows fell around her.

  The skelkrin warship swallowed her starjet like a whale swallowing a fish.

  The hatch slammed shut, sealing her within the belly of the warship. Her engines gave a last sputter and died. The bottom of her jet slammed against the hangar floor.

  For a moment, everything seemed so silent.

  Midnight shoved the cockpit open and leaped outside into the hangar, her black cloak fluttering around her. She found herself in a towering square cavern, feeling like a fly in the belly of a behemoth. The walls, floor, and ceiling were black and craggy, carved of iron. Red lights blinked, offering the only illumination. She saw nobody.

  But they're here somewhere. Midnight's heart tried to leap out of her throat. Her fingers trembled. The skelkrins.

  She winced to remember them strapping her down to their table, cutting, puncturing, studying, dissecting.

  "Never again," she whispered.

  She looked deep into herself, seeking her power, the source of power all pirilians had. The mystical energy some called magic. The power the skelkrins wanted to harvest from her. The power that might, just might, let her still fight.

  A round door in the back of the hangar dilated.

  Three skelkrins entered.

  Midnight hissed and raised her fists.

  They were towering creatures, over eight feet tall—a good three feet taller than her. While her skin was purple, theirs was crimson like old blood. While her eyes were golden and gleaming, theirs were blazing white, smelters of molten steel within their faces. Their fangs jutted out, wet with saliva. Their claws creaked as they flexed their long, knobby fingers. They wore armor of charcoal iron, the plates sprouting spikes and hooks. An acrid stench wafted from them, and they raised iron rods tipped with crackling balls of electricity.

  One among the three, a crimson spiral painted on his helmet, stepped forward. His lips peeled back in a lurid grin. Saliva dripped down his chin, and his white eyes burned.

  "Hello again, Midnight." His voice was a hiss, the scrape of metal on bone. "It's time to come home."

  Midnight stared at him, the hatred flaring inside her. She knew him.

  "Skrum," she whispered.

  The skelkrin lord who had burned her planet. Who had murdered her family. Who had locked her in the dreaded prison that floated above the charred remains of her home world.

  The creature she would kill.

  Midnight screamed and lashed forth her hands. Blue balls of qi energy hurtled across the hangar, lighting the shadows, and slammed into the skelkrins.

  The power blazed across their armor, cracking the iron. They roared and charged toward her, claws swinging.

  Midnight raised her chin and channeled a deeper, older power. The power they wanted from her. The power they had tortured her for.

  With a deep breath, she ported.

  She snapped out of reality.

  For an instant, she saw white and blue lights, a foreign realm beyond existence.

  She snapped back into the hangar, appearing behind the charging skelkrins.

  She blasted forth more qi from her palms.

  The skelkrins never even had the time to spin around. Her power slammed into their backs, cracking armor. One skelkrin fell facedown, blood gushing from him. The other two—the cruel Skrum and a drooling female—had survived the attack. They turned and raised their iron rods. They swung the weapons. Electricity crackled toward Midnight.

  She ported again.

  She vanished from reality a split-second before the electricity could hit her. She reappeared behind her charred blue starjet. She reached over the vessel and shot more qi toward her enemy, a blast from each palm.

  One blast hit the towering female skelkrin. The creature wailed, clutched her chest, and crashed down to the floor.

  The second ball of qi slammed into Skrum's shoulder, cracking a plate of armor, driving the creature back a step. But Skrum kept standing. The skelkrin came walking toward her, his grin widening, revealing many wet fangs.

  Midnight raised her palm again, struggling to summon more qi.

  Skrum thrust his rod, and a bolt of lightning slammed into Midnight's chest.

  She cried out and fell, writhing. Smoke and electricity rose across her black cloak.

  "Yes, scream for me." Skrum stepped forward, his boots thumping against the hangar floor. "You will scream much more back in your prison." He licked his chops. "How you will scream as we tear you apart, grow you into a million prisoners, suck up your power like a glutton sucking marrow from a bone! Oh yes. Your screams will be so sweet."

  The lightning died across Midnight. She lay, shuddering, smoke rising from her, then screamed and held out her palms.

  But she was too weak. Only a soft flow of qi left her. It dispersed across Skrum's armor, no more harmful than waves against a breakwater.

  He stepped closer, rod raised.

  "I will drag you back to your prison myself," he said. "But first . . . first I will hurt you some more."

  He pointed his rod toward her.

  Summoning every last bit of power inside her, Midnight ported again.

  She blinked out and back into reality, appearing by
a console at the hangar wall. She slammed her fist against it, shattering the tractor beam controls.

  She ported again, appearing by the hangar's hatch. She tugged down a great lever. With a roar, the hatch began to open, exposing a clear view of open space. Stars shone and the planet turned in the distance. The air roared, streaming out into space.

  Skrum roared too. He came charging toward her, lashing his rod. Lightning slammed into Midnight, but she ported once more.

  She reappeared inside the cockpit of her charred starjet.

  "Please, stars and gods and angels above," she whispered, "please let there be just a drop of fuel left."

  As the hatch kept opening, Midnight shoved down her starjet's throttle.

  Skrum raced toward her.

  Her engines sputtered, then blasted out flame.

  She glanced behind her to see the inferno crash into Skrum, shoving him back. He flew through the hangar and slammed against the distant wall. Her starjet screeched across the floor, raising sparks. She blasted out the hangar door, and then she was free—out in open space.

  She blazed across the emptiness.

  Her starjet was seared, missing part of its tail, missing one engine. Its cockpit was cracked, its guns shattered. It could barely fly. Midnight tugged madly at the joystick, directing the little ship down . . . down toward the distant planet.

  She did not know what world this was. It was smaller than Earth, light-years away. It could be a land of beasts or a land of lifeless emptiness.

  Right now, it was a land of hope.

  Bolts of plasma shot around her, lighting the darkness. She flew madly, darting like a bee. The skelkrin ship was firing all its guns, and Midnight screamed as a blast hit her jet, knocking her into a tailspin. She righted her jet. She kept racing forward. To the planet. To hope. To a chance to live, to keep her power from the enemy.

  The planet grew closer before her, looming ahead, a great green sheet that covered her vision. Clouds appeared below. Fire blazed around her. She entered the atmosphere with shrieking air, a fountain of sparks, and fear that pounded against her chest.

  She screamed, diving through fire.

  Blue skies opened up before her.

  Water and forested islands spread below.