Nathan Hystad - The Survivors - Books 1-3

The Bhlat’s helmet was half blown off, so that’s where I went, pulling the rest off the corpse’s head. Blood oozed out, red like ours. Its face had a dark pigment; where our noses were, it had three holes on an otherwise flat face, lips thin around a wide mouth, teeth sharp and twice the length of mine. But it was the eyes that threw me off. Swirling green- and blue-speckled eyes stared back at me, and I lifted my rifle for a moment, they looked so full of life. But they weren’t. It was dead.

Cringing, I stuck the probe from the back of the device into the Bhlat’s neck, where a blaster had hit it. The yellow light turned to red and it beeped, transitioning back to yellow. The words GENETICS CONFIRMED appeared on the backlit white screen of the device.

It kicked back to the main menu. ACTIVATE now showed highlighted, and when I hit it, settings appeared. I could adjust the strength, the distance to cover with the pulse, and could rotate through the DNA samples. This scared the hell out of me. With this, I could add human DNA and wipe out our entire race. I almost dropped it right then, but the sounds of battle in the ship through my headset kept me focused.

“Dean, is it working? I’m cornered,” Mary said through my earpiece. She sounded panicked.

Boots clanked in the hall, moving slowly, and it had to be a Bhlat trying to sneak up on me. How many of them were there? And why were they even here?

The steps got closer, and I stood in the adjacent corner to where the floor was lifted, aiming my pulse rifle forward toward the door. The steps stopped, and I could almost hear the Bhlat breathing from just outside the room. The device was in my palm. One click and I could test it. I just had to press CONFIRM on the activate option.

One more step and a boot poked through. My heart beat heavily against my chest, one finger on the trigger, the other hovered over the device icon. I didn’t get to do either as the ship’s lights came on in a steady hum. My night vision gave way to normal as the levels of light increased in the room.

The Bhlat said something in its language, and suddenly, the wheel we were in stopped spinning, the force throwing me across the room fast enough to see the Bhlat’s eyes widen at the sight of me before it went flying down the hall. Gravity was gone.

I’ d hit my head on the wall, and my body expected me to fall onto the pile of tools and parts scattered across the floor. Instead, they floated beside me in the room, with no gravity present to keep us grounded. Someone had powered the ship back up and stopped the spinning wheel we were in from moving, stopping the artificial grav unit from doing its job. Air hissed into the room, the life-support system back up and activated.

As I floated there, contemplating what was happening, I noticed my left hand was empty. I’d dropped the device. Grunting echoed from the hall, and I remembered I wasn’t alone. Scanning the room, I saw the device floating there beside a large wrench and a soldering iron.

I pushed off the wall, arcing toward the device just as the massive Bhlat came flying into the room. Its gun flashed beams at me, narrowly missing and cutting holes into the wall behind me. I fired back but missed as well, hitting the roof instead of the large target. I collided with the far wall, with the Bhlat soldier piling into me with some serious velocity.

It felt like being pinned to the wall by a semi-truck. My chest ached, and I nearly let go of my blaster. The training from Slate took over, and I gripped a metal rail on the wall, kicking out with all my strength, sending the Bhlat back a couple feet. It left me just enough time to grab the device.

The Bhlat said something aloud, and my translator attempted a translation but failed. A strange noise emanated from the alien, and I guessed it was laughter. I must have looked like easy prey to such a large creature. His long blaster rose as he floated there, aiming right for my head. He said something else, and the translator annoyingly showed an error again.

The device was in my palm, still waiting for the CONFIRM command to be hit. This time, I did so with ease of conscience. It was kill or be killed, and I understood that now more than ever.

Time seemed to slow. His finger bent to pull the trigger just as I pressed the icon. It hummed quickly, vibrating ever so slightly. I almost didn’t feel the blaster beam rip into my side as the Bhlat nearly exploded before me. In my new slow-motion world, I saw his same green-blue swirling eyes widen just before his face pushed out, blood covering the inside of his mask. The rest of him seemed to melt, and when time started again, he was just floating lifelessly, a massive space suit of blood and bones. I nearly vomited in my own suit, and alarms were going off inside my helmet. The suit had been breached.

That was when I felt the pain in my side. My suit was torn open, blood seeping out into the room and floating around in tiny drops, each visible as I hung there staring forward.

“Dean.” I heard my name in my earpiece over the internal klaxons. It was Mary’s voice.

“Mary, where are you?” I asked, reality snapping back to my muddled mind.

“Main ship, near our entry point. They’re all dead. Are you okay?” she asked, her voice strained.

“I’m okay. Just a little shot. I’m coming down.” I grabbed the Bhlat’s weapon, knowing we wouldn’t have any more trouble from them on the vessel. Getting back down was easier with no gravity, and I was thankful, since my wound wouldn’t stop screaming at me. As I entered the tunnel spoke of the gravity wheel, I used the ladder rungs to pull me down the chute. Much faster than I’d gotten up not ten minutes before, I was back on ground level, in the center of the vessel.

“Where are you?” I asked, feeling like I might pass out. She gave me directions, but I could tell she was hurt. I pushed against the walls; every movement sent shooting pain through my abdomen. Blood trailed behind me, and I was thankful the life-support had come on; otherwise, I’d already be a dead man.

I heard something clank around the hall corner, and I raised my pulse rifle. Just because the device killed the Bhlat on board didn’t mean they couldn’t have had other friends on the ship with them. I moved slowly, my vision fading slightly. I’d lost too much blood. I needed to get to Mary. I needed to see her one last time. Ready to fire at an enemy, I pushed out, floating into the next hall, and saw it was Slate just before pulling the trigger.

“Dean!” he called, and I heard him with my ears, not my earpiece. His suit was banged up badly, and his left arm was floating uselessly at his side.

“Slate! Thank God, Mary is over here,” I said, feeling a renewed sense of energy.

We headed to the third room on the right, where she’d described her location to me, and there were four Bhlat in there with her. Four large floating corpses.

Mary was floating lifelessly as well.

Through the pain, I made my way to her.

“Clare, tell me you’re ready. We’ll be there in two,” I managed to get out, seeking a confirmation they were ready for us.

Mary was still breathing. Her suit was blasted open in a few spots, but none near her chest or head. Normally, I would have freaked out at seeing my beautiful fiancée’s injuries, but I could hardly make sense of anything I was seeing, my vision fading quickly.

Slate took charge, grabbing her, and moved faster than I’d seen him move before, leading me back to the room we’d started the mission in. Our ropes were still there, and we clipped them in.

Slate looked at me with a grim, exhausted expression. Yet he still smiled. “You did well,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear before my world went black.