DAVID GEORGE RICHARDS is married and lives in Manchester, England. He has been writing for several years on a regular basis. He writes science fiction, thrillers and romance stories with particular emphasis on leading female characters. Visit his website at www.booksandstories.com.
Also available by David George Richards:
Romance
An Affair of the Heart
The Look of Love
The Dreamer
A Fine Woman
Mind Games
The Friendly Ambassador Series
The Beginning of the End
A Gathering of Angels
Changes
Walking with the Enemy
The Twelve Ships
In the Shadow of Mountains
The Lost Girls
The Return of the Sixpack
The Tale of the Comet
The Dragon King
The Althon Gerail
The Sullenfeld Oracle
The Friendly Ambassador:
The Beginning of the End
by
David George Richards
Copyright 2012 David George Richards
Licence Notes
All rights reserved.
To my wife, Rosanna, for being patient while I spent my time in my dreams
Prologue
The Sweet Delight
She opened her eyes. The world was very stark, cold and silent. Grey and brown smoke swirled in delicate patterns all around her in the darkness of the transport. Her breath came in white clouds that mixed briefly with the smoke and dust in the air before it dissipated quickly. Flames flickered nearby, giving the scene an orange glow. She felt the heat from the flames on her skin, but they gave her no warmth. Her bones ached and her skin was sore, but she was alive. That couldn’t be said for most of her sisters. From the moment the blast from the maser cannon had caught the transport, their mission was doomed.
The crash had been hard and violent. The transport was a twisted wreck filled with bodies. Some moaned and moved feebly, while others just lay still, their legs and arms at crazy angles. But there were other movements in the shadows now. Dark shapes, ungainly and misshapen, had begun moving through the wreck with relentless purpose. They were the Keruh, the aliens they had come here to destroy. They wielded axes, despatching those that still survived. One came closer to her. She felt the glimmer of its heat and instantly switched to infrared. Now she could see it more clearly, a large bipedal form, bigger on one side than the other. It held a double bladed axe in its larger hand. Her tactical systems locked onto it even as it saw her, her head-up display framed it in green as it strode toward her, its axe raised. Information spilled across her field of vision, giving her distance, elevation, speed, mass. Even as the data became apparent in her mind, her weapon was already changing...
The city had once been beautiful. Even in the darkness it’s elegant and almost delicate form and construction was quite clear. Every building had a different decorative style, with different materials and shapes used in the construction, giving each building a distinctive look. Windows, balconies, steel, concrete, glass, stone, and all the colours available were to be seen. But one aspect was common to all. The buildings were far too tall and far too thin for their apparent weight. Sometimes they were wide, but then above or below they would narrow, and the overhanging structures and bridges were almost flimsy. But appearances were deceiving. The city had been over a thousand years old. Now it burned.
As the snow fell and swirled in the wind, the tall and elegant buildings toppled. One by one they had been hit by the maser blasts fired from below and they came crashing down in a grinding of metal and a burst of glass and masonry. Some struck other buildings as they fell, causing them to shake and crumble, until they, too, gave way, dropping in a shroud of black smoke and debris. Many of the buildings that still stood were burning and fire spread throughout the city, the black smoke billowed up overhead, mixing with the white snow and turning it grey.
Into this scene of sadness and despair had come the transport. It had been one of many to swoop down from out of the clouds over the burning city. They had come in the night, the snow swirling in their wake, but the darkness had given them no protection. The maser beams had begun to pick them out even before they descended between the tall buildings. Many burst apart in balls of red and yellow fire, while others dropped in a trail of smoke. Some hit the upper stories of the buildings, the explosions adding to the smoke and fire.
The transport had been one of the last to be hit. It was already very low, weaving between the tall and spindly towers of the burning city. Twice it had evaded the maser beams that had sought to bring it down, but the third penetrated the hull at the rear, silencing its engines. The transport had dropped and spun, hitting the base of one of the elegant and far too tall buildings, and embedding itself into the structure. Now the metal of the twisted hull was split open, fire licked at the ruptured interior and smoke billowed upward in the night sky. The wreck was heaved over on to one side, and all around smashed and dead figures lay scattered in the snow. The Keruh Warriors ran among the dead and dying, alien, asymmetrical forms clad in black armour, like giant insects from a child’s nightmare. They wielded axes, despatching without mercy any of the occupants of the transport they found alive.
Then the first beam of orange light pinpointed one of the large Warriors as it raised its axe, and the Keruh burst into fragments. Another orange beam quickly followed and another Keruh was blown to a fiery death.
In an instant all the Keruh had un-shouldered their rifles and began to return fire. They ran among the wreckage, jumping over twisted metal and burning debris. They fired at anything that moved, but always the orange beams picked them out, bursting them and splashing the metal with their blood.
Black blood.
In the darkness and the smoke of the confines of the wrecked transport, confusion reigned supreme. Beams of light criss-crossed the twisted compartments as each side fired at the other. Axes were wielded and frail bodies were smashed, the blood of the victims making the footing treacherous.
Red blood.
At such close quarters, axes proved more efficient than rifles, but at their moment of victory the Keruh found themselves facing a new weapon. Trapped in the interior of the wrecked transport, flashing blades, like rotating circular saws, sliced through limbs. Nimble forms jumped from the dark and sliced at backs. The Keruh were cut down, sliced in half, mutilated. They heaved their axes, killing those of their enemies that were too close. But even more jumped from the shadows until the Keruh staggered to and fro, several agile forms clinging to their backs, slicing at them, cutting into them until they fell...
The blood mixed and splashed as the warriors of two different races fought amid the wreckage of the transport, each side uncaring of their own survival, each bent only on the other’s destruction, until finally, it was over.
She stood in the darkness of the transport, bathed in the blood of her enemies and her compatriots. Her chest heaved with the exertion of the battle, and in each hand she held a large curved blade. Each was bright silver, and both blades reached out in front of her before then curving back to her elbows. The razor edges of the blades seemed to be moving, as if rotating. She looked down at the dismembered bodies that lay piled on the ground all around her. She could smell the death; she could taste the blood and the smoke. Her heart pumped and blood surged within her, the adrenalin still feeding her muscles and her brain. She breathed deeply, her skin tingled, her muscles ached, and her mind felt such contentment. But it was the brutality of the battle, and not the victory, that had brought on such an overwhel
ming feeling of complete and utter exhilaration.
She felt absolutely marvellous.
She wasn’t alone in her feelings. Many of them still lived. They stood scattered among the corpses, bathed in blood, gasping, panting, their faces filled with the sweet delight of their experiences. But the moment didn’t last.
There were movements outside, more Keruh Warriors clambering over the broken and twisted metal, twice as many as before. They entered the bloody confines of the transport, walking over the dead, uncaring and unseeing.
She turned to face the new threat with a look of disdain on her face. The same expression was mirrored on all their faces. This time there would be no escape, no survival, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter to any of them. The only thing that mattered was the chance to kill more of the enemy, to rent and mutilate their bodies, to smash them and tread their carcases underfoot, to feel, once more, that moment of sweet delight brought on by the spilling of black blood.
Without hesitation she ran forward with her sisters, their blades whirling, and they clashed once more in the dark with their chosen enemy.