Galactic Champion Read online

  Galactic Champion (Book 1)

  Dante King

  Copyright © 2019 by Dante King

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

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  About the Author

  Chapter One

  We were trapped in a cave. My squad of Martian Storm Marines was doing their damned best to pretend it was the insectoid Xeno soldiers who were locked in here with us instead of us locked in with them.

  It was dark in the cave, but we Martians had been bred with natural night vision. Our ancestors from Terra hadn’t shared this ability, nor had they been bred for war like every Son or Daughter of Mars. We were capable of withstanding the worst of circumstances. It was something we took pride in.

  The cave narrowed about 20 yards behind us, and we couldn’t retreat any further because there were too many rocks blocking the exit tunnel. The boulders in front of us allowed each Marine a gap wide enough to peek through without giving our position away.

  Nineteen Marines against an entire swarm of the worst predator species the galaxy had ever seen. This was the squad’s final test, and they were expected to achieve a passing mark. Death was a sure means of failure, and I doubted many of my team members would survive the cave, but I was more than happy to be proven wrong. If they could accomplish this exercise, then they’d be ready for special ops missions.

  Lance Corporal Oliver “Swede” Nilsson grabbed a clip and attempted to insert it into his battle rifle’s magazine, but his shaky fingers made him fumble. The mag fell toward the ground, and I quickly snatched it out of the air before it could clatter and alert our enemy.

  Unlike us, the Xeno bugs weren’t gifted with the ability to see in the dark. Nor were they sporting night-vision tech. But they didn’t need gifted eyes or gadgets. Like a spider in its web, they could sense movement through the vibrations in the stone.

  “Any tips, Paladin, Sir?” Sergeant Maxwell “Joker” Hadell asked me over comms.

  On this mission, I wasn’t Major Jacob Berger. I was Paladin. Just another Marine who would obey Joker’s lead. Hell, maybe I’d step in and take control if a few hundred bugs swarmed the cave, but it’d hurt the scores of both Joker and the rest of his team. They had to prove themselves without me taking point, and I’d only assist where absolutely necessary.

  The mission was theirs to complete or fail.

  “Watch your movements, and don’t go dropping anything.” I glanced at Swede, and he pretended like he hadn’t almost alerted our position.

  “Aye, Sir,” Swede said, “but they told us—”

  “Shut it!” I ordered.

  That kid was the worst kind: a know-it-all who graduated at the top of his class, a grunt who thought his instructors were something like gods, all-knowing and all-wise. I was pretty sure there were no gods. What kind of creator-god would make bugs, and then, make giant versions of bugs who carried battle rifles? What kind of gods would create mankind along with good-natured, man-like aliens and then, these? Not any kind of god I wanted to meet.

  I waited a moment to see if Swede was going to give his usual protest, but he didn’t. Any other time, the kid would have had something to add regarding what he’d learned in grunt school, as if I hadn’t been the one to write most of their curriculum.

  “I bet that’s not what he learned in school,” Joker quipped.

  I groaned inwardly. It was tough keeping the troops disciplined when even my sergeants wanted in on the joke. I’d punish them later. They knew it. But they also knew I wouldn’t ruin their careers over it.

  A small stone slipped from beneath Swede’s feet and barely made a noise when it fell. But it was enough to attract the attention of the two nearest Xeno. Their forms shimmered as their cloaking tech disengaged and revealed two oversized bugs with a pair of antennae sprouting from triangular heads. Their hard outer shells were the color of pond scum, and two skinny arms dangled from their pen-shaped thoraxes and reached below their six spike-tipped legs.

  The pair of Xeno dashed to the spot where the stone had fallen and pointed their rifles to where they thought their enemy might be hiding. Joker lifted his hand slowly, signaling the other Marines to remain where they were. The antennae on the aliens’ heads drifted toward the boulder as everyone held their breath.

  The bugs didn’t seem to notice the 19 humans only a few yards in front of them and turned away. I couldn’t help but notice the way the Marines had reacted to seeing the alien weaponry. They’d heard plenty about Xeno tech, but seeing it up close was something else.

  The Xeno Harbinger-Class soldiers sported rifles with projectiles that scientists called “ootheca” but that Marines just called bug-bullets. The fleshy orbs hit with the force of a bullet and popped in a mini-explosion of monoprotic acid.

  The Xeno didn’t kill by blowing your head off, either. They weren’t humane like that. Instead, they shot to wound. Maybe they’d hit you in the shoulder. Maybe a hip. Either way, your screams and agonized writhing would let the rest of the bugs know where you were. The more pain you felt, the louder you screamed and the more bugs you would attract. But we’d also used their tactic to our advantage. And it came in the form of a little something called a screamer.

  “You fucking idiot, Swede,” Joker whispered.

  “I’m docking points from you, Joker,” I said. He knew better than to respond.

  I was still waiting for him to activate the screamer, and Swede was lucky his fuck-up hadn’t cost us all our position and our lives. It was Joker’s responsibility to time our screamer battle soundtrack correctly, and waiting so long was putting the rest of the Marines on edge.

  When I started to think we’d all have to pack up and return home, Joker finally gestured with two extended fingers and activated the auditory decoy.

  I kept my battle rifle propped on the short ledge in front of me, waiting for the party to begin.

  A second later, the shrieking started. The bugs froze, their triangular heads and long antennae spinning back and forth, searching for the origin of the sound.

  “You still feel confident in your plan, Joker?” I asked as the screamer blared.

  Before the mission began, I told the sergeant that his plan had a flaw, and I’d even sent him and his corporals back to the drawing board to think up something else. They returned a few hours later and told me they were confident. We’d soon see whether their confidence deserved any merit.

  He didn’t answer right away, so I tore my eyes from the confused bugs to check on him. The sergeant was looking back at me, but I couldn’t see his expression beneath th
e slate-gray armor concealing his face. The way he glanced at the remote for his screamer lure and back at me suggested he was ready to listen.

  “Noise-makers don’t work so well against the bugs when they can’t tell where the sound is coming from,” I explained. “That is, unless you modify the sound enough to let the echoes diminish before the next sound starts.”

  I hoped he’d get the clue.

  The sergeant turned his helmet toward me. I could almost hear the sound of gears and pulleys as he mulled it over. He handed his rifle off to the private crouched next to him, opened the data panel on his left forearm, and thumbed the controls.

  A second later, the audio lure’s horrible cacophony resolved into something resembling the low, pained whisper of a scared man. Nonsense words echoed throughout the cave, but less so than before.

  The pair of Xeno turned their heads toward the source of the sound, and the heads of the aliens behind them also shifted to the screamer.

  The sound of humans riled their bloodlust, or maybe battle lust. They’d stop at nothing to destroy every human they found, and that’s why they had to be exterminated. It was them or us. With the way they dashed toward the lure and started beating on the rocks above it with their rifles, I knew that today, at least, it would be them.

  We’d sent one of the privates out before they arrived to cram the screamer as far into a gap in the rocks as he could manage. They’d find it eventually. But, first, we’d draw every last one of them out of their hidey holes.

  Joker looked to me as if I was going to be the one to order the attack. But this was his mission. The bugs were all grouped together and climbed over each other in their frenzied search for the lure. It was the perfect setup, and all Joker needed was the confidence to call it. I waited, and so did he. Then, when I thought we couldn’t wait any longer, he made his move.

  The absolute best cure for a tightly packed group of enemy troops was explosives. I was sure that back in the medieval history of mankind, people had employed other, less effective treatments to use against their enemies. But once someone discovered how to blow shit up properly, we’d learned to spread out.

  The bugs, it seemed, had not learned that lesson. They looked like hungry ants poring over a sugar cube. A couple of aliens noticed the soft thud of the grenade landing in their midst and jumped free of the explosion. The rest were caught in a fiery shower of white phosphorous.

  Not for the first time, I was glad for my battle armor’s self-contained breathing system. The scent of frying bugs was like the smell of burning polymer if the main ingredients were dirty socks and vomit.

  Most of the troops rolled from cover and climbed on top of the rocks, but I strafed around them with a few other Marines at my back. When I peeked out from behind cover, I expected to see the bugs lying in a pile of dismembered body parts. Unfortunately, only a few had been killed by the grenade. According to my heads-up display, we still had three dozen Xeno to contend with. I guessed they’d been so tightly packed that only those on the outside were burned by the blast.

  A pity, but at least the Marines would get to earn some points in close combat.

  “Die, maggots!” Swede growled across the comm. He rolled out to the left, squatted between a couple of big boulders, and shot through the gap. Bolts lanced into the darkness, followed by the buzz of recharging capacitors.

  The bugs danced in panic for a moment before some took to the walls on their six hind legs. Others crouched behind their dead comrades for cover. None returned fire, but their acidic firepower wouldn’t be long coming.

  “Maggots? You couldn’t think of something more appropriate?” Lance Corporal Anthony “Bird” Nest asked.

  “Can the shit-talk!” the sergeant ordered.

  I witnessed a glorious sight as the team reacted with a single mind. Martian Storm Marines had the best training, and even soldiers with the least potential eventually shined as true warriors. Without communicating, they’d formed themselves into a firing line, and those on the ends turned outward to prevent the bugs from flanking them. The squad was focused on attack and procedure, but the bugs weren’t hindered by such things.

  “Left!” shouted Corporal Kara “Reaver” Kennedy, the second fireteam leader.

  Two Xeno charged the line and fired their rifles in bursts of marble-sized sacs of bug goo. The acidic compounds hit the boulders in a hiss of necrotic smoke. Without Joker having to issue a command, the Marines formed themselves into a defensive line.

  “I got the pull,” I announced. My broadcast was confirmed by several double-clicks, the most any of us could manage in the heat of battle.

  The Marines used their left fists as platforms for their rifles in a one-handed shooting position as they simultaneously activated their energy shields. Every Marine had a shield in their personal arsenal. They were similar to force fields, but instead of vaporizing things it touched, it simply slowed them down. The death-dealing kind of force fields took a lot more power to energize and were dangerous to use in tight quarters. The more conservative MSM—Martian Storm Marine—shields were effective enough for our purposes here. The kinetic energy these smaller versions used didn’t matter when it hit a shielded Marine, not unless it was an entire shuttle or something with almost enough force.

  Lucky for us, the Xeno weren’t packing anything quite so big today, but neither were they deterred by our energy shields. They continued firing, heedless of their own safety. This particular breed of bug belonged to a hive, and the foot soldiers weren’t important to the community beyond protecting their Queen. I wasn’t sure whether the bitch would show up during this battle, and I kind of hoped she wouldn’t because this squad would have a helluva time dealing with her.

  The bugs soon realized that their efforts were almost useless against our energy shields, and they charged us. Our rifles blared as they pressed forward, but their chitinous armor deflected most of our bolts.

  I switched from my battle rifle to my sword, a vibro-blade designed to gently nudge molecules out of the way and far more effective against tough Xeno exoskeletons.

  “Leave some for me!” Reaver announced as she leaped into the fray.

  I couldn’t help but grin at the woman’s bloodthirstiness as I delivered a searing chop to the nearest Harbinger. Armor sizzled before my blade as my weapon cut through to the alien’s fleshy core.

  “Nice one,” Reaver complimented me as she hooked the same alien with the bayonet at the end of her rifle. The curved blade wedged into an elbow joint in the alien’s carapace. She tugged hard, but the fucker tugged back. The Harbinger dropped its rifle and pounded Reaver’s shield with its barbed fist, desperate to break the force field and shred her insides.

  I sprung forward, dropped to one knee, and plowed my sword into the soft undershell of the alien’s exoskeleton. Ichor showered my visor as the Xeno flailed. I rolled out from underneath the predator as Reaver extracted herself from its clutches.

  The Harbinger turned its triangular head and massive compound eyes to its new injury while Reaver harassed it with her bayonet. A quick check of my heads-up display revealed that the line was holding and all my troops were engaged, so I decided to show Reaver a few tricks. The alien was attempting to retrieve its rifle, but Reaver was blocking its way.

  The enemy’s rifle was still engaged, so within a minute or two, its ammo would pop and ooze out. Latent acid sacs would render the cave an effective minefield, and the Marines would be forced to pay more attention to their steps than the Xenos.

  I tucked my foot beneath the rifle and kicked it into my hands. I didn’t know how to use the thing—all Xeno weapons had some kind of biosignature system—but I did know how to destroy all its latent acid sacs.

  “Reaver, get back,” I ordered as I removed the magazine filled with bug goo.

  She obeyed and watched me with a curious eye. I tossed the magazine and hit it with the flat side of my sword. The sacs hit the bug, exploded in a spray of green goo, and showered the bug in its own acid
. The Xeno were completely immune to the substance that would have killed a human, but the syrupy liquid had still coated its limbs and trapped them in a web of goo.

  I charged the alien with Reaver at my side, and my silver sword hummed as a quick twist of my wrist sent the blade arcing through a three-fingered claw. The predator snarled and tried to counterattack, but its own sticky goo impeded its every movement. A flashing icon over my HUD indicated the Marines’ defensive line was beginning to bulge in the middle as the bugs pressed against it.

  Playtime was over.

  The Xeno tore itself free from the green webbing and swung at me with its mangled claw, but I managed to get my shield up in time to block the strike. The energy shield trapped the appendage for a moment, but would go down soon if the thing kept pushing. But I had no intentions of allowing it to live that long.

  I delivered a quick stab to each of its exposed front legs and curled them underneath the Xeno’s thorax. Then I opened a hole just below its neck with another swift cut that bathed my blade in blood.

  The Harbinger backed away and turned toward the Marines on the line, but with its truncated arm trapped in my shield, it couldn’t run far. The alien pulled hard and dodged away from my blade while trying to stab me with its middle set of legs. The game of whack-a-mole continued until a deep sucking sound and a grisly pop announced it had sacrificed its limb for freedom.

  I dropped my shield and smothered the 10-foot tall creature with my own armored body. I stabbed my three-foot-long blade into its abdomen all the way to the hilt. It would guarantee a kill, but Harbingers never went down easy. They had four hearts, and only three of them were in its abdomen. Still, it would likely be partially paralyzed and far less effective in battle. I twisted the blade just to make sure.