Honored, p.1
Honored, page 1
part #9 of Arena Series
HONORED
BOOK 9 IN THE ARENA SERIES
DANIEL YOUNG
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
Also by Daniel Young
CHAPTER 1
Captain Joel Richmond patted down the control station in front of him, but he couldn't see a thing in the dark.
He followed the station to the floor and picked up his laser rifle. "All of you arm yourselves," he ordered. "We don't know what to expect from the Brath."
"What are they?" Niur asked from somewhere on Richmond's left. "I've never heard of them."
"We don't know anything about them," Richmond replied. "We don't even know what they look like. They invaded the Tevorian solar system. The Chronon Vanguard has been fighting them ever since. That's all we know."
"And their ships have incredible firepower," Leatherwood added. "We know that about them."
"Are you armed yet, Sergeant?" Richmond interrupted. "I gave you an order."
He distinctly heard Leatherwood pick up his laser rifle before he said, "Yes, sir. I'm armed."
Richmond let that go, turned back to his control station, and tried to feel something on its smooth surface--anything that would allow him to access the controls. "Did anyone see how they shut down the power?" he asked.
"I didn't see anything," Niur replied. "They shut us down before they brought us inside. Whatever force they used to capture us must have shut everything down at the same time."
"Let's get off the bridge." Richmond turned away from his station. "I don't want to be standing here in the dark when they come to get us."
"How do we get off the bridge without power?" Fadek asked. "We can't see anything, which means the elevator and doors won't work, either."
"We have laser rifles. We can use them to cut our way through--and this warship might have emergency lighting somewhere."
Richmond pulled the handheld scanner out of his pocket. He planned to activate the screen and use the light from the display to find his way off the bridge.
He woke up a split second later lying on the bridge, surrounded by a completely different species of alien. They must have done something to knock him out--and the rest of his people all lay unconscious on the floor around him. Or rather, they looked like they were just waking up from being unconscious, the same way he was.
The aliens circled each person and picked everyone up. Richmond struggled to think straight, but whatever they'd done to him left his brain foggy and confused.
These aliens definitely didn't belong to any Narillian species. It took him way too long to remember that he wasn't on Narillia anymore.
The Brath had captured him. These must be the Brath.
They were much taller than humans, with angular, jointed bodies. The Brath would have resembled the Yenus, but they didn't have exoskeletons. They were as muscular as Krions, but the Brath weren't humanoid.
They resembled a combination of cephalopods and some kind of ursine: hulking, lumbering species with bulky, blocky bodies and fluid multi-jointed limbs. The same kind of multi-jointed appendages flowed around the Braths' heavy faces and skulls. The Braths' dark grey skin gave them a massive, threatening appearance, but the appendages around their heads and faces made them look predatory and almost insectoid.
Each Brath wore a kind of thick black harness around its thorax. A large metal disc occupied the center position in the front and in the back. A strange symbol emblazoned the disc. The Brath wore no other garments.
Richmond didn't get a chance to study these creatures very closely before they picked him up. Two of them took hold of his arms and pulled him to his feet. He tried to struggle, but whatever they'd done to him had robbed him of his strength, too.
He felt how strong they were the instant they laid hold of him with their weird appendages. Two of them picked him up, but one of them could have carried him easily.
He staggered when they walked him off the warship's bridge. That was the moment when he realized they must have turned on the power. He could see exactly where he was going.
The Brath had disarmed everyone. He didn't see his laser rifle anymore--or any of his friends' weapons, either.
He looked around everywhere for some way to free himself from Brath custody, but he wouldn't have been able to fight these aliens anyway--not in this condition.
He couldn't think well enough to come up with a plan before they took him off the bridge. He tried to turn around to see what was happening to his allies, but the Brath didn't let him do that either. They steered him toward the elevator, escorted him into it, and it carried all three of them down to the cargo hold.
The elevator worked just fine. He even spotted other Brath using the controls at different stations. The Brath must be using the ship's controls to study either Narillia or what had happened with Richmond's party before the Brath had captured the warship.
The elevator opened in the cargo hold, but the hatch was still closed. Richmond didn't understand what the Brath were trying to accomplish when they marched him toward it. It still didn't open when they walked through some invisible barrier and wound up in a corridor of a completely different ship.
Richmond didn't recognize what kind of ship it was. He could only assume they were on board the same Brath Marauder that had captured his warship.
The corridor consisted of millions of horizontal metal pipes all bundled together into a cylindrical tube. The corridor had no floor, ceiling, or walls apart from these masses of pipes.
The Brath kept walking down the corridor while some kind of strange vibrant energy zoomed down the pipes in waves. The energy lit up the pipes in a million different flashing, swirling colors.
The waves throbbed past Richmond, rushing from one end of the corridor to the other, from the front to the rear. The waves always traveled in the same direction. They pulsed past him, going the opposite way the Brath were taking him.
He was still trying to understand what he was seeing when he and his Brath escorts passed through another invisible barrier. They wound up in a huge room also surrounded by thousands of horizontally bundled pipes. They flowed around the chamber where the walls should be, but this place had a definite floor and ceiling.
The Brath marched Richmond to one of the walls, turned him backward, and pushed him against the pipes. He didn't see anything here that could threaten him. None of the Brath appeared to be armed.
The minute his body touched the pipes, the same kind of colored energy flowed through dozens of the pipes. The energy converged on him from all sides, pulsed down the pipes, and all came together behind his back.
They set off some kind of reaction that magnetized his body against the pipes. He couldn't move no matter how hard he struggled to escape. He jerked right and left, but he lacked the strength to put up much resistance. The two Brath walked away and left him alone in the empty chamber.
Richmond took the time to look around, but there was nothing to see by looking. Of course the Brath wouldn't put him anywhere he could escape.
The energy holding him in place turned out to be stronger than anything he had ever experienced before. The Brath didn't need to use physical restraints to hold him where they wanted him.
He was just beginning to relax into the inevitable when another group of Brath entered the chamber. They walked through an invisible curtain on the other side of the room. These Brath came from the same direction Richmond's captors had used to bring him here. They must have come through another barrier.
Ten Brath came in half-leading, half-carrying Hayes, Leatherwood, Zuna, and Jolok. Then a second group showed up with Marqin, Uril, Niur, and Fadek.
The Brath magnetized all the friends to the walls on either side of Richmond. He tried to see if his people were okay. He couldn't see any injuries on them.
Uril had given Marqin medical treatment and sealed up the cracks in his exoskeleton. Marqin looked fine now--except that the allies were all Brath prisoners.
The Brath who had brought the friends here retreated to the other side of the room. They formed a line facing the prisoners.
Richmond couldn't tell one Brath from another. They all looked the same. He didn't know what to expect, so he braced himself for the worst.
He would have liked to demand to know why the Brath had captured the warship, and to insist that the Brath return the prisoners to the Chronon Vanguard. He didn't say that, though. The Brath had no diplomatic relations with the Vanguard. The Brath wouldn't even communicate to the Vanguard that Richmond's party was here.
At least the Vanguard knew about Richmond now. Marshal Huntley knew that three Chronon Vanguard officers had been captured when the Brath took possession of this warship.
The Vanguard might not be able to do anything to get the allies back. They had enough to do just fighting the Brath for control of the solar system.
But the Vanguard knew how to destroy Marauders. That was the only way they knew to defeat the Brath.
The Vanguard didn't know how to infiltrate Marauders to retrieve captured prisoners. Would the Vanguard destroy this Marauder with Richmond and his friends on board?
A voice startled Richmond back to reality. The voice didn't come from any of the Brath. It came from the surrounding walls and seemed to throb from all directions.
"State your name for the record."
Richmond looked around him on all sides. He didn't see anyone who could be talking to him.
Maybe the Brath couldn't talk. They must be using some electronic mechanism to create this voice, and to use English so he could understand.
He and his friends exchanged glances. Richmond finally cleared his throat and answered. "I'm Captain Joel Richmond of the Chronon Vanguard battleship Durudan, Quartano Company."
"You belong to the invasion force," the same voice returned. "You do not belong to the planet of that vessel."
"Invasion force?!" Richmond snorted. "The Brath are the only invasion force here. The Vanguard has a treaty with this solar system to defend it from your invasion. That's why we're here. The planets of this solar system asked us to come here to fight you. You're the ones invading--in case you missed it."
"Why do you travel with the creatures of this planet?"
Richmond glanced right and left at his friends. His brain went through another flurry of confusion before he figured out what the Brath meant.
"These are my friends. We work together[?]--"
At that moment, another pulse of the same energy zoomed through the pipes behind his back. The energy converged on him and delivered a powerful thump to his body.
He didn't understand how, but it pounded him like a full-body blow and left him gasping and convulsing from the impact. He would have fallen flat on the floor, but the magnetic energy held him in place.
He wilted, but he didn't fall. He really wished he could have. His friends all stared at him in horror, but none of them could do anything.
"They are inferior," the same voice announced. "They are an infestation. They will be removed[?]--"
Another thump hit Zuna on Richmond's left. She screamed out and a large patch of blood seeped through the clothes on her chest.
A second thump hit her just as fast and left her hanging limp from the side wall, but the hits just kept coming. They concentrated on her for some reason.
Richmond struggled harder than ever to break away from whatever field kept him confined. "Leave her alone!" he roared.
The Brath stayed where they were on the other side of the room. None of them moved. None of them ever moved.
"You defend the infestation?"
"They are not an infestation!" Richmond bellowed. "They're native to that planet! You studied their warship! You know who they are! If you want to hurt someone, hurt me! I'm responsible for them."
"You are responsible for inferior species. You are weak to defend them."
"You're inferior, you cowards!" he thundered, but another hit from the energy field shut him up.
Energy whistled through the pipes from all over the chamber. Dozens of hits pounded Richmond's body. He became vaguely aware of the same energy bombarding all of his friends. He heard Jolok roaring in the background.
Zuna didn't scream anymore. Her long head hung down, but the rest of her body jolted every time the pulses hit her.
All the friends thrashed and spasmed every time the energy delivered another blow. Each pulse felt like a brutal punch except that the blow covered Richmond's entire body at the same time. The hits stuck his head, too. They fogged his mind. He could think even less clearly than usual.
He finally collapsed against the magnetic force holding him. He couldn't fight this, and he didn't even try. He stayed silent and waited for it all to be over.
CHAPTER 2
The energy hits eventually stopped. The Brath came forward and unstuck the friends from the wall. Richmond didn't know or care how they were doing this. He tasted blood in his mouth and smelled it on his breath.
He would have to come up with some strategy, either to escape from the Brath or to defeat them somehow. He hadn't gone to all this trouble to escape from Narillia just to fall victim to the Brath.
Narillia looked downright tame compared to this. He wouldn't be able to come up with a strategy if the Brath kept doing things like this to him.
Whatever they'd done to him on the warship's bridge left him muddled and foggy. He couldn't think even here.
The Brath removed everyone else and left him hanging there in place. Richmond's ruined body hurt all over and all the way into his deepest core, but that was nothing compared to his injured pride.
Who the hell did these bastard aliens think they were? How dare they lift a finger against his friends--especially Zuna?
Torturing the friends was bad enough. No one was going to stand there and call his friends inferior. No way in hell. The Brath deserved to die a slow, painful death for that alone.
He probably should have kept his mouth shut. If he'd minded his manners toward the Brath, they might have tortured him and left his friends alone.
Something told him they wouldn't, but it didn't matter now. He cared too much about his allies to put up with that.
The Brath took his friends out of the room. They left him alone--and one Brath stayed behind.
The same voice came from the walls, not from that one individual. "You are a weak species. You will fall and we will conquer."
"Shove it up your ass, you son of a bitch!" Richmond muttered under his breath. "I hope you rot in Hell."
He couldn't tell if the Brath understood his words. Richmond really didn't give a shit if they understood.
Nothing was worth this. He didn't have to hang here and take this kind of punishment and then smile and treat the Brath like his friends. They were enemies. They might as well get used to him treating them as such.
The one remaining Brath in the room paced around, but Richmond didn't see the creature doing anything.
Richmond braced himself for the worst when the Brath came toward him and stopped in front of him.
The Brath studied him extra closely. The appendages around its face waved just a little faster--and then the Brath turned around. The creature turned its back on him, but the Brath didn't leave.
The colored energy waves flowed through the pipes and converged on a spot opposite Richmond's position on the other side of the room--directly in front of Richmond where he could see it.
The pipes shimmered, became transparent, and opened a window into a Chronon Vanguard battleship bridge.
Marshal Huntley sat in the central command chair and scowled at the window from his end.
"We have captured your infiltrators," the Brath voice announced from the surrounding walls.
Marshal Huntley snarled through gritted teeth. "I swear to God, if you harm any of our people[?]--"
"As you can see, we have harmed them and we will continue to harm them until your Vanguard withdraws from this solar system."
"Like hell we will!" Marshal Huntley snapped. "Just hold on, Joel! We know where you are! We're coming to get you[?]--"
Another brutal thump of energy surrounded the room and converged on Richmond.
He couldn't help but groan in agony when it hit him. Something broke inside him. This wasn't good at all. This was so much worse than the Necrodrome collapsing on top of him.
"You sons of bitches!" Marshal Huntley hissed. "You'll pay for this!"
"For the life of one man?" the voice asked. "For the lives of three men and a group of alien vermin? I don't think so. Withdraw your battleships from this solar system. Your men will continue to suffer until you cooperate."
"You can stick that offer where the sun don't shine, you worthless bastards!" Marshal Huntley fired back. "Stay strong, Joel! We won't leave you be[?]--"
The window evaporated. The energy streaked outward through the pipes and vanished into the surrounding walls.
Richmond could barely lift his head after that last hit, but he'd never felt such relief.
The Chronon Vanguard knew where he was. Marshal Huntley knew what was happening to Richmond and his friends. The Vanguard would do...something.
What could they do, apart from blow up this Marauder? It could take years for the Vanguard to figure out how to board a Marauder, much less how to rescue Richmond's party.
Richmond didn't even hold out any hope that the Brath would let him and his friends go if the Vanguard did cooperate. The Brath could take this solar system and then torture the friends to death anyway.
