Rows of sleek towers loomed to my left, reaching high above, while the hissing Dulox machinery rumbled away to my right. From where we had entered, an alien stood, an odd-looking creature about five feet tall, with a thick lower half, stubby, robust legs, and a narrower, more slender upper body. Its head was dominated by large eyes, and a pair of translucent horns jutted out from either side. Its arms, much slimmer than its legs, ended in slender, dexterous digits. To my surprise, the ridged skin covering its body extended over where a mouth should have been, with no visible opening.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, turning to Faleun before shifting my attention back to the alien.

I sensed her shrug, and I yelled at the alien.

“What the hell are you?” I asked, gripping my rifle and flexing my pinky to ease the tension.

“That’s rather rude,” it 'said,' its horns flickering from within, casting an odd array of light patterns that somehow translated into sound. “I could ask the same of you... invader.”

I could tell its posture shifted slightly as it recognized the "invader" status floating above my head, and its large eyes narrowed with suspicion. We stared at each other for a moment, neither party willing to give up any valuable information. Faleun suddenly reared her arm back and slammed the coral into the guts of the machine, causing the entire tower to flare with light as a shower of sparks burst from the hole she was steadily widening.

"Will... will you please tell your Slipscale friend to stop destroying my machine?" the creature asked, its eyes wide, visibly restraining itself from rushing toward us.

I tilted my head, lifted my eyebrows in a "hey, cool it for a second" gesture, and yelled back toward the alien. My voice didn’t carry through the noise nearly as well as the alien’s had. "So, who and what are you? Unless you're some kind of Dulox hive mother or something weird like that!"

I knew from my Dulox knowledge that they didn’t have hive mothers, but weaponized ignorance is always useful.

“Perish the thought,” it said, with a casual wave of one slender, dexterous hand, though I noticed it took an almost imperceptible step backward. The alien’s large eyes blinked slowly, and the lights inside his horns pulsed in steady rhythm, as though savoring some grand internal revelation. After a brief pause, he continued, “I am Sola, a Cinek, if you have yet to encounter my species. I am the Archon of the Dulox. They are many, and I am one.”

He stood tall, puffing out his narrow chest ever so slightly, clearly relishing the sound of his own voice. The horns on his head flickered rhythmically as if his thoughts were too grand to be confined to mere speech.

Sola paused for dramatic effect, his gaze drifting over the wreckage before returning to us with a faint air of superiority. “Is that sufficient?” he asked, the words deliberately drawn out. “May I inquire who and what you are? An invader, bringing a Slipscale into my space generator, and crudely smashing my Zenith Towers, which, if I may remind you, are quite expensive. I’m lucky I was in a nearby system when you entered the planet’s atmosphere, or I might not have been able to meet you in time before you went on your little rampage.”

I laughed, unable to contain myself. This guy was way too full of himself. Just some squat, naked alien with glowing horns. I could almost picture a miniature version of him sitting on someone’s bookshelf, the baddie in some bad sci-fi TV show. Of course, maybe I was fooling myself, trying to diminish what stood in front of me. After all, I was outmanned, outgunned, most assuredly outsmarted, and just generally out of my depth. But thinking about him on that bookshelf made me feel better.

“I’m just some dude who got caught up in something way bigger than he can handle,” I said, gesturing to the machinery and the elevator around us. “And I just had to help these poor people, who you and your Dulox have been forcing to harvest deadly coral, of all things.”

I paused, pointing at him for emphasis. “And I wasn’t threatened into helping them. No matter what they say.”

He stood silently for a moment, the glow from his horns flickering rhythmically, as if he were savoring his own thoughts. Then he spoke, “The Slipscale are nothing more than a trivial nuisance, insignificant in the grand scheme. They rejected the offer of an alliance when it was extended. They could have stood alongside the Dulox, united in our fleets, preparing for the inevitable force that would come for them. But they refused, and I respected their choice."

His tone grew colder, tinged with indifference. "Unfortunately for them, their planet happened to be an ideal breeding ground for the Dulox's primary food source, a vile, volatile, and mindless sea creature that infests and devastates any ocean it inhabits. And honestly, if you choose not to defend yourselves against the impending threat that will wipe you out, your resources, your very lives, are forfeit to those who will."

“Tell me,” he said, leaning back and adopting a more casual stance, “what exactly are you hoping to gain here? If you succeeded in destroying my space elevator, what then? Making friends with a primitive, non-spacefaring species? Becoming a slight inconvenience to the Dulox? Or perhaps,” his eyes narrowed, “you are one of many infiltration agents, softening us up before your invasion fleet arrives.”

I grinned. Letting him believe I was the ‘tip of the spear’ for a larger force might actually play to my advantage. I was just about to respond when something caught my attention: a brief blur in the distance, between the stacks of towers. It was there for only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Something out of place, something I would’ve done if I were unarmed and facing an unknown enemy inside my own secure, fragile system core.

The asshole was distracting me and calling for backup! He might have been curious about my motivations, but he wasn’t stupid enough to just have a chat while I pointed a laser rifle at him.

Trying to stay casual, without revealing I was onto him, I said to Faleun, “Perhaps the Sacred Coral has more to say on the matter.”

Faleun reacted immediately, rearing back and plunging the coral into the machine, sending a shower of sparks around us. Sola moved toward us, and I squeezed the trigger, firing a trio of laser blasts in his direction. He stopped as a quick flash erupted when the lasers hit, only for the energy to be redirected harmlessly away from his body. His horns pulsed red, and I mentally slapped myself as the buzz of drones filled the air: reinforcements were on their way.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

How could I have been so dumb? The whole time his horns were flashing, he had been communicating with the drones, but I couldn’t hear a thing. It was like someone shouting at me from across the room, then quietly whispering into a walkie-talkie. Looking back, it was obvious. He wasn’t just being smug and thinking, he was directing his drones, fully aware I hadn’t noticed.

“Come on!” I yelled, grabbing Faleun by the wrist and diving into the stacks. The high-pitched buzz of hundreds of drones filled the air, and I could already see them flitting between the towers like swarming insects. They were small, about the size of my fist, propelled by some kind of rapid-spinning prop system, sharp and agile in their movements. Before I could figure out their exact design, a sharp hiss cut through the noise, and a barrage of flechettes tore through my shoulder, leaving a dozen tiny punctures in my coveralls, quickly blooming red.

“Shit!” I screamed, pain and anger mixing in my voice. “These little bastards are everywhere! We need to get out of here!”

Faleun didn’t wait for more encouragement. She was already slipping from my grasp, bounding ahead with her usual speed and grace.

“To the far end of the stack! I’ll meet you there!” I shouted, veering off in a perpendicular direction. I sprinted between the towering structures, hoping to split our pursuers. If we could divide them, we might stand a chance, but I couldn't afford to take too many more hits. The stinging pain in my shoulder was a warning: I wouldn’t survive long under this constant assault. It felt like death by a thousand cuts, or in this case, a thousand well-aimed stings.

I continued my mad dash, lights and sounds shifting wildly in intensity as I darted between the blocky towers. It felt like running through a disorienting carnival funhouse. One second, all I could hear was the soft hum of the towers; the next, as I stepped into the narrow gap between stacks, I was slammed by the deafening rumble of the machinery near the core. The constant change in sound and vibration was dizzying, but I forced myself to focus, weaving between the towers.

A group of drones intercepted my path, and I dove to the side as a flurry of flechettes zipped past, narrowly missing me. I watched the sharpened bolts strike a nearby tower, embedding only slightly before coming to a stop, designed to cause minimal damage to the Zenith Towers. Made sense, you wouldn’t chase a bull through a china shop while swinging a baseball bat… that would kind of defeat the purpose.

I gathered myself and ran, darting haphazardly between the towers, trying to keep any line of sight between me and the drones as minimal as possible. After putting some distance between us, I slid around a corner, straightened my path for a few steps, then turned and fired.

Direct hit! I grinned as a drone spiraled out of control after taking a short laser blast from the Dulox rifle. Who needs a skill like: Laser Rifle Proficiency Level 1, when you’ve just got... skills?

I repeated the process a few times, taking out a handful of drones before a barrage of flechettes forced me to abandon my tactics and find cover. At this rate, I could probably take them all out in an hour or two… if I didn’t die of exhaustion or catch a flechette to the noggin first.

Then a thought struck and a sinking feeling dropped into my stomach. I ran the tactic once more, firing as I moved, but this time, I purposefully threw off my aim, shooting nowhere near their group. A drone exploded in a fiery ball of tech. I mentally slapped myself again. I wasn’t hitting the drones, they were intercepting my shots to protect the towers. They didn’t care about their numbers, only their precious core.

I fired off another shot as I turned and ran, this time straight at one of the towers. Sparks and lights erupted along its surface, and the drones reacted immediately, their buzzing intensifying as they doubled down on their attack. The next barrage caught me in the back of the thigh, and I hissed in pain.

I wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer. The death by a thousand stings was starting to feel inevitable, especially if they managed to slow me down any further. I needed to change tactics. Veering sharply, I made my way toward the edge of the stacks, since weaving left and right through the endless maze of towers wasn’t offering any opportunities.

Breaking free of the labyrinth, I reached the demarcation between Sola’s sleek, advanced tech and the ugly-as-sin Dulox machinery. The grinding and rumbling noises hit me like a punch in the face as I turned, sprinting perpendicular to the towers with the drones hot on my heels. Up ahead, a row of the Dulox’s bulky blue consoles rose like a jagged barricade. They wouldn’t offer much cover once the drones closed in, but they could at least block any long-distance shots.

I made a dash for the consoles and dove behind them just as a flurry of flechettes sparked off their surface, sending tiny streams of sparking goo that buzzed and tickled as they splattered against my prone body.

I lay there for a moment, catching my breath as the drones buzzed angrily nearby. My sweat-soaked forehead rested against a thick conduit, and I could hear the faint rushing of liquid inside. Whatever substance the consoles used to display information, it seemed like it needed constant replenishing. It was as if, instead of copper for electricity, they used flowing goo to transmit data. Weird and kind of cool, but I could only imagine what a pain it would be when it sprang a leak.

I shifted into a crouch, readying myself to make another run. My plan was simple: take out a few of the flying bastards, dive back into the stacks, and repeat. But as I shifted, I tapped the back of my boot against the conduit, the one carrying the Dulox goo, and a flash of inspiration hit me. Either my intuition kicked in, or the Combat Opportunist skill triggered, because I went for a mental forehead slap for the third time in minutes. Probably a new personal record.

Without hesitation, I dove into the open space between the two different types of tech, landing between the towers and flipping onto my back. I lined up my shot, aiming the Dulox conduit into the odd alien iron sights, and fired.

A spray of sparking goo shot out as I hammered the trigger again, severing the conduit completely. It was like a fire hydrant getting knocked over by the neighborhood old guy who should’ve lost his driver’s license years ago, except this was weird alien goo. It gushed in my direction, and a group of low-flying drones vanished under the wave as the goo reached the nearest tower. Fragile tech wrapped in alien alloys didn’t fare well when exposed to electrified liquid. The tower lit up, sparks flying as its internal components overloaded.

I jumped up and sprinted away without looking back, the tower behind me groaning and sparking. A sharp crackle followed by a small explosion sent heat at my back. The goo continued spreading, creeping toward more towers, triggering a slow chain reaction of flickering lights and overloaded circuits.

I pushed toward the perimeter, weaving through the stacks as more towers behind me sputtered and sparked. Seeing another conduit along the ground, I fired, severing it cleanly. The goo gushed out again, crawling further across the floor.

My boots kept pounding, staying ahead of the growing chaos. Another quick shot hit a third conduit, adding more goo to the mix, and the slow wave of destruction continued, towers flickering behind me. The drones buzzed angrily, but I was already ahead, keeping the pressure on.

I took a deep breath, adrenaline surging through my veins. There was no way I could keep this up much longer. The heat was rising, and the ground trembled beneath me as more towers sparked and groaned.

Through the growing haze, I spotted Faleun on the far end, slipping between the stacks with her usual speed, a blur against the chaos. She was close to the perimeter now, but the drones were still swarming, relentless.

Another explosion rocked the area, forcing me to stumble forward. The goo was spreading faster, and the air crackled with electricity. My heart pounded in my chest. This wasn’t going to stop, it was only going to get worse.

Whatever came next, we were in for it.