An Acquired Taste (standard:science fiction, 2798 words)
Author: Robert G Moons	Added: Aug 08 2011	Views/Reads: 3131/2028	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The Gulrathian Empire has sent it's finest battle cruiser to wipe out a small Earth colony. They assumed it would be easy and quick, however, they made one error - They didn't know their enemy.

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boarder where life is optimal, however, the human colony is more than 
five hundred kilometres from this expected location, and well within 
the dark side of the planet,” the navigator said perplexed. 

The Captain grinned. “These humans are not only weak and defenceless but
also very stupid. This will be even easier than I expected. Perhaps we 
should have sent a scout ship with a squad of preschoolers instead.” 

The bridge became an uproar of laughter as the Captain smiled quietly in
satisfaction over his amusing little joke. 

After a few seconds, the Captain raised his hand in a fist; the bridge
crew immediately stopped laughing, except for the science officer who 
was quickly stared down into silence. “But we have a job to do, so 
let's get it done, and by the book. No need to get sloppy.” 

A short time later, four troop transports left the star cruiser's
hangar, each containing a hundred battle-hardened warriors in full 
black plastisteel armour, carrying an auto-beam rifle in both hands, a 
titanium projectile pistol holstered on their chest, and the infamous 
Gulrathie long-blade strapped on their back. This force was about four 
times the number of the approximately one hundred colonists below. It 
was a standard military practice for ease of victory. The Captain had 
estimated that this was overkill, but he just wanted to get it over 
with quickly and be on his way. A new invasion against another more 
challenging race was in the works and that took priority. 

Under the cover of darkness, the transports set down one kilometre from
the colony. There was still no indication that their presence was known 
by the colonists. Again, this was very strange. The sound of their 
engines alone should have triggered an alert to their arrival. Instead, 
the only thing that confronted them was the deathly silence of the 
forever night. 

The four hundred giant warriors formed into organized lines and moved
double-time toward the colony. 

A few minutes later, the Gulrathie force was just outside the perimeter
of the colony. The Commander in charge looked at the compound through 
his nightscope. There were about a dozen or so metallic, domed 
structures scattered about, and a few lights at the tops of poles 
providing the most minimal of light. Everything else was as gloomy as 
the rest of this half-dark world. The only sound was that of the cold 
breeze that licked his face. He adjusted the heater unit on his suit. 
Gods was it cold, he thought. 

There were no armed colonists to meet them, no alarms blaring away
annoyingly, not even a chained pet to confront them with its 
threatening noises. This place looked dead. 

“Move your four squads in, lieutenant,” barked the Commander. 

The forty warriors moved quietly and tactically from one structure to
the next, entering each structure in turn. The result was always the 
same. 

“This place is deserted,” informed the lieutenant with the communicator
attached to his helmet. “Maybe they saw us coming and are hiding 
somewhere, or perhaps they left the planet all together.” 

“No, they are still on this planet somewhere,” replied the
Commander firmly. “We would have picked up their ship on our scanners 
had they attempted to flee the system.” 

On hearing the planetside report from the Commander, the Captain smashed
his fist down hard on the arm of his padded chair. “Gods, now we need 
to play a children's hiding game with these cowards! I have no time for 
this!” 

“Commander, listen, keep a hundred men at the compound in case the
humans return. Have all the rest of your men sweep the area out from 
the compound in a circular pattern. Issue motion detectors and 
nightscopes to each man. We need to wrap this up as quickly as we can.” 


“Understood,” came back the response. 

Three hundred warriors spread out and formed a wide circle around the
compound, and proceeded to walk outward in all directions. The further 
out they walked, the greater the distance between them. Soon, they no 
longer could talk normally to one another, and had to switch to their 
communicators to avoid shouting. There was no evidence of vegetation, 
but there were a great many boulders, small hills, and other natural 
obstructions which blocked their line of sight. Even with their 
nightscopes and motion detectors, keeping in constant visual contact 
with the warrior to their left and right was almost impossible. 

The Commander, stationed with his hundred troops in the centre of the
compound, viewed his hand-held tactical monitor to make sure there were 
no gaps in the circle. Each warrior appeared as a tiny blip on his 
screen. 

“Oaahhhhh!” The scream broke the stillness of the night. 

“What happened?” demanded the Commander. 

“I don't know, Sir,” came back a reply. “I think it was the private to
my left – he's gone!” 

The green blip representing this trooper was still on the Commander's
screen but was now moving quickly to the north, and then it too was 
gone. 

“Stop... hold your positions... check your detectors,” the Commander
calmly instructed. 

Suddenly, the distinct pulsating sound of an auto-beam rifle erupted,
then another and still another. Soon there were at least a dozen 
warriors firing blindly into the darkness, the light from each weapon 
flickering on their black armour with every round fired. 

“What's going on? Talk to me!” barked the Commander. 

“I thought I saw something, Sir. Whatever it was, it was moving very
fast,” a lieutenant replied. 

“Nothing is showing up on my detector,” said another loudly with a hint
of panic in his voice. 

The rifles gradually stopped firing. 

“Shsssttt.” 

“Oaahhhhh!” 

“Slishhh.” 

A series of screams; sounds of flesh being cleaved, sliced, and even
torn apart could be heard by all on their communicators. The Commander 
was all too familiar with these sounds of hand-to-hand combat, and felt 
something he hadn't felt in a long time – fear. 

The auto-beams started firing again, adding to the sounds of the
butchery, but now it was over a hundred rifles, and mostly the ones on 
the northern half of the circle. 

“Over there! Did you see it?” a young private shouted. 

“What the? Oaahhhhh!” Another warrior dies. 

“They're all around us!” yelled one of the sergeants. 

“They killed the lieutenant! Gutted him like a fish!” screamed a
corporal. 

The Commander looked down on his tactical monitor. One by one the blips
were disappearing from the northern half of the circle; this pattern 
continued toward the south on both east and west sides. His troops were 
being slaughtered systematically at an alarming rate; so efficiently he 
was stunned and in awe. 

“Orders, Commander!” came a desperate yell from one of his lieutenants.
“Aaahhhhh!” He was gone too. 

“Pull back!” shouted the Commander. 

About a quarter of the original circle of warriors were left; only the
ones to the south. These fifty or so troops remaining started moving 
north, back toward the compound, but it was too late. One by one, they 
too disappeared from the Commander's monitor until all was deathly 
silent. 

The Commander rallied his courage and roared out orders to the hundred
warriors remaining in the compound. If he was going to go down, he'd 
make the enemy pay dearly with their own blood as well. He organized 
them into a rough circle, making use of whatever cover was available. 
“Remember, whatever comes out of the dark, shoot it on sight,” he 
yelled with as much authority as he could muster. 

They waited.... 

Nothing, only the moans of the severely wounded and dying began drifting
out of the darkness from every direction all around them. 

The waiting continue.... 

What was that other sound getting louder in the distance? The Commander
was puzzled. Then it registered – the troop transport engines were 
being fired up! By the time he had figured out what was going on, four 
transports flew directly over their position and headed straight for 
the star cruiser still in a high orbit around the planet. 

The Commander clicked on his communicator in an attempted to contact the
cruiser, but was met with static. “They're blocking my signal?” The 
commander was dumbfounded. All he and his men could do was watch the 
four transports as they disappeared into the dark sky. 

“Captain, the four transports are leaving the planet,” the navigator
exclaimed. 

“What the... Contact those ships,” the Captain snapped. 

“They're not responding, Sir,” replied the communications officer. 

“Keep trying.” 

“Sir, there is no one aboard those ships – my scans register no life,”
the science officer said puzzled. 

“Nether-abyss!” swore the Captain. “What happened down there? Contact
the Commander.” 

“We can't get through, Sir, the signal is being blocked,” remarked the
communications officer. 

“Open the hangar bay. Prepare to receive transports for docking.” Were
those transports on auto-pilot? Maybe the ship's logs on those 
transports would give him a clue as to what was going on, the Captain 
thought. 

“Sir, it's one of the transports that's jamming our communications with
the planet!” yelled the navigator. 

“Close those bay doors, NOW!” 

“Too late, Sir, they're inside.” 

“Security, meet me in the hangar bay! This is a code red!” The Captain
grabbed his auto-beam pistol from a small storage compartment on the 
side of his large chair and headed for the tubelift. 

Inside the huge, domed hangar, the Captain met up with fifty heavily
armed warriors, outfitted like those that had gone down to the planet. 
The Captain split up the warriors into four teams, each team covering 
one of the four transports. 

“I don't know what's going on, but if anything comes out of these
transports and it isn't one of ours, kill it immediately,” instructed 
the Captain. 

Auto-beam rifles powered up and focused on the main hatch of each of the
four crafts. They were ready. 

They waited.... 

Finally, one of the large hatches slid loudly open on the nearest
transport, revealing only darkness within. 

Rifles were raised; cross-hairs locked on the centre of the black space.


Suddenly, a dark blur of motion shot out of the ship. A dozen beam
weapons fired, but all shots missed. The blur stopped right next to the 
Captain, and swiftly decapitate him with a Gulrathian long-blade he 
used expertly with both hands. Shots rang out; this time, a dozen beams 
hit their mark. The small humanoid was knocked back and onto the 
metal-plated floor like a rag doll. The dead, pale-skinned creature 
wore a dark-grey jumpsuit now full of smoking holes, and oozing blood. 

The distraction worked, as three more hatches opened; dozens of more
dark blurs shot out from all four transports and attacked. Some 
wielding razor-sharp long-blades, others used only their bare hands. 

With the attention now on the new attackers, the dead, blood oozing
humanoid jumped up as if nothing had happened, zipped over to another 
Gulrathie; punched his fist right through the black plastisteel armour 
and deep into his chest. The titan was dead before he hit the floor. 

By now, all one hundred colonists swarmed the giants still left
standing. The sounds of Auto-beams being fired in despair were quickly 
followed by the sounds of gross butchery. 

Six hours later.... 

Constantine lounged on the giant Captain's chair, using the tactical
console as a footstool for his laced black boots. He still wore the 
beam-riddled, dark-grey jumpsuit covered in his own blood. He was a 
handsome man, with medium length black hair that was neatly combed 
back, brown piercing eyes, thickish black eyebrows, and an ample but 
attractive greek statue-like nose. He turned on the ship-wide 
communications system and spoke into the microphone with an antiquated 
accent. “Attention, all new crew members of this lovely star cruiser. 
As I promised, we now have a starship capable of taking us anywhere we 
wish. Earth thought they could get rid of us by marooning us on this 
dung-ball of a planet... well, it is interesting how things work out 
sometimes. First, we will rescue all of our brothers and sisters 
marooned on the other equally miserable planets. Then, we will return 
this fine ship to its proper owners,” he smiled, revealing his 
inch-long fangs. “After all, we are vampires, not thieves. As you all 
have noticed, this Gulrathie blood has some interesting effects. For 
some reason, it enhances our abilities considerably, albeit, it is an 
acquired taste, but what a rush,” he smiled in ecstasy as he through 
his head back. 

He got up, walked over to a small porthole, and let the bright light of
the star hit his face directly. Something he hadn't been able to do in 
over two thousand years. “Yes, it is an acquired taste, but a taste I 
am going to learn to savour.” 

______________________________________________ 

Other ebook stories: https://sites.google.com/site/chroniclesofzvaxin 

© 2011 Robert G. Moons 

This work of fiction is the sole property and copyright of Robert G.
Moons. Please do not print or use without permission of the author. ALL 
RIGHTS RESERVED. 


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