“How did I get myself into this?” Terik murmured aloud. “I should’ve just kept walking.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said that in his life, but it was definitely the first time he’d said it with four troopers hanging onto him –depending on his arm strength for their lives– and with two aliens trying to loosen his hold on the pipe he was grasping with only one hand. The aliens’ hands were soft, green and smooth and could barely hurt him, but they were starting to tire him very much, especially since they were fine with sitting on the metal platform and pounding him all day. Terik had already been holding on for a few minutes, tiring quickly, and the alien hammering wasn’t helping…but he wasn’t about to give up.
“Let go of my leg!” Terik ordered one of the troopers. “Grab onto the other guy!”
The trooper obeyed, putting more weight on Terik’s other leg in the process, and Terik swung his free leg up into the face of one of the nearest aliens. The creature made a liquid scrabbling sound of pain and put a hand to a bleeding face wound.
“You like that?” Terik taunted. “Have some more and take it to Faulk with you!”
Terik swung out with his foot again, grazing the second alien and landing a full kick to the first one, knocking him off the platform. The first alien screamed as his mate fell to unimaginable depths but it was too late to save him. Just as the alien turned its back to Terik, the boot came up again into alien butt.
“Two down,” Terik said, as the second alien hurtled to join his comrade. “Let’s get up there and claim our prize.”
Terik’s arm muscles bulged as he strained to pull himself and the four others onto the metal platform. Veins popped out from his forehead and were beaded with glistening sweat: Terik was killing his body just to get up, but he finally made it, bringing the other four as he did.
Suddenly the epic battle scene was transformed into the Maroon’s training room. A crew had stood by, filming the training session and gauging Terik’s heartbeat, among other tasks. Jix stood a little off to the side; as captain, she was required to be present during the official training meets of her first mate and marine commander.
“Good job,” Jix congratulated Terik as he toweled off the sweat. “Two minutes and twenty-four seconds.”
Terik nodded his head and looked down into the darkness where a safety net had been stretched. The two ‘aliens’ lay in the net, both probably unconscious from Terik’s blows. He grinned at Jix and tapped the blue tab on the shoulder epaulet of his uniform.
“Private fighter and personal office, right?”
Terik hadn’t seen either of said rewards Jix had promised him, due mainly to the stubborn CEO of Centre Enterprises. Jix could promise all she wanted, but to Manly S Sharpes, Terik was nothing more than a lowly marine commander.
Leaving the training sector of the colony ship, Terik walked the long halls to the marine’s bar: the place he and his squad would gather after a long day of training. It’d seemed like training was all they did onboard the Maroon, but it wasn’t too bad.
Just before Terik could slide his ID card through the slit on the bar door, a strange rumbled rippled through the hall, unbalancing Terik slightly. He stepped backwards to try and regain control, but he put his head through a mirror in the process. The glass cut his shoulders and head, but he was more concerned about the ship than his personal injuries: a colony cruiser of the Maroon’s magnitude didn’t shake like that unless one of the reactors overheated and blew out, or if some major collision had occurred.
Not waiting to find out if his immediate sector had been affected or damaged, Terik quickly hopped an anti-grav airlift and bypassed the passenger routes with his ID card. Doing so linked him into the high-speed lane used only by officers and higher officials of the Maroon’s crew.
“Please refrain from unnecessary movement,” the computerized attendant warned. “Reaching high-speed levels in three…two…one–”
Terik’s stomach turned flip-flops and his ears seemed ready to burst, but it was only for a few seconds: the sensation was evened out by the rotation of the Maroon when he reached the ‘equator’ of the ship. Since the colony cruiser was shaped like an immense globe, gravity was kept at almost normal levels around the poles. The micro-gravity was lost in the middle though, something that had to do with physics –Terik could never understand it.
When he stepped into the piloting chamber, Terik was met with a chaotic scurry of officers, passenger crew and flight personnel. Jix was already standing in a circle of higher-ups, obviously relaying information or orders, so Terik made his way towards them.
“Glad you could join us, Terik,” Jix said, turning her head towards him as he approached. “We’ve just had something major hit us broadside.”
“And you don’t know what it is?”
Jix replied with a shake of her head and one of the officers took up the explanation.
“You probably felt the tremor a few minutes ago,” he said. “We’re not sure, but it was probably due to something massive colliding into the Maroon.
“One of the reactors in that area has failed, numerous facilities are inaccessible and countless safety airlocks have closed down to the void of space: not even the number of casualties is known.”
Terik gave a low whistle and looked over at Jix, who nodded back.
“We’re dealing with something real now, gentlemen, keep your training in mind, but don’t be afraid to think out of the box if you’re in a squeeze.
“Terik, you take a squad of Sky-scrapers to investigate the damage and see if you can identify the cause. Most of our sensors, robotic probes and video cameras were destroyed. The ones left were useless to use, so manual confirmation is necessary.”
Jix then turned to the officers in turn and started instructing each a task. Terik, knowing his work was cut out for him, returned to the high-speed elevator. Half way there he saw his wing man, Jason Ryce, talking to a female member of the passenger crew. It looked like he was really making a hit, and Terik hated to break it up – even in as dire a time as this–, but he needed his right hand man.
“Let’s go, hotstuff,” he interrupted, grabbing Jason by the collar and physically dragging the confused spacer across the piloting chamber floor. “We’ve got job.”
“Lemme go!” Jason demanded, trying to get a grip on Terik’s wrist.
Terik complied and dropped him to the floor. There was a two-minute exchange of hot words, but Terik –mainly by his rank– put Jason down and they continued towards the flight bay in silence.
Upon arrival, the four other spacers that made up Terik’s team snapped to attention. Unlike Jason, they respected and followed the protocol. Jason was half-Seljikan, so Terik forgave him for it, but it meant that the junior officer would always be treated as a lesser in the squad.
One of the squad approached Terik with a hologram lying in her gloved palm.
“Sir, Captain Jix linked us the information: our fleet is ready and waiting,” Sandy Marshal held out the hologram and displayed the information she’d just relayed. “On your word, sir.”
Being a perfectionist (and a judgmental one at that) Sandy always had the necessary information to the point of overkill. She was a stable one to depend on, but not to entrust with dangerous tasks that required a little more than obeying orders. While Terik could rely on Jason to turn a downed mission into a success with limited resources and bleak outcomes, Sandy was more of a stable –but uncreative– reliant point.
Terik nodded quickly to the perky blonde and look beyond her to the large command fighter. In the pilot’s seat was Rollock Harvey, a stable, easy-going man, but ready in his mind, sure of his choices and sometimes quick to anger. The light-orange tabs on his uniform signified that he was part of the engineering crew on the Maroon and technically did not belong in an interceptor squad, but it was good to have an in-flight engineer on any mission –Terik’s experience told him that. He was already in the command fighter, gearing up the larger craft for the journey. He waved once to Terik and then gave the thumbs up sign.
As they walked towards their waiting vehicles, Norman Folkrift, an eighteen-year old boy Terik had only taken into his group a few months ago, slowly dropped to the back of the group where Terik was. Norman was far below his cohorts in age-comparison, but he was almost their equal in his piloting and fighter skills. Terik had found him as a stowaway after the last port and Jix had kept him on. Having only just learned the basics of discipline and command, the youngster was unruly and rebellious at times, but he was a valuable companion in the heat of a firefight. So far, he’d only been able to prove it twice, once in a pirate raid (the cowards turned tail at the sight of the Maroon’s guns.) and during a routine war game to keep the troops in training.
But now his cocky, self-sure behavior was gone. He seemed worried about something and wanted to talk to Terik about it.
“How about you head this one, Norman?” Terik asked, breaking the silence between them. “Just once.”
“Thank you, sir,” was the feeble reply. “But I guess I’ll hang back a bit: don’t want to get in the way.”
Terik stopped and looked the boy in the eye.
“What happened?”
At first, Norman’s face looked like he would shake it off or lie, but then the most honest expression Terik had yet seen appeared, Norman looked like the little boy he was now.
“Brock told me to stay away from you,” he whispered, looking out of the corner of his eye at the large man. “He called me your pet and told me I was sucking up; in different words, of course.”
“Of course,” Terik replied softly: he couldn’t think of a time Brock hadn’t said at least one four-letter word in a single sentence. “I’ll talk to him.”
Together they approached the bulky spacer, Brock, who was about to board his craft. Brock had been with Terik even before Jason had joined him, back in the days when Jix had ruled the skies in Seljik. Huge rippling muscles stretched the fabric of Brock’s uniform, but Terik was undaunted by that fact when he ordered the stronger man around.
“In-team assault is a something I don’t tolerate, Brock,” Terik accused: his was always the direct way. “What did you say to Norman?”
“I told that son of–”
“In clean English, please.”
It was something Terik had never asked of him, but it seemed necessary now.
“I told him to stay away from the captain, said he was sucking up to you,” Brock’s chin jutted out defiantly as he spoke the words through clenched teeth. “It ain’t fair that he gets to join our group at his age: I’ve been with you for decades, Terik.”
“When addressing your captain use the word ‘sir’, space commander Brock,” Terik ordered firmly. “And furthermore, he isn’t ‘sucking up’. His skills at this age promise even more than yours did at the same.”
Brock gave a death glare at Norman, then Terik (who returned the stare) and then leaped into his spaceship without another word.
“Board up and let’s go, troops,” Terik said, doing the same as he spoke. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”
Sandy rode with Rollock in the command vehicle as a copilot, but the rest of the squad had their own Sky-scrapers.
“Ready? Let’s go!”
Terik’s order was met with the sound of five spaceships rocketing off into the void.
I liked how you introduced us to the members of Terik's team without making it boring to read. You also managed to make them all have their own individual traits and personalities. Sometimes, introducing so many characters at once can confuse the reader, but I think you avoided this blunder well. 
