The Freelancer
Chronicles:
Volume 1, Apex
Predators
By James Rowe
Copyright
2012 by James Rowe.
This book is
a work of fiction. All the organizations, events and characters portrayed
herein are either completely made up by the author or used fictitiously. Some
of the author’s friends have requested to have characters named after or based
on them.
Cover (Front
Back and Spine – Spine is shown throughout) by Coyote Holmberg.
Other
interior artwork by James Rowe
Editing and
Copy Editing also by Coyote Holmberg and James Rowe.
For more chapters, buy the book.
Chapter
7: Danger comes knocking.
Chapter
8: Evolution of the pale.
Chapter
9: Forging the path
Chapter
10: Pirates, Ninjas and Secrets.
Chapter
11: Destruction.
Chapter
12: Into the Darkness.
Chapter
13: More Revelations.
Chapter
14: Dangerous Gambits.
Chapter
15: The paths to vengeance.
Chapter
16: Re-alignments in the game.
Chapter
17: Smoke and Mirrors.
Chapter
18: Set in stone.
Chapter
19: The Wayward Kind.
Act
3: A Legend Dies
Chapter
20: Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Chapter
21: Ripples in the pond.
Chapter
22: When there’s no more room in hell.
Chapter
23: The loudest scream.
Chapter
24: Apex Predators.
Chapter
25: The Martini.
Epilogue
About
the Author:
This book is dedicated to the
wonderful people I work with on a daily basis, when an electrical fire took many
things away from me they gave so much back to me. So in Alphabetical Order to
name a few:
Karen Couchy, Julie Cousins, George
Davis, Jaden Devogel, Annette Fisher, Jill Flick, Ken Gilroy, Coyote Holmberg, Bobbi
Hothem Kibbey, Stephanie Kinder, Caroline Leech, Danny Leslie, Mark Prugh, Michael
Robellard, Tina Vance, Noha Youssef.
And it is also dedicated to friends
from outside of work who encouraged me to write and to keep my nose on the
grind and those friends are: Dustin Barnes, Heather Campbell, Adam and Hannah
Critchfield, Mike Dodson, Eric Fleshman, RJ Lemasters, Markus Harvey, David
Holmes, Amazetta Thompson, Jason Thompson, Don Walters.
Dramatis Personae
Arglois
Council
Ash’tack, a
council spokesman, public face of the council.
Baci, a
council elder
Cie’reen, a
council elder
Hadric, a
council negotiator
Lix’lohan, a
field agent
Nergal, a
council elder
The
Conlans
3 I’s, a
servant droid of Laira’s
Ciro, an
excavator
Elizabeta
Conlan, mother and physician
Jack Conlan,
father and xeno-archaeologist
Joachim
Conlan, only son
Laira Conlan,
youngest daughter
Dodson, an
excavator and security specialist
Paul Jordan,
chief assistant
Gustav, a
helper
The
Consortium
Cord, a fixer
who works behind the scenes
Sergeant
Devlin, inter-stellar marine
Mina Howard,
investigator.
High Marshall
Hunter
High
Investigator Ketchum
Captain
Marchetti, inter-stellar marine, legendary gunfighter
Planet
Garai (‘Settled’) – a
planet of legend
Shiva Hull’ak,
deceased Delezerian super soldier
Si-letah, a
mentalist, statesman, one of the Greys
The
Hierarchy
Nigel Bachman,
High Clergy
Jackson, an
Adjustor
Shodhan Jahns,
Paladin
David Rankin,
Paladin
Brian Stanford,
infiltrator
Max Taren, Former
Bodyguard for the Pope
Vigilius
II, Pope
William Winthrop,
a deacon
Independents
Alexis, a
nurse working for Dr. Cooper
Amazetta,
mother of Markus
Anders, a
smuggler friend of Mack
Dr. Scott
Cooper, a medicinal doctor
Mack, a
smuggler friend of Anders
Malik, cousin
of Markus
Markus,
friend of Thompson
Mocker, a freelance
pirate
Brandon O’Neil,
investigative reporter
Dennis Sanderson,
investigative reporter
Jayce Thompson,
a salvager
Kempfana’s
Crime Cartel
Desya, a
friend of Rusty
Gnum, a
Targlois brute
The Hanged
Man, former betrayer, now broken and insane executioner
Joseph
Kempfana, former military colonel, current criminal overlord
Leticia, one
of Trakel’s underlings
Throck, one
of Trakel’s underlings
Tyrion
Kohari, Kempfana’s number one guy
Rusty, an
enforcer and specialized thug
Schultz, a
friend of Rusty
Trakel, a
friend of Rusty
The
Maelstrom, a pirate
organization
Thanatos,
pirate captain
Macro-Tier
Securities
Lorelei
Batista, a Macro-Tier Securities agent
Joe Flanders,
a Macro-Tier Securities desk jockey
High Commander
Kreen, in charge of Macro-Tier (the planet and the corporation)
Mob
Space
Connor, a
dock urchin and friend to Pyle
Jaro, a
friend of Eric Fleshkin
Laureen, a bartender
and mob snitch
Pyle, a red
headed dock urchin and informant
Jay Ray, an
assassin and champion fighter working for Valdez
Don Valdez, a
mafia don named after an ancient Earth Tragedy
Planet
New Earth
Governor
Peck, governor of the western provinces
Planet
Okpara (First Born)
At’toock, an
Arglois mystic
Brick, a
Targlois thug that works for Ristobar
Melody Morrison,
Ristobar’s assistant
Ristobar, a
Chloraphyte treasure jumper
Police
forces
Detective
John Martinez, a dirty cop
Redemption,
Space Station
Bishop, a
keeper of secrets, member of The Hierarchy
Eric Fleshkin,
a wise cracking security guard
Maggie, a
barmaid
Frank Rice, a
thug
Zongxiàn
(Wisdom of the Ancients), a Shaolin monk, Human mentalist and tracker
Unsorted
World's End,
a chain of family restaurants.
Planet
Zembeckis
Shawn “Tall
tales” Higgens, an Infected
Lenora Boyers,
survivor
Joey Bareliss,
survivor
Joseph
Mamari, survivor
To become
enlightened,
One must do
three things -
Destroy their
family,
Destroy their
teachers,
Destroy their
selves.
If, however, one
does these things literally,
Then one
becomes a monster instead.
-
An
Ancient Earth proverb.
The
old storyteller pranced about the fire, gathering all of the children’s
attention unto him, and at that moment he shot his arms out to either side,
with his fingers curling and casting lurid shadows onto the tent’s canvas
behind him. Orange light danced across his old withered body, highlighting the
sweat soaked shirt covering his all too frail looking chest, before it settled
into his eyes. It granted him a look of power, lending him an authority beyond
his years. And so he began…
“Beginnings
are always the most challenging, during which we are presented with the most
complex of choices. These choices always
have the greatest variety of outcomes. So where to begin with your lessons?
Selecting a beginning is often a hard choice, unlike endings where things are normally
easier and straight forward much like a bullet hurtling across space at
tremendous velocity. Beginnings can set the tone of the whole lesson. Then again, in retrospect, endings can also be
convoluted messes. Ahhh, I know.
Once
upon the Earth that was, and that may never rise again, on a very ancient
river, there was a young prince, who was wise in the ways of animals. And being
wise, as was the way of some young princes back then, he understood the secret
language that all those animals shared.
He
was walking along the edge of the river, when he saw a tortoise getting ready
to swim across it. But the tortoise was not alone. A dangerous creature stepped
out from behind a rock. It was a dreaded scorpion, whose tail was filled with
lethal poison. The tortoise started to panic, but the scorpion called out
‘Wait, I mean you no harm. I would appreciate it if you gave me a ride across
the river.’ The scorpion at this point raised his mighty claws in a gesture of
helplessness and said ‘I need to cross the river.’
The
tortoise, showing wisdom, replied ‘If I give you a ride across this river, how
do I know you won’t sting me during the trip?’
‘If
I sting you then we will both surely drown.’ came the reply.
The
prince watched as the tortoise agreed, and sure enough, halfway across the
scorpion stung the tortoise in the back of the head and the tortoise cried out
‘Why did you do that? I am dying now and you will drown. You have slain us
both!’ And the scorpion replied, ‘I did it because, I’m a scorpion.’
At
once the prince understood it was important to trust another’s nature before
you should trust another’s words. So now I share this tale with you, because dear
students, you must always remember that. But you should know the story of this
prince is not yet done.”
“When
will you finish it teacher?” A small hand from a young girl rose up in the
middle of her question.
“It
is a little long and it’s telling will take a long time, but I will continue it
at a later time, young Laira.”
Wake from
death and return to life.
-
Traditional
Japanese saying.
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
The
triple suns of this solar system made the desert planet Okpara, inhospitable to
most life. It had intense temperatures hot enough to heat stroke the hardiest
of races. To the locals the mere concept of low temperatures (as in what one
could find on a score or more of other planets) seemed like a pipe dream.
Okpara’s wildlife includes some of the deadliest creatures in the known galaxy.
There are over four dozen species of small reptiles which can kill most
sentient beings with ease here, there’s also a wide varieties of insects,
arachnids, plants and minerals which are highly poisonous to all of the known humanoid
races. Rumor abounds regarding strange predators which swim in the deepest sand
pits, and which can devour entire small buildings within a few bites. Stranger
still are the stories of what lurked far beneath them, which preyed on all life
on this planet. Yet somehow there was a native population here, alive with
history and myth. And secrets… this planet had its share of secrets. The local
parlances were all of alien dialects and tongues, but enough hints and glimmers
of the arcane dialects of the Arglois mystics and priests slipped through to
hint that the aliens who founded this planet had discovered Ancient Earth long
before the descendants of Ancient Earth found this planet. These details were
not lost on Joachim Conlan as he sifted through the sands, looking for more
clues to the graveyard of a long ago battle.
Joachim
was the linguist expert of the Conlan family and he barely over shadowed his
sister Riana in this area. That detail also was not lost on him. Outside of his
family, Joachim would be considered brilliant; inside of his family, he wasn’t
even average. Riana is also the tech expert, an accomplished dancer and
musician, and she is beautiful. He studied the tech manuals as well and yet was
only the third best technician of the entire archeological team. The first, of
course, was Riana. He was always slightly jealous of his younger sister. He
took solace in the fact that the youngest sister, Laira, was not quite as
brilliant as he was.
Joachim
did not possess the beauty of their mother, Elizabeta, nor her grace, and
creativity. Elizabeta was a physician by trade, but also brilliant in just
about everything she tried. His sisters inherited her beauty, Riana got her
auburn hair and her eyes and skin complexion. Laira did not, but instead inherited
her hair coloration and pale complexion from their father, Jack, and in that
aspect Laira was like him. Yet somehow Laira was still beautiful, despite that.
Both
of his siblings possessed more grace in their little pinky fingers than he did
in his entire body. Not only was he gangly looking, but he was also a klutz.
Riana was outgoing, and well spoken. He was shy, nervous and he stuttered when
he tried to talk at times.
All
of this went through Joachim’s head when the sands shifted beneath his feet and
sent him tumbling down the ancient ship’s exposed cargo hold. It was almost a
ninety degree angle for the fall. His heart raced in terror as the sands
started to pour in after him and they blocked his lighting. He was falling,
falling a long time while blinded.
* * * * *
Paul
Jordan watched Riana dancing in the distance. She was grace and beauty
personified, which he was not. Part of him wanted to be her age again, though
when he was nineteen he didn’t have any idea of how to even talk to a girl like
that. Come to think of it, now that he was almost seventy he still didn’t have
much of a clue on how to talk to most females. Despite that fact, he had a wife
once: a sharp woman who found his shy awkwardness too cute to pass up. She
passed away from radiation poisoning due to a compromised ship’s core. He
promised her that he would one day become a famous man, and with the Conlans,
he’ll finally get to fulfill that promise. Least he could do: that ship was a
relic when he purchased it, and when the power systems blew the radiation leaks
Paul blamed himself.
Jack
and Elizabeta Conlan researched things before coming here, and they were
correct in the hunches made after the long years of following clues. This
planet, Okpara, was where the final battle of the Delezerian war for freedom
happened. Okpara is the grave of the last of them and by all accounts, the best
and the worst of them. It’s been a hundred year search, and Paul was part of
the team which found what everyone was looking for. Yep, he was going to be
famous.
Paul’s
hands grabbed his communicator.
“Everything’s
fine.”
“Remember,
watch your footing. Your boots only protect your feet and ankles from getting
bit by something nasty, so don’t fall.”
“I’ll
try not to. I rarely do anymore.”
“And
why are you dancing in this heat?”
“I’m
trying to acclimate myself to it, plus the locals say its winter, and it’s my
time.”
“I
know enjoy your day off, tomorrow we’ll have more stuff for you to fix or go
over.”
“Because
this is where the final deciding battle happened, your pa is sure of it.”
She
waved at him in the distance, and went back to being care-free.
It
has been a long time since the memories of his wife surfaced, he normally kept
those buried deep, so deep it’s like those memories belonged to a different
person. His eyes watered as he adjusted the settings on his sensors. The main
problem with the Delezerians, he concluded, was that their standard metals were
almost invisible to every scanner known to the rest of Humanity. It was going
to be a long day.
* * * * *
At’toock
stood on the cliffs set inside The Valley of The Gods; he stood hidden in deep
shadows. The three suns could not cast their light everywhere here, despite
what non-residents would think. He, as an Arglois mystic, was concerned. Humans
and technology, Humans and science, Humans who breed like nothing else… Humans
were always a bad mix. The only good Humans were the dead ones. Dead Humans
could only do so much after all. His overly large purple eyes registered sudden
fear. Dead Humans, Delezerians to be precise, were what has led these new
Humans here. Humans always went for the Delezerian crystals. Strange, that, no Human
alive could do more than make the crystals hold light and display images and
that the Delezerian technology was far above what Humans currently possessed
and the Humans could do nothing with it. Fools. All of them. Then again some
mystic guardian he made. He couldn’t even do his job and keep these secrets
here buried forever as he was ordained to do by the high council. Too many
rumors left this planet because he couldn’t kill the Humans which came here
before.
Humans
are a virulent plague. Once heralded as a potential savior to the Arglois race,
a gift from the stars, a gift which soured and ruined everything. At’toock
despised Humans. He hated their violence and their lack of self-discipline,
both traits which are obviously genetic. Both traits were passed down to ‘The
Great Mistake’: the Targlois race. The Targlois were to be the saviors and the
breeding stock of the Arglois but the Targlois destroyed so much, they were so
stupid and dense. The Targlois destroyed three entire planets and now the high crafts
of the ancients, of At’toock’s own ancestors were forbidden. High science was
outlawed, and being a mystic meant using what was naturally given throughout
the planets – herb lore, toxicology and sleight of hand amongst other tricks. All we trust ourselves with now are the low methods.
Sure these things were all science as
well, but they were not considered part of the forbidden “High Sciences”. Archeology was one of the forbidden, and
these Humans brought it to this waste of a planet to unbury other artifacts of High
Science.
At’toock
knew it was all a matter of time before his chance came to get rid of these Humans
once and for all.
* * * * *
Dodson
imagined that this world might be where all the old legends of hell came from.
He was sweating like a proverbial pig and try as he might, he still couldn’t
pull his pick’s tip out of the stone he buried it in. So he paused to eat some
smoked lizard meat and drink down some electrolytes. To make matters worse,
Ristobar, a Chloraphyte treasure jumper, was out and about prowling along the
marked off perimeters. There was no local law on Okpara; it was up to the
individual science teams to provide their own security, well Dodson doubled as
security chief around here, and it was from more than just what was written on
his dirty old cap.
Ristobar
pulled his anti-grav sled close to Dodson, as he leveled the tip of his shotgun
across the sled’s hood. Ristobar always played things cautious.
“I
see you, fat boy. I see you keep eating.”
Stupid Chloraphyte, just because they
didn’t need as much food as regular folk, didn’t give Ristobar the right to be
an asshole. Dam green skinned bastard.
Dodson grunted, pulled his gun out in one fast and fluid motion and replied
“I’ll see you, green boy I’ll see you stop breathing. There are plenty of holes
that need filled in a desert planet”
“No
need for violence, besides, Dodson, if I were to die out here, my employers
would just send lots more people to bother you.”
“More
people?”
“Yes,
more people.”
“Geesh,
Ristobar, you’re stupid. I’m the only person here. So, there is no ‘people’
there’s me and I’m a person and you aint.”
“If
you were to die out here and vanish in the desert, then your whole
archeological team will be short one extra ‘person’ to stop me.”
“If
I die, then the Conlan children will pick up right where I left off. I taught
them both how to shoot when they were knee high.”
“I
don’t think they have what it takes to kill a fellow Human being.”
“Like
I said, Ristobar, you’re stupid. You actually think you’re a person?”
“Chloraphytes
are genetically modified Human beings, moron. Dodson, your backwaters racist redneck
is showing.”
“It
has nothing to do with being racist, because it aint about your skin color.
It’s all about what you chose to be in life, and Ristobar, you chose to be a
scumbag. And if your finger tightens anymore on that trigger, we might end up
killing each other.”
“If
I’m lucky I could kill you, and live. The Conlan boy is a weakling.”
“He
hasn’t found himself yet, so yeah, you could kill me, and pigs can fly. But if
you do get lucky then that dancing Conlan girl over yonder is gonna’ dance all
over your grave. It is debatable, but I believe she might, and I repeat, might,
be a better shot than I am. And she has the confidence and the strength to just
shoot you dead.”
“Well,
work hard, because if this planet kills you or I end up doing it, then I’m going
to make sure your work doesn’t get wasted and take everything you and yours dig
up. Going to make a fortune in Delezerian historic junk.”
“Yeah,
if I kill you, then I’m just going to use your skull for a poop bucket.”
“What
type of sick…”
“Poop
bucket.”
“That
don’t even make sense.”
“Poop
bucket.”
“My
skull aint that big.”
“Poop
bucket.”
Ristobar’s
eye twitched after receiving that scathing remark a fourth time, and he paused
for a long moment, but then Brick, one of Ristobar’s Targlois henchmen called
him across his radio, so he backed up slowly, keeping a sharp eye on Dodson as
he left. Ristobar didn’t need to be skilled at lip reading to see that Dodson
was mouthing the words “Poop bucket” to him as he was leaving.
* * * * *
Now
that Dodson and Jordan weren’t watching her, Riana snuck away to her own pet
project. Like Joachim, Riana understood that the local languages around here
shared certain things with old Earth’s languages. However, unlike him, she made
an optical reader which could scan written or carved words on these old caves,
and that program interfaced with both the current Okpara to English dictionary
as well as an archive of ancient Earth languages. When she compared her
findings to the markings on all of the Delezerian equipment they’ve uncovered
so far, her breath caught in her throat. No one alive spoke Delezerian, but she
was going to change that. She was going to be the first one in two hundred
years to utter it. There were some roadblocks along the way, but she could
overcome them. She wasn’t just going to speak it she was going to master it.
Riana
made a few calculations, and then made some adjustments. Delezerian computers
had a base count which differed from those of Human computers. They possessed a
count of two instead of ten, and from two it went to four. And from four it
went to eight, and then it doubled to sixteen, then to thirty two and so on. It
was a lot like going from a 128 gigabyte encryption to the 256 gigabyte
version, same thing with graphic cards, central processing units and memory
units. The basic math behind their programming language used this platform for
its binary interface. Binary is the basis of all discovered programming
languages. Yes or no, true or false, ones or zeroes it was all the same. Yet
for some reason Earthlings always used it on a ten based count when processors
did it differently. Also standard Human computers read data from left to right,
top to bottom, Delezerian data should be read right from left, bottom up. It
processed the first input the same, but it built the data string by adding the
bits and bytes from right to left. That’s why Humans couldn’t interface with or
even activate any of the old Delezerian equipment.
And with this new insight combined with her
new understanding of the Delezerian language, she would be able to program an
interface and turn on an actual Delezerian computer. But she’d start small,
seeing Ristobar reminded her that protection would not be out of order.
Her
hands trembled at the prospect of doing more with the technology than anybody
ever has excepting the Delezerians themselves. So far, only the display
crystals of the Delezerians have been used and used widely, even though
scientist claim they only understood a portion of what it may be capable of.
But now the crystals could be used as they were meant to be used and a suit of powered
Delezerian commando armor could be fully utilized as it was intended. No longer
would the armor have to be hulled out and refitted with clumsier interfaces,
programs, weapons and sensors. She’d be able to access ship logs, and shed
light on The Dark Ages of the galaxy. This was the new Rosetta stone and
despite the heat, that thought sent proverbial chills down her spine.
Riana
was going to learn why the Delezerians had had enough of their overlords and
how they eventually overthrew them. Many legends throughout the planets told of
the Delezerians sacrifices to liberate the worlds from the oppressive and
invasive rule of the Greys, but not one surviving legend spoke to how they
initially threw off their own yokes.
She
finished her notes, and started up her personal computer and started linking it
to her translator in progress. She had some old Delezerian light blasters she
was going to try first. Like Alice
looking down the rabbit hole, she had no idea what she was getting herself into
and what sorts of consequences would await her.
* * * * *
Si-letah’s
mind became active. Where was he? He was having a hard time remembering. Why
was the world shaking? It’s dark, and the stars are gone. The stars are
overhead, way overhead. I should climb
out of here, but I’m too hungry to think straight. I should climb out and eat
in the presence of the stars. It was a good thought, the first good thought
in a few hundred years, but that thought slipped away. There were too many
thoughts slipping away, always slipping away to hunger. There was too much
hunger in him. His mind ripped something. What was it? His mind felt ripped in
half. But something, some other sentient life was nearby and its thoughts were
like a cup of water to a being dying of thirst. His mind did feel ripped in
half, just like the tectonic plate his thoughts once grabbed a hold of. His
people were losing. Damned Delezerians. Wait, didn’t he kill them all? Didn’t
he? When they killed him, his powers reached out to kill that bitch, kill her
and the rest of her army. It was his army once a long time ago and it belonged
to him and his people. They were the chosen ones, chosen by their own gods to
be the gods of so many species across the galaxies. As gods they experimented
on the races under them. That’s what gods do, right? His mind hurt. He always
had this huge headache. Wait, he’s dead, right? I’m dead. Wait, no… I’m different now. I cheated death. My mind has
crawled from creature to creature. What am I now? Those long thin exo-skeletal
dark furry legs, on a giant web are my legs. That’s what’s shaking. The web is
shaking. My legs? Wait, am I a spider now? What happened to my old lizard host?
More
and more dirt shook loose of the web, revealing a young Human male.
Is this Human’s name, Joachim? I can
eat him, but his mind is so open. He’s just a normal Human, not quite a servant
race. My mouth can open and I can wrap him up in silk and slowly swallow his
blood, drain it away drop by precious drop. I should eat him. The web is
shaking as I move across it. This mind is shaking as I think my thoughts. An
arachnid’s brain was never meant to hold this much intellect. Is the constraint
making me somehow dumber? Has this been going on for a while? What year is
this? I need information. The boy, oh, yes, I’m hungry. I should eat the boy…
wait! I can merge with the boy’s brain instead, but if I do then this oversized
gigantic spider will try to eat the boy and I’ll be part of the boy. I in
essence will leave a useless body for a useful one, to just have the useless
body eat the body I want to become part of. I must prepare the boy to run, and I
must set a deadly trap for my current body for when it chases the boy.
Si-letah
reached out for his vast array of mental powers and found that they were much
like him, a whisper of a ghost, inside of a strange mind.
* * * * *
Gustav
and Ciro always found at least one thing to get nervous about during their work
day. Today it looked like they were having a second thing. The first, earlier
today, was when their cooling systems on their gray work coveralls were low on
charges. Now a second thing presented itself and they found themselves just a
little worried again. In front of them stood a pack of Geysonis. Geysonis are a
highly dangerous half reptilian, half arachnid like creature, whose tail
stingers often brought about strange constantly re-occurring necrosis of the
afflicted body part which only meant amputation or death. The necrosis began on
a genetic level as the Geysonis venom bonds to its victim’s DNA, this bonding
constantly creates a digestible food for the Geysonis eggs which are
simultaneously laid inside of the victim.
These current Geysonis were half grown. When fully grown they could get
as large as some Human babies.
“Dodson!”
A
squelch noise answered the radio first then, “Here, what’s up?”
“Geysonis,
me and Ciro are backing up slowly now.”
“Location?”
“Northeast
marker.”
“Alright,
I’ll be right…”
“Riana
here. I’m closer.”
“Yeah,
Dodson, I am. I got two old Delezerian side arms working. I want to see what
they can do. Besides, you were gonna use a grenade.”
“Uh,
was not.”
“Really?”
“Okay,
yeah I was. Now get off the horn, I got to give Gustav and Ciro clear
directions on how to not get the Geysonis to chase them.”
“Dodson,
its Ciro. We turned up the volume and then put Gustav’s radio down on the sand
and now the Geysonis are circling it. They’re reacting to the noise. Stalking
it.”
“Yeah
they are attracted to loud noises. Ristobar’s been leaving out lots of food for
those things, you guys know he traffics in them?”
“Freaking
Death Merchant.”
Multiple
small bolts of deep blue energy tore apart all five members of the Geysonis
hunting pack as Riana fired two blaster pistols simultaneously at them. She
finished them off and then advanced up the incline to the Northeast marker.
“Was
that all of them?”
“Wow,
those blaster pistols hit with a whole lot of force. Holy crap, those are
Delezerian pistols? But nobody has ever gotten them to work. Well not since the
Delezerians anyways.”
“Yeah,
these are Delezerian blasters, they are powerful and pretty accurate too, but
was that all of them?”
“Yeah,
that was. Can we play with your pistols?”
“I’m
glad that was all of them, and not on your life.”
As
Riana walked off, Ciro turned to Gustav and said. “You know the old saying; I
hate to see her leave?”
“But
I love to watch her go. Yeah, she’s the boss’ daughter, so don’t get any bright
ideas.”
“Don’t
worry. She just reminded us that she can be scary all by her lonesome.”
“Hey,
that’s the first time anyone alive has seen what a Delezerian mid sized blaster
pistol can do.”
“Like
I said, scary.”
Gustav
and Ciro now found themselves worrying about a third thing.
* * * * *
At’toock
was worried. He saw from a distance. He saw the old relics of death were once
again picked up and being used. No one alive has ever gotten any Delezerian piece of technology,
gun or not, to function. Except that was no longer true, someone did and it was
that Human girl. It seemed that she was greatly skilled at the High Sciences.
Too bad. At’toock knew, deep down he knew, he knew he had to kill them all to
in order to keep the past buried. He just knew it, and that thought clenched
his second stomach’s muscles in anticipation. It was okay though. The high
council was aware that the Humans have grown out of control and the council had
plans to deal with them.
* * * * *
Joachim
woke up. He was stuck on a giant web of some kind, there was a faint voice in
his head, so faint as to only be a murmur, and it wasn’t his voice. Just as
bad, it was pitch black down here, and something was causing the web to
tremble. The spider thing that set this web was active, and Joachim couldn’t
move and he couldn’t see. Sand and rocks shook free of his clothing with the
tremors of the web and so he counted and approximated the distance based off of
the sound of the impact of the stones and this planet’s gravity. Forty feet
give or take five. Forty feet left to drop. The impact of each stone sounded
like it hit a huge pile of sand. Always sand on this planet. Joachim moved slightly
with his weight. Good. The webbing is stuck to his coolant coveralls. He could
lose them down here, just by slipping them off, which should allow him to
descend and hopefully get away from being something’s meal. It was cooler down
here than up above, and risking dehydration and heat stroke later is definitely
a good trade for not getting eaten right now. With a predator this big around,
chances are there won’t be little predacious animals and insects down below
that he’d have to worry about. His danger right now was the spider monster. He
had to buy every moment he could. Every precious second counted if he wanted to
maximize his chances of survival. A thought occurred to him: if he could
back-feed the coveralls’ coolant lines, he might get a small explosion, maybe
enough to scare off the thing which wanted to eat him, whatever the hell it
might be. Also it should give him a moment of light. He opened up the access
patch and went by memory, all the while feeling the web shake more and more as
his death stalked towards him.
Good, the boy has a plan, I have to
slow down my body to buy the boy time and then, when things are in place I
could help him spring the the trap he’s planning. Then I can leap into his
consciousness. They don’t know about this trick. No one alive should know about
this trick. I have to buy us both, second after precious second. Si-letah strained with all of his
broken concentration and caused the spider body to slow down.
The
warning lights of the coolant system flickered on and off, each moment
illuminating some kind of hairy spider the size of an elephant. With each
flicker of light, it got closer. With each step closer, the web shook even
more, making the light dance wildly. The spider’s venom was dripping off of its
fangs. Its eyes glittered glossy black and somehow conveyed raw hunger. Its
legs were long, brown and covered in sand colored fur. The fur grew thicker, longer
and more yellow colored the further it got away from its body, making the
sections near its feet appear to be covered in some kind of wooly leg warmers.
Hysteria and blind panic overwhelmed Joachim. His courage ran away from him
like the yellow stream of urine which poured down his leg. His mind locked up
in panic. His breathing was erratic. He was too frightened to move.
Si-letah
had learned from his earlier defeats. As
a Grey, he knew that if he was being too obvious about his methods, he would be
discovered. And Si-letah wasn't quite ready for that yet, but he had to do
something, so Si-letah screamed “Move!” inside of Joachim’s mind as he
struggled with to pause his massive spider host body. Joachim pushed off the
webbing by finally slipping free of his coveralls and plummeting down into the
sand waiting beneath him. The empty clothing mildly popped and crackled as the
spider’s fangs grasped it, however the freezing coolant was slurped directly
into the spider’s system. Its physiology couldn’t handle even being partially
frozen from the inside so it started to scream, and Si-letah leapt towards the
boy’s consciousness.
Joachim’s
terror trapped Si-letah into a fragment of his mind. Si-letah knew this, as he
knew that the boy was running towards the heat of the surface and towards the
fresh air he smelled. He also knew the spider wasn’t dead, and that it was
angry and disoriented but it would still be able to follow him and his new
host. Si-letah was quickly becoming just a whisper in Joachim Conlan’s mind, a
ghost in the sub-consciousness. One day
there will no longer be any Joachim, one day there will only be me, Si-letah.
* * * * *
Dodson
and Riana went out on patrol to look for Joachim. Joachim missed his last call
in time, which was about twenty minutes ago. Jack and Elizabeta were rightfully
worried, so they sent the best they had to go look.
Riana’s
electronic skills were useful in pin pointing the latest communication booster
used by Joachim. They traveled out that way on an anti-grav mini truck.
Elizabeta, being the resident physician, went with them in case her skills
would be needed; as the natives were wont to say “this planet knows no mercy,
this planet does not forgive, this planet does not nourish.” Elizabeta had her
medical bag with her, with extra liquids packed. Dodson packed along an extra
cooling suit.
When
they arrived at the communication booster, Dodson and Riana climbed out.
Riana
examined the internal log files of the booster and determined that their best
bet was to look south east, just inside the border of the “Valley of the Gods”.
Elizabeta
set up a shelter complete with shade, a bed, a few fold out chairs, and
internal cooling.
Riana
wasn’t the best tracker on the Conlan archeological team; Dodson was. They were
tracking for almost an hour in this heat, covering the same couple hundred of
meters. He found the signs before Riana
could spot them: a fresh scuff mark on some sandstone, broken pieces of flint
rock and the more auburn colored sand from a sub surface layer that was present
in larger amounts than normal.
Digging
into the sand uncovered metal belonging to a ship’s hull. It was an ancient
ship and unlike anything produced in the Consortium. It wasn’t Delezerian, it
belonged to the Greys. There were markings, he called Riana over.
“Make
anything of this?”
“Greys,
hold on, I’ve been working on a translator”.
The
Greys. No matter what language you found their name in, it always translated
into “Grey”. Grey the color, their main color, the color of their skin, their
armor, and their ships. The only different color common to them was the black
in their gigantic eyes set in their oversized hairless domes which they called
“heads”. They were a shadowy people, a race of psychics who used to run the
known galaxy as a large scientific experiment in cruelty. Once prolific, they
were ironically wiped out by the Delezerians, a race they created to serve
them. Towards the end of The Great Purge, The Greys revealed their greatest
psionic trick yet: they mentally possessed high ranking members of the Delezerian
Command. This act of possession and the
resulting fallout enabled the Greys to learn a new skill as a few members of
their race became beings of pure mental energy. The side effect of learning that
forced the ones who used that skill to live as parasites which took control of
their host bodies, because without a host, they would die. Because of the Grey’s physiology, their
original bodies could not be maintained without a driving intellect. Not much is known about the limitations of
that new power, or if any Grey still existed in psionic form. Legends from all
over the known systems tell of how the Greys as a race, are no more.
The
translator program started to pull up some words Riana recognized as dealing
with the layout of the ship; she typed into the laser projected keyboard, and
made adjustments. The crystal display started to read out details for Dodson.
Just as he opened his mouth to ask, Riana hooked in a different program and the
crystal showed the ship’s layout.
“According
to this, if Joachim fell down in some kind of sand slide, he’d have a long
drop. If we work our way in from the top, we could bury him in more sand.”
“Good
call, girl, we can try from the bottom then, there’s a large crevasse over
there which could give us access to the nose of this ship.”
* * * * *
Dodson,
after comparing the ship’s layout with the bottom of the crevasse rigged the
facing rock face with some explosives. “Good news, this is the largest ship
discovered so far.”
“Yeah,
I hope Joachim is okay.”
“He’s
tougher than anyone gives him credit for.”
“I
know, Dodson, I know. I just can’t help but to worry.”
“Yeah,
best step aside, this is going to blow and most of the blast isn’t going into
the ship. Can’t risk hurting the boy, so the blast will be heading our way.”
Somewhere
ahead, there was an explosion. Joachim in panic ran that way. The injured
spider monster trailed him by only a dozen yards. Metal was groaning ahead, the
spider monster was shrieking behind him. Joachim stumbled into something which
cut his face open, he pushed against it and it sounded like he just pushed a
pile of bones out of his way as he went towards the groaning metal noises.
Light, blessed light started shining its way inside, the side of this metal
tomb of a ship was opening up, and Joachim ran towards it. His side was
splitting, and the monster behind him was down to barely half a dozen yards
away from him.
Dodson
stepped into the light like some hero out of legend. He yelled something, that
Joachim couldn’t quite make out due to his heart pounding in his own ears. He
did manage to catch the gist of it, and slid to his knees as Dodson opened
fire. Large orange blaster bolts flew overtop Joachim’s head, making glowing
after images in his eyes. The blaster bolts kept firing, round after round; and
were joined by bright electric blue bolts for a brief moment right before they
stopped.
Joachim
was babbling and half sobbing as Dodson picked him up and tenderly carried him
to the safety of his mother’s arms.
Treachery
darkens the chain of friendships,
But truth
makes it brighter than ever.
-
Conestoga
proverb, from Ancient Earth.
Micro-Tier
Outskirts,
Planet Macro-Tier
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
The
"HQ" of Micro-Urbana was once a train station, a busy center of
activity. The building is now nearly abandoned;
a forgotten husk that was discarded when the technology moved on to bigger and
better things. It was abandoned for many years until a small gang of criminals
which did not forget its usefulness moved in.
The
main portion of the HQ is the Commons, a large area occupying most of the
second floor that contains the workshops and the living quarters. The first
floor was now a maze of traps and automated defense systems. The roof was full
of hidden anti-vehicle guns, and it had the best security system that Trakel
could build. It paid to be careful.
Rusty
delicately operated the machine press. He needed the bolt pattern to line up
precisely with the bolt holes in his face. Trakel, his friend and father
figure, delicately ground away at the pearl lenses which would help Rusty pass
for a more biological form of life. Delicate seemed to be the order of the day.
The
news cast on the large Delezerian crystal display covered the court martial of
Joseph Kempfana, former military colonel, even though every one knew it was a
sham. Kempfana was set up as the fall guy, he was the most ruthless, most
efficient, yet most honest of the current military command. Someone had to take
the blame for all the uncovered unauthorized government spending to the tune of
half the deficit of Macro-Tier. Macro-Tier wasn’t New Earth, but it was still a
powerful planet. The news about Kempfana was old, so neither Rusty nor Trakel
paid it any attention and both of them missed the updates. Someone in the
government squealed to the press. Kempfana was mercilessly beaten in prison
over the last seven years, and some vigilante mob killed his wife and three
children over four years ago. Kempfana just found out about his family and so
he escaped. Too bad that. The criminal underworld they worked for was going to
go through a metamorphosis and they were going to get swept up in it. All of
Macro-Tier was heading for changes. New Earth won’t stand for the corruption
here, they’ll send in Investigators, Consortium Investigators.
Rusty
was a name chosen not just because his outfits always featured a rusty brownish
red color: but it was also chosen as a play on the acronym for his base model,
the R.obotic U.rban S.tealth T.rooper. Rust units were expensive and highly
illegal about twenty years ago. Their production had been abandoned when the
cost could no longer be justified. There were maybe one hundred functional
units left in all of the known solar systems. Trakel had a partner, but he
still needed a partner he could trust, so he built one from a pair of destroyed
chassis. Most came from a Rust unit, some from a discarded FilmBuilt stunt bot.
Stunt bots were always easier to come by in scrap yards because they are way
more expendable than Human stunt men. People always loved seeing violence on
the screen, but according to Trakel’s personal experience, not so much when
it’s in the flesh. His thoughts were on flesh, how much can he put on Rusty
before it negatively impacts Rusty’s performance? He didn’t know. He needed to
probably acquire a male sex droid and just use the skin, hair and everything
else. But people tracked the sales of sex droids and his reputation didn’t
include (and hopefully never would) being a buyer of sex droids, especially
male sex droids. So for now, he’ll have to go for cybernetic replacement parts…
only problem is they tone match those to the recipient, and there was no way in
hell he was going to get enough skin that matched itself for this.
The
pearl lenses were only to duplicate the irises for Rusty’s optics. They were a
bit shiny and the color randomized like a rainbow whenever struck by light,
they looked like a special designer eye job that was somewhat popular with the
younger club hoppers these days.
Rusty’s
new faceplate was being constructed and modeled after the most common of faces
so that the generic skin patches they looted from Dr. Cooper’s office would
look right on it.
After
a few moments of grueling detail work, the faceplate was ready. Trakel
carefully applied the forehead skin patches, all the time double checking the
instructions on the side of the packaging. He got down to the nose and upper
cheek bones without a hitch as well. Taking a deep breath he started to work
the flesh around the mouth and lower jaw, that’s when Michelle called. The loud
jingling noise caused him to jump and twicth his hands, so that he ruined their
small supply of synthetic flesh. So much for delicate. He put his phone on
ignore. His ex could go rot in hell for all he cared. It was Trakel’s own fault
for forgetting to turn off all of the communicators around him, but still she
could go rot in hell anyways.
“Sorry
Rusty, but you’ll still have to use the gas mask to cover your lower face.”
“Methane
breathers are too rare in this part of the systems.”
“I
know but it beats being instantly recognized as a non-licensed custom robot.”
“Agreed,
and the ‘methane tanks’ make an appropriate disguise for the jetpack we just
acquired.” Rusty went to work on shaving down the fuel rods for said jetpack.
Schultz
entered the room from the roof hatch with “Kohari called, seems we got some new
contracts.”
Tyrion
Kohari was their boss and not a man to be trifled with. Kohari was a respected
businessman on both sides of the law and he was highly connected in Mob Space.
A made man, though he was a bit dreary and depressing especially in his choice
of names for the equipment and property he owned. Kohari’s bar is called “The
Forlorn Hope”.
Schultz
wasn’t a trust worthy person; not trust worthy enough. Something always seemed
a bit off about Schultz. His smiles never reached his eyes. And he liked to
make art out of the blood of anything he killed. And the madness so evident in
his hobbies, also never touched his eyes. Trakel could find more emotion in
Rusty’s eyes, which is saying something.
“So
what are the contracts for?”
“Kidnappings
and it’s an impressive list.”
“How
many names?”
“Only
two.”
“How’s
that impressive?”
“They
are both high ranking local military.”
Trakel
knew it still wasn’t as easy as that sounded when he asked, “Where are we
supposed to hold them?”
“We’re
not; we’ll be dropping them off on Zembeckis.”
Zembeckis
is a quarantined planet. Zembeckis is full of a sentient mold that enslaves the
minds of anybody foolish enough to go there. The mold, which was an experiment
gone wrong, was created when the Targlois attempted to use the science of their
creator race, the Arglois. Zembeckis was one of the four planets destroyed by
the first Targlois. Luckily, every subsequent generation of the Targlois became
even more incompetent and unable to work technologies. The Arglois as a whole
abandoned High Sciences as penance.
The
mold of Zembeckis decays the living by slowly digesting parts of them. Rumor
has it that it can even re-animate the dead when it needs a body to do a job
for it. This planet has another name amongst citizens throughout the galaxy,
the name of “Zom-Beckis” in reference to the states of the current sentients. Its
victims are referred to as “Zom-Becks”. When people get dropped off on
Zembeckis, they get there because they’ve angered somebody with a lot of wealth
and not many scruples.
“Hey
you ever consider dropping Michelle off on there?”
“Schultz,
I’ve considered it, but it’s a hard planet to slip in and out of.”
“Have
you ever tried?”
“Succeeded,
actually. Me and Rusty dropped off a few ex-military there on a contract about
three months before you joined up. We had to pay out half our pay to Mack and
Anders, the best two smugglers you’re ever going to meet, and even they had
difficulty helping us through. Like I just said, it’s hard to slip in and out
of.”
If
any ship leaving the Zembeckis system is even suspected of having some of those
mold spores, that ship got detained and possibly vaporized by the Consortium’s
inter-stellar navy and marines. Or it gets mopped up by the forces of The Hierarchy.
“That’s
what she said.”
“Grow
up.”
“Well,
we’ll get paid to drop off two people, let’s toss her in for free then.”
“Well,
the pay better be worth it. No, we aint dropping my ex off there, and is this
job condoned by the powers that be? Ex-low ranking military is one thing, but
high ranking current military is another entirely.”
Trakel’s
answer came in the form of a shrug of Schultz’s shoulders.
“Then
we have to be… delicate in looking into what’s going on.”
“I
hope we’ll be more delicate than what you did on the bottom half of Rusty’s new
face.”
“Yeah,
delicate left the building so we’ll have to settle for careful.”
Rusty
proudly showed off the fuel rod he just finished and replied to them both with
“Delicate is still in the building, so let’s still be ‘delicate’ in our
investigations.”
* * * * *
Chan Quan
Shaolin Kung Fu Academy,
Planet New
Earth
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
New
Earth was a little bit smaller than Old Earth by the history books, but it was
a beautiful place. The unique frequency of the local sun combined with the very
Old Earth like atmosphere here, made sunrises and sunsets more blues and
purples and darker pinks than reds and oranges. There were two moons here; one tinted
silver and the other blue.
There
were space ports and whole universities here, as well as a few smaller
corporations, but, all in all, industries dangerous to the environment were
kept off planet at other locations.
The
Chan Quan Shaolin Kung Fu Academy was the closest thing one could get to an
accredited Shaolin
Temple in all of the
Western Quadrant of explored space. To attend this school one had to pay a
hefty tuition that was almost as high as what a student might pay for attending
a prestigious Ivy League academy for doctors or lawyers.
Laira
Conlan was unique even amongst a family of geniuses: her IQ tested highest of
them all. She was also sensitive and so she pleaded with her parents to lie
about her results and place her the lowest on the IQ scale to not upset her
oldest sibling, Joachim.
Joachim
was at an emotional unstable state in his life. He was picked on at his academy
by jocks for being a bookworm. The only girls in his class that he liked, he
couldn’t talk to. He stuttered around them and could not complete his own
sentences. Joachim lacked the normal confidence of a Conlan and the only thing
he took pride in was that he was the second smartest of the children. He wasn’t
even the first and that hurt him. If he found out his youngest sister was the
smartest of his siblings, he would probably suffer some kind of break down.
Laira’s
mom made the alterations to the forms for her after Laira explained how fragile
her oldest brother was. Elizabeta agreed, that this alteration would only be in
place until Joachim grew out of his slump. That was when Laira first saw
someone alter an official report.
Laira,
who always fondly remembered her mom smiling as she forged data work, finished
doctoring the electronic forms showing her grades at the prestigious “Gaylord
Cramer’s Academy
of Law”. Who the hell
wanted to go to an academy named after someone with the first name of “Gaylord”
anyways? Joachim was the brown noser of the family, Riana the “perfect” one,
and Laira, well; Laira was the rebel of the Conlan kids. She was smart enough
to outwit her Human monitors, reprogram her robotic nanny, and to spend her
education funds on what she wanted to actually learn; how to kick people
wherever the hell she felt like kicking them.
People
called her “Little Miss Death” because she was pale as an untoasted cracker,
petite, had long black wavy hair, a penchant for wearing loose black pants,
with white lace shirts, and she wore bone earrings and necklaces that were
shaped like Ankhs and skulls. She didn’t consider herself a Goth; she thought
most Goths were lame. She dressed this
way because she liked it when she first saw it in the movies. It was definitely
different and cool. The problem was style revivals from movies often were just
that: revivals. Goths were in fashion again with the fringe elements of society
that refused to fit in. The whole life styles of Goths were revived. Laira
didn’t want to adopt the whole moping around and doom and gloom aspect. She
just thought the way they dressed were awesome.
The
fact that she was ranked first at the Kung Fu Academy only enhanced the stories
of how one shouldn’t mess with “Little Miss Death.” It was hogwash in her opinion;
she’s yet to be in a real fight. All the training meant nothing if she’s never
been tested in real combat. She had plans to fix that.
Money
from her little investments and her little black markets that she ran throughout
her school career was financing a ship for her; one capable of inter-stellar
travel. She already programmed 3-I’s with all the piloting software she could
steal. She was going to test herself by living the life of an interstellar …
well she wasn’t sure what exactly, she just had wander lust, and she’d start
off as a circuit fighter, but maybe then she’d move onto doing some action
movies. Maybe. It didn’t matter, she was angry. She should have gone on the
archeological trips too, but she blistered terribly in the sun, suffered heat
stroke easily and according to her mother, was too prime a candidate for skin
cancer. Sure there were treatments available, but she was part of the less than
one percent of Humanity that those treatments did nothing for. So she was going
to create her own adventures. She would begin by heading to the space station
called “Redemption” where she would seek out Master Zongxiàn, the current grand
master of Chan Quan style. Legend has it that he’s there, and that he can do
more than parlor tricks with his internal energies. His chi was strong. She
would learn all that she could from Zongxiàn.
From
there she was going to go out to the fringes, rumor at this academy has it that
expeditions to the remnants of Old Earth uncovered DNA, DNA had been cloned,
including that of the legendary Martial Artist Bruce Lee. Sounds like more hogwash. She would seek out the truth of that and
learn why those who went in search of that rumor never came back, including a
few of her foolish friends. Little fifteen years old Laira had a plan. Scratch
that, she had many plans.
It
was her day of rest, so after her forgery she went back to learning more of the
styles from her vast downloaded library of hand to hand combat forms. Her plans
left little room for rest. Three days out of the week she replaced regular
sleep with a modified neural massager. She flushed her fatigue from her muscles
once a month with an illegal system cleansing dialysis like procedure. And she
popped pain pills to deal with her sleep deprivation headaches. She learned
what medical treatments her body could endure while trying to fix her pale
skin.
She
showered, changed and next recorded the last sets of her “study sessions” to
send off to her parents. They began with her in apparent mid note taking via
audio recorder “By no means is it expedient to record everything that could be
written on the subject. A discussion of the current state of affairs is
meaningless without first discussing the genesis of the situation and why
things came to pass. From here, maybe I should extrapolate on the reasons for
the trade embargo from the rebels’ point of view. Maybe the point of view of
the two brash negotiators. The whole thing was lame anyways, and the details
were over dramatized and outright fabricated to sell a lot of toys. Unfortunately
the original story, though it may be amazing and awesome, was lost due to short
sightedness and greed. Oh, hi Mom, hi Dad! I didn’t realize 3-I’s came in to
record me. Studies are going well, love you both. How are Riana and Joachim?
Sorry I’m out of regular communication credits to use the standard band width
again. Doing too much off planet research. Love you guys. Talk to you later.”
Her
report was short as normal. 3-I’s wasn’t here, he was actually busy elsewhere
negotiating with some smuggler types for her. She set her alarm for an hour and
hooked herself up to her modified neural massager. She needed her artificial
rest, as tomorrow was going to be a really busy day.
* * * * *
Bleeder of
Hope sports center,
Planet
Macro-Tier
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Jay
Ray was in the middle of a death match. He was going to turn his opponents into
memories, the remainder of people. The bodies will be dropped, the souls will
be gone; they will only be an echo in the outrage of those who bet money on
them.
Jay
Ray had thinning hair, a boyish smile, which made him attractive to a lot of
his fans, but he had an insane sparkle to his eyes which spoke of an old trauma
and a deep seated psychosis. His father used to beat him mercilessly whenever
Jay Ray failed to live up to his dad’s expectations. Jay was too soft, too much
of a pretty boy. His father was a thug who worked for some local money lenders.
His father knew how to make people hurt. After every beating, when Jay was
curled up into a ball, whimpering, his father used to lean down and tenderly
whisper “Look at you, you are weak and broken. How can I possibly love
something so weak, something so broken? Try to not disappoint me so much, eh?”
Those
beatings happened daily for over five years.
Jay
Ray’s brothers were luckier than him; they were ugly. His father had an innate
rage and hatred for pretty boys, even his own son. When Jay Ray hit puberty and
didn’t grow out of his childhood good looks, that was when his dad’s rage
became known to him.
He
dared not ask his family for help. He tried it with his two older brothers, who,
rather than help or console him, beat him up as well and then picked on him by
calling him names and buying him dresses to wear.
The
story goes that one day out of some kind of remorse, after all his two eldest
sons had died from the hands of some unknown and vicious assassin, his father
blew his own brains out after having a heart to heart with Jay Ray. The truth
was that Jay Ray killed him just as he killed his own brothers. At the time of
his father’s slaying, Jay Ray exclaimed “How did I do, Dad? Look at yourself!
You’re the one who is broken and weak here. Do you love me now Father? Do you
love me now that I’ve become the better monster?” That was the first time his
boyish smile turned more ugly and resembled that of a crocodile’s.
The
memories of what he did as well as the fears of what he could be, a failure
just like his father, drove Jay Ray to become the best at what he relished. He
was an illegal street fighter, and an assassin who worked for Mob Space, and he
was the current reigning champion in both. His life outside of fighting and
killing was empty.
If
pain created the situation of Jay Ray’s youth, and memory crafted him into what
he is today, then passion is what kept him going. He was filled with pride,
anger and pure rage. Combat was his passion personified and he pursued it with
relentless drive. He was raised in the borderlands. The borderlands are a
difficult place located halfway between what could be called the true underbelly
of civilization and the planets of the law abiding denizens of the systems. Jay
Ray had an advantage on most of his opponents, because his first fighting
experiences came as a child defending himself from 250 pounds of vodka reduced
rage control which he called father.
For
this match, they put him up against three other fighters. His kills and his
wins were too well known to give any type of point spread for one on one
battles. In this battle, like the last nine, he had a handicap. So be it.
The
stadium was illuminated by all the closed circuit crystal screens, showing
close ups of the fighters and advertisements covering everything from
prostitution to outright illegal drugs and weapons. Steady mounted cameras and
limited motion cameras were positioned on the network of beams and girders and
pipes above to help cover the fight from all angles.
There
were flying camera bots this time. Camera bots like those were not used during
battles involving new or unique technology. Publically this was done out of
concern that someone would hack the wireless signals and force those bots to
zoom in close to the new tech. Which by the Mob’s telling, had burned their
business partners before with having lost sales to competitors, when spys had recorded the live
demonstrations of cutting edge
technology and then beat them to market with cheaper counterfeit armor. The
truth was: extreme close ups of the tech in action often revealed flaws to the
public which would hurt sales. After the products got sold, if the public’s
outcry over the flaws was great enough, the Mob would set up someone who owed
them money to take all the legal heat and bad publicity off of their shoulders.
It was always the partner company which was at fault when this happened. There
was also the possibility of some of the newer tech disrupting wireless and
laser transmitted signals to the flying camera bots.
Private
citizens were not allowed to bring in sensory recording equipment of any kind
and reporters’ cameras entering the main arena were all replaced with Mob
special cameras. Everyone of the public
who came to see a live event were deep scanned for cybernetic enhancements
before they entered the arena.
Sometimes
the battles were unarmed battles like this one. Other times when illegal arms
sales were low or new weapons or armor tech needed promotion, the battles were
more along the types of “run and guns” and the advertisements would promote the
items being used by each fighter. Run and gun battles were where the combatants
ran through a group of mocked out destroyed small buildings while shooting at
each other. Normally the weapons took the toll on the armor, so if one didn’t
run – he often lost.
Today the ads were focused on performance
enhancing drugs “used” by the fighters themselves. This was false advertising,
as serious fighters didn't use that crap: half of those performance enhancers were
laced with addictive substances.
Jay’s
opponents were the best to be found. Some fought him because they truly did
believe they could beat him, others were blackmailed, straight out fools, or
forced into these competitions. And none of the reasons why the fighters were
here mattered to Jay Ray.
Three
opponents was the magic number. At three, his memories eventually took over and
the three became his brothers and his father. His brutality at that point sold
lots of tickets and whatever the hell else the promoters were promoting that
day.
The
first opponent went at him with a lunging thrust kick. The kick was designed to
push the kicker’s weight forward for a follow up volley of hand strikes. It was
a direct attack, yet Jay Ray simply pivoted out of the way of it by pushing his
own weight around on the ball of his left foot as his right leg swept
gracefully behind him. This put Jay Ray into the first aggressor’s blind spot
where he had enough time to snap a punch out shattering a floating rib as he
continued to pivot and dance out of the way of the other two attackers.
His
opponents were fighting as a team already; they probably came in as partners.
This made Jay Ray crack a smile as he barely moved his face out of the way of a
punch and his body moved barely out of reach of the other guys kicks as he
tossed the puncher as a weapon into the rapidly kicking feet intended for his
own body. The third guy caught his wind and had shut off the pain of his ribs
and he was getting back into this. Maybe they should have picked better
partners or trained harder. Jay Ray didn’t care, he was beginning to see his
brothers and his father all over again and they were going to bleed and hurt
and then they were going to die once more.
Here no one
fears to die in war...
Keep this in
mind, O princes.
-
Aztec
Scribe, from Ancient Earth.
Low city,
Smallwood,
Outpost
planet outside of the Zembeckis systems,
Taliana
systems
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Paladin
Joshua Huges stood in the trench behind his men. The long line of clergy
stretched off into the morning's diminishing fog. Heat lightning flashed in the
distance. Its light seemed to cling to the horizon, illuminating the growing
daylight. What the troop could see of the horizon looked like some dim
Purgatory between ground and Hell.
"Steady,
men," Joshua said as he held his church issued carbine blaster pistol in
one hand and his holy sword in the other. Behind him, he could hear the nervous
chatter of his troops hidden in the tree lines as they prepared their chemical
flame throwers and other weaponry. He could also hear the sounds of their
movements as they spread out for maximum coverage.
The
zombified army Joshua and his troops faced was so huge that it stretched as far
as the augmented eye could see. The leader of this army was the Zembeckis mold.
Scouts were moving in advance of it to prepare for their main attack. This was
unusual for the “Spreaders of the Mold”, but not unheard of. These smaller
companies of scouts were much fewer in number, yet they were no less powerful
than some of the larger divisions that followed. They were stronger because
they were more virulent with infection and were only weaker for numeric reasons.
Just as John the Baptist was just one
man, but was empowered to baptize the people, these smaller groupings were
given great powers for subjugating whole worlds: scout units were often so full
of spores that they never lasted for more than a week before they exploded into
an infectious cloud from pure rot. To strike one in melee combat was to invite
your own demise.
A
single Zembeckis demon could infect multitudes of people, up to and including
entire races or cultures, and that is why The Hierarchy sent him and his men.
The battle he faced now was the direct result of this city trying to take on survivors
from an illegal colony that had tried to scavenge satellites from Zembeckis
space. The legality of that did not matter. They were too close to the mold,
and got infected. Then they didn’t possess the decency to stay where they were,
they tried to get help, and now one of the major cities on this planet was
locked down and about to get cleansed by the church. That’s what mattered.
Joshua
knew that this army was not marching specifically against the church, but it
became a high priority anyway by attacking everything that it could get a hold
of to expand. Most of the victims weren’t well-dressed or respectable, they
were the poor and the destitute, the desperate, some were from the sick ones
looking for the old Arglois technology that surrounded another one of the
Targlois mistakes, and the rest was from the rubbish of this city. This poor
city used to have 40,000 odd immigrant workers in it, 300,000 regular citizens
and an elite cadre of rich, now all it had was Zom-Becks. The rich had left the
city already and did not want their remaining possessions destroyed. So they
called The Hierarchy. It normally went down this way.
“Paladin.
The faithful request today’s passage.”
“Deuteronomy
13:15.”
The
order was passed down the line, and soon thousands of voices rang out across
the hills with "Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with
the edge of the sword, destroying them utterly . . .”
“Any
extra words for prayer?”
“Father
hold our heads and hands steady as we do your will. Make our aim true and the
lives we take to be in mercy. Help us endure, in the name of righteousness, and
cleanse this darkness. For we want to truly be the keeper of our flock and the saviors
of children. As our lives sees their final test. Its final task is a chapter
which is ours. I pray for those who cross our path, for they shall face our
swift hands of wrath. For we will strike down upon them with vengeance those
who attempt to poison and destroy our flock. And you will know the Lord walks
with us when we lay our vengeance upon them.”
Joshua’s
words were broadcasted into every helm and every vehicle and into every beating
heart on this field of battle.
The
mold was the poison and the poisoner attempting to destroy his loyal men. It
was evil incarnate and proving to be difficult. The mold was also using the
military tactics of someone before their brain became too rotted. Apparently at
least one of the city dwellers used to serve. That’s why these Zom-Becks were
organized into different troops. And that’s why the Zom-Becks which could still
use guns aimed for the chemical fuel tanks of the flame throwers. Joshua was
losing more men than he could afford to. Good men were dying to these demons,
Joshua had not expected them to be able to effectively strike at this range. He
ordered some of his clergy to bring about the riot shields and to protect the
Purgers.
Yesterday
Joshua no sooner put on his tabard before he was pulled into this mission. Although
he had no idea at the time, he was about to set into motion a series of events
that would threaten his holy order and taint his very soul. The mold had the power
to possess the mind and bodies of sentients to force them to commit acts of
evil. The mold infection kills the hosts in a few hours, but the mold keeps the
bodies active even after death. The only clues to the initial infection were
blank looks and leaky tear ducts and noses. The newly infected were the only ones
who could use firearms of any type with skill and accuracy: afterwards the
infected degraded down to only being able to use clumsy melee weapons, mass
volleys of firearms and the threat of infecting others with their puke green
mold. Occasionally the mass volleys of shots were effective.
The
mold was an ancient being, an honest-to-God demon in Joshua’s eyes. It was
created approximately fifteen hundred years ago as a result of the mistakes of those
who used Targlois for research assistants and maintenance personnel.
Joshua
was a hardened veteran of The Hierarchy.Somewhere a long time ago while he was
fighting Geysonis breeders he lost his compassion along with his left foot to
the vile Geysonis poison. He was twenty-three years old going on eternity. Without
his compassion his other good deeds were of little comfort and had no impact on
his growing hatred. Geysonis victims rarely survived: to do so they had to have
the poisoned limbs amputated and replaced with cybernetics. Like his left foot.
His best friend died during that incident. There were no cybernetic replacements
to fill that void inside of Joshua’s heart. He no longer felt whole in his own
eyes or in the eyes of his lord.
Joshua
was filled with a steel like willpower and he was filled with pride in his
work, but pride was a deadly sin, and it had its teeth sunk deep within him.
The demonic mold has failed to infect him on over five missions deep into the
Zembeckis systems. It was said his faith somehow protected him. The truth of it
was he was looking to die, and he barely held that death wish in check.
Sometimes
Joshua questioned his orders; for that matter, he questioned everything, on
down to and including his own supplies. Yellow blaster fire was generally the weakest
of the magma bolts. It burned at a lower temperature and lost cohesion quicker
due to losing too much energy from the light that they em than other bolts; unlike the other
bolts they lost too much energy to the light they emitted, yet despite this The
Hierarchy ordained that the men use the yellow fire, deeming it the more holy
and righteous of the blaster bolt colors. Joshua sarcastically thought that the fact that the use of these weapons could
not be visually differentiated from normal lighting from miles away and that
this could help conceal The Hierarchy’s operations had nothing to do with it.
He ordered his gunners to concentrate their use of the yellow blaster fire on
tearing apart the closest mold devoured scouts. These weapons would do nothing
to immobilize the regular Zom-Beck troops.
The
clergy here were outnumbered a little over thirty to one. It normally didn’t
get this bad. Joshua hid these odds from his troops initially: soon enough they
would realize it for themselves, and in that moment they should rely upon their
faith.
The
Hierarchy comprised one of the military arms of The Consortium, and they
provided ground support on most planetary operations. Because of this along with the income from donations,
fundraisers, and their tax-exempt status, The Hierarchy was the richest organization
in existence. And they would maintain that status. If they could save money while
spending the minimum in lives, it was all good to them. If 10,000 troops
couldn’t contain this situation and the 10,000 fell, then they would demand more
money for victory and would send in even more troops so long as the Heirarchy’s
price was met.
By
midmorning he was down to a little more than 100 soldiers and the enemy was
down by three quarters of their number. It wasn’t enough this time. His men were
fatigued; the mold knew no such condition. Were the numbers this unfavorably
stacked because of his growing dissention with those he served? All of these
lives were thrown away. All of these lives which relied on him to win and relied
on him to see them through the battles – all of them were going to die.
In
the ensuing combat, Joshua killed a young girl who he believed was barely
infected. She was a pretty thing and about the age of his daughter. He killed
her with such hatred for himself, for what he lost before and what he lost
today. He killed her with the hatred of the corruption in his own church and
for the mold that was killing all of his command. He killed her with all of his
hatred of the mold that just could not take enough people to ever satisfy its hungers.
Joshua’s hatred was tired of everything being taken from him. From all this
hatred came a rage, a rage that burned brighter than the damned yellow blaster
bolts and that is why he chose not to kill her from a safe distance. Besides
safe distances were becoming less and less available today and she shouldn’t
have had enough mold in her to form an infectious cloud. He swung from all of
his hatred and his rage and his pain. The blow from his sword nearly cut the
girl in half. His action released a large nebula of mold that engulfed the air
around him and seeped into the holes in his already punctured armor. At the
last moment, as the mold began to be absorbed into his flesh, Joshua realized the
girl was an oddity, a vessel filled to bursting but still fresh enough FOR HIM to
believe that the chance of becoming infected was too low. In the heat of battle,
Joshua had missed those clues.
* * * * *
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Gustav
and Ciro always found at least one thing to worry about during any given day,
and today was no exception. They were worried about “The Captain”. (“The
Captain” is the nick name they gave Joachim after they found his private
journal and had read the delicous passages in which he had detailed his
desperate desire to be a tough military man like the legendary Captain Jenkins.)
The Captain woke them up this morning along with himself by hysterically
screaming out the question of “What year is this?” Everyone knew it was 312
A.E.E. Dr. Conland (The Mrs.) inspected Joachim, and after taking a few
readings and samples declared Joachim to be suffering from an internal fever.
She
put Gustav and Ciro in charge of watching Joachim while she and Dodson went to
the local settlement to get some more specialized medications. The Mr., the
other Dr. Conlan, was busy at the dig site with Paul Jordan. Riana was at the
central command tent receiving video feeds of what her father and Paul were
uncovering. So that left Gustav and Ciro in charge.
Joachim
knew why they called him Captain, and he hated it with a passion. Oh, the hatred
was buried deep within him normally, but now it was a burning fever on his
brain. Part of him was shocked at this pure white hot rage, and part of him did
not know who he really was anymore. When he closed his eyes, the spider still
chased him. Why did I ask about the year?
What is wrong with me? They’ve been making fun of me for nine months, and so
this anger, has it grown inside of me? Has it grown as some kind of monstrous
child like cesspool of hate? Nine months is enough to have a baby, it’s enough
time for someone to change. Has it changed me? Was the seed of hatred laid?
Gustav
and Ciro were talking quietly together when suddenly Joachim bolted upright and
shouted: “Why have you buried your seed within me?!”
Ciro
glanced at Gustav with an expression of mock horror. “Gustav, that’s gross.”
“Ciro,
I was hoping he was talking about you, wait a minute. No, no I wasn’t. Hey! I
was hoping he didn’t mean either of us. Maybe it’s the brain fever the Dr. was
talking about?”
“Yeah,
let’s hope. And from now on, I’m not telling you when I take a shower.”
At
that, Joachim fell back into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
Ristobar’s
Emporium,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
A
robed and hooded figure slid through the front door with one hand held out
before it, the palm turned upwards, and the pale blue fingers closed into a
fist. By its size, it was an Arglois, smaller in stature than a Human. It
glided with purpose and confidence.
Nearby
was a larger individual, a brute of a Targlois with an overdeveloped brow and
who's pale blue skin was covered with bright pink splotches. The Targlois
stepped toward the robed figure to question the new comer. The fist opened and
breath pushed the now exposed powder into the face of the Targlois brute in
front of it.
The
powder was from the puffer lion cacti which grew in secluded places on Okpara.
It affected both Targlois and Humans in slightly different ways, but had
absolutely no affect on Arglois, however, as At'toock knew full well. At'took
pushed back his hood and watched as the Targlois in front of him grew dizzy,
confused, and extremely forgetful and then went to lay down for a minute. The
powder would have a different effect on the Human At’toock came to see. It
would make him prone to suggestions. The fact that the Human was a Chloraphyte
meant the powder would take effect immediately, but wouldn’t last as long.
At’toock
walked past the Geysonis cages and into the back room where Ristobar was seated
behind his desk, and immediately blew the remnant of the powder into Ristobar’s
face as he was rising from his chair. Ristobar deserved this upcoming war; he
was shipping Geysonis off planet.
“You
heard in passing that Dr. Elizabeta Conlan went into town with Dodson, the boy
is sick and has assistants near him. Dr. Jack Conlan is at The Valley of the
Gods with Paul Jordan, but the girl is alone in the central communications
tent. Kill her and you can loot the entire archeological site with no
resistance. Send a Targlois into town to break Dodson’s anti-grav. Make sure
their research is all destroyed; this will break their spirits, so they will
leave and you can dig up the rest of the old battle and reap extensive salvage
profits. Close your eyes, count to fifty slowly, forget that I was here, and
then act.”
At’toock
walked out of the door. With one child dead, and the other sick, and with their
research destroyed by thugs and their work sold for so much scrap, the Conlans
would lose heart and leave.
* * * * *
Barrio Town,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Dodson
scanned the crowd gathered in Barter’s Shop. Everyone on this planet is a hard ass. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be
on this planet long. At least not alive. All of them were armed, all of
them nodded cordially enough to Dodson and Elizabeta. Dodson judged it was safe
enough, so he escorted the doctor inside.
Anything
legal that you could buy at all on this planet, you could buy at Barter’s Shop.
Barter’s shops accepted cash, credit and trade. The security inside one was
handled by Secure-Cyde Productions, a
security firm which had their own line of robotic guards. The guards protected
employees and stock and did not give a rat’s ass if customers killed each other
otherwise. Secure-Cyde did not sell or rent any of their robots and anyone
discovered attempting to reverse engineer one was prosecuted to the full extent
of Galactic law. That did not however stop people from creating knock-offs,
like the pair standing outside guarding someone else’s vehicle.
“A
Pirate Ninja in Camelot” starring the number one rated action star, Trent
Michaels, was playing on the giant television behind the counter. Apparently it
was based on a true story.
“That
makes me think of Laira.”
“The
pirate or the ninja part?”
“Both.
Well actually when she was a little girl, she wanted to be like Trent Michaels,
remember? Now she has me a bit worried.”
“I’m
sure she’s fine.”
“I’m
not worried about my daughter; I’m worried about her teachers. My little rebel
and her penchant for mocking her instructors: both know no bounds.”
They
walked deeper into the store towards the medical supplies.
As
Elizabeta was making her choice of which brain holographic analyzer to purchase
for her son, an explosion outside rattled the Secure-Cyde windows. It was the
middle of the afternoon, the three suns were shining at their various distances,
and somebody started screaming outside.
Gunfire
erupted from the two cheap knock off Secure-Cyde clones. Dodson saw a short
cloaked figure collapse under that gunfire.
Dodson
drew both sawed off shotguns from under his coat and covered the room with
them, multiple others were following suit, all a bit slower than Dodson.
Dodson’s eyes scanned the store, and when he saw the wreckage outside, he
almost went ballistic.
“Crap,
there goes our ride. Radio Gustav and have him drive out here to come get us.
Stay inside; I’ll go check it out.” And he went out the front door.
The
body belonged to a child, a Targlois child. Pink blood was splattered all over
the sand. The child was on his back and he was rapidly breathing, making a half
cry half strangling wet noise. Blood frothed from his paling lips. Around one
of his fingers sat the pull pin of a grenade. He could not have been older than
thirteen. The guard droids which shot him were both in stand down mode. A
glance around the now quiet surroundings confirmed for Dodson their assessment: there were no
longer any detectable threats. Dodson went down on one knee and started
checking the Targlois for any other weapons. The droids across the way were probably too
spastic and incompetent in these matters, like most of the knockoffs. The boy was
scared, in hypovelemic shock and bleeding out. There was something in Dodson’s
eyes as Elizabeta pulled him aside to administer aid to the dying child.
* * * * *
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Riana
sat there stunned. She couldn’t believe it. Her program reported an error
margin under 0.06 percent in translating a core Delezerian Elite Commando
training module. With her modifications she could run it through a standard
holo projector or two. Well more like
eight. Eight if I want to be able to run the whole entire training module
without interruption in one smooth setting. But that wasn’t the point.
Point was she could run it. She could be trained in the legendary ways of the Delezerian
Warriors. This was information she definitely didn't want to share, so she
encrypted her findings, remembering the argument her parents gave her about the
blaster pistols.
“Science
is for the betterment of people, not for its destruction.”
“Well,
tell that to Joachim, it was my blaster shots that killed that spider thing.”
“Your
father is right, young lady: those weapons should remain part of the past.”
Even
so, now that Dodson was away, she was allowed to carry guns. At least for a while. She was the next best
one for security around here. Yet she was forced to use ordinary weak blaster pistols
which hung from her holsters. It bothered her. No, it galled her that she was
stuck using civilian grade light weaponry while she was on the verge of being
able to use some of the most advanced and nastiest combination of weapons,
armor, and ships in existence.
She
went back to processing the data coming in from her father and Paul while she
simultaneously accessed a Delezerian helmet’s full sensor array. The helmet was
the full faced model with a black visor intersected with three claw looking
marks down the front. The middle claw “tear” was the longest. Legends spoke
volumes of the Delezerian warriors who wore helmets like these. Those
Delezerians could be counted amongsts their super commandos, their elite forces
and their high command.
Riana
brought the sensor arrays of the helmet online and she outputted what those
sensors were picking up onto the display on her personal computer. She immediately
got a ultra-violet image array, overlaid with sonic reports, an electronics
scan and a seismic tracker. Three oversized figures with heavy strides carrying
low tech powder guns were converging on the communications tent from three
different directions. Ristobar’s Targlois.
Riana
drew both blasters, arms extended out to either side, as she pushed off the
desk with her feet, tipping her chair backwards as gunfire ripped through the
air above her. The coffee pot on her desk shattered. She fired shots off to
either side as she landed on her back. The shots ripped through the tent into
feet and ankles, causing the brutes on either side to fall in surprise and
pain. On her left she saw the traditional pink beady eyed glare of a Targlois
through the new holes in the tent and shot the “Pink Boy” right in the face.
The one on her right howled in pain as he rolled out of the way. Riana was
pretty sure she clipped him in the ear.
She
quickly rolled over two times towards her left and slid her feet around to the
side so that she could roll up into a crouch with her left hand pointing a
blaster ahead of her and her right hand swung out to the side. Both guns were
blasting away. Dodson might not have been a Delezerian, but he was an ex-marine
and a damn good teacher.
A
grunt of pain from ahead rewarded her as she used the blaster shots on her
right to cut down the tent’s wall for visibility. She pivoted on her feet while
rising into a stand, killing the large Targlois on her right by aiming for his
exposed neck and head. The old fashioned leather and polymer weaves the
Targlois liked could nullify shots from non-military grade weapons. She came up
too fast and slipped on the pinkish blood from the body on her left and fell
side-ways onto the shattered coffee pot. Glass stabbed her painfully in various
places. The worst wound she found when she pulled the two inch sliver of glass
from her stomach. It was vaguely dagger shaped.
Riana
rose to a kneeling position, emptied both active energy packs into her wounded assailant
moving in from the front and then stumbled forward to the communicator to check
in with her dad and to ask for help, she was badly bleeding.
Jack
and Paul were in the middle of uncovering their 22nd suit of Delezerian
armor for the day when the noise reached them.
“Is
that thunder?”
“No,
Jack, that’s gunplay. And it’s inside of our territory.”
Middle
aged Jack, and old Paul went running to their old truck. The truck started up
as usual but the driver’s front end was dipping, it was a sign of something
going bad.
“Something
else for Riana to fix.”
“Jack
that ‘thunder’ caught your girl up in the mix of things.”
The
anti-grav truck rolled towards the center of their site. Paul after kicking a
desert tick the size of his fist out of the cab, suddenly stiffened in his seat
as all he could do was wait, point and stare. There were armed and obviously
dead Targlois all around the tent and fresh red Human blood mixing in with the
Targlois pink pouring out its side.
“Ristobar
is going to pay for this.”
“Paul,
Ristobar is too smart to tie himself directly to this. We’ll have no legal
proof.”
“This
is the frontier of space, no need for courts out here.”
They
brought the truck to a sudden stop and both men ran for Riana’s last known
location: the tent.
“Daddy,
how did I do, Daddy? I have a boo-boo. I’m a bit delirious from loss of blood
too. I killed ugly, fatty, and their boyfriend too. I was crawling for the comm
unit to call you.”
“Oh,
shit. She’s hurt bad, I can tell. She’s rhyming; she always rhymes things when
she’s in serious pain. She’s always done that ever since she was four years
old. Paul! We need lots of light in here fast! Pull the truck around and use
the high beams."
Gustav
got the call from Dodson and started sweating bullets which are unfortunately,
the only type of bullets which he was truly familiar with. Gustav was afraid of
guns. Still he strapped one on, an old powder weapon, less of a chance of
someone trying to take it away from him than if he’d strap on a newer blaster.
He hoped all he had to do in case of trouble was wave it around and act mean the
way Dodson did when he encountered trouble. It worked for Dodson.
Ciro
wished him luck and watched him leave. Better
Gustav than me. I’m glad I didn’t go. This desert does not forgive mistakes.
Ciro walked around the housing area of the settlement before stopping off at
the kitchen area to use one of his beer tokens the Conlans allotted him. It was
how they ensured hired help didn’t get wasted while working. It was a common
enough practice. He placed his token into the dispenser and out dropped a can. He
cracked open his beer and was bringing it up to his mouth when Joachim started
screaming. Ciro jumped, his beer jumped higher and splattered the wall.
That
scream sounded like Joachim asked “What happened to my lizard body?” in a very
loud, shrill and panic filled voice.
Great I’m stuck in here with a kid
going crazy and I spilled my last beer for today. I should’ve went. It would
have been a lot more damn peaceful riding out to pick up Dodson and Elizabeta.
Ciro
walked into Joachim’s room. It was going to be a long shift.
* * * * *
Chan Quan
Shaolin Kung Fu Academy,
Planet New
Earth
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
3-I’s
stood there in the corner running diagnostics on himself. He didn’t even have
another name other than his standard model’s designation: 3-I’s as in three
distinct words designed by some marketing fool fresh out of the education
system. Intelligent Industrious Innovation. 3-I models only have one optic
sensor, so in a way the name was misleading. They did however come in three
distinct basic paint jobs, patterns being all the same, but the colors were different.
He was factory blue, the more popular choice with the other two being factory
orange, and factory yellow. Laira called him special. He didn’t feel special.
He didn’t feel much of anything other than an inferiority complex and love for
his mistress who he diligently served.
There
was something wrong with him. All of the days at Gaylord’s Academy were the
same. Except for today. Today Laira practiced a lot of martial arts and her
room looked different. He also had memory holes for today, whole entire
sections which were just empty of any data. He was just ordered to stay in the
room, yet the room looked different than this morning. Other than today there
were no variations other than a date change for the last three years. Odd. He
has even run self diagnostics on himself at the end of every one of those days
like he was doing now and all those times excepting this one were the same. He
wondered if an artificial brain could go insane.
Funny,
a FilmBuilt stunt bot’s self preservation override module is not part of his
basic design, there are also things hidden behind that module. Why hadn’t he
noticed this was installed inside of him before? He sent it a query and 3-I’s
instantly went off line. The droid however moved his head, because Laira
installed two other artificial intelligences inside of 3-I’s shell. So, in a
way 3-I’s also stood for three intellects. Intellect number two took over; its
job was to rewrite the original’s memories. It hacked together memories of
Gaylord’s Academy and wove them over top the original’s true memories of what
occurs at the Chan
Quan Academy.
It took 3-I’s offline and engaged it throughout the day to help cover up
Laira’s true education and to allow the third intellect to do tasks for Laira.
This second personality was called Splicer. The third personality Laira named
Dealer. Splicer rewrote 3-I’s memory for the day with the same memory he used
for the past three years. When Splicer finished, he let Dealer take over.
“Mack
and Anders have agreed to the price. They will smuggle you off of New Earth and
to the space dock where your ship is being finalized. After the final payment
on the ship, we will only be able to fill her fuel tanks up to the half way
point.”
“Am
I registered for the tournament?”
“No,
you are registered for a tournament.”
“What
about THE tournament?”
“Lack
of experience…”
“Plus
my age. Yeah you’ve said this before.”
“Then
why did you ask?”
“Hope.
All of my training data and programs backed up to the secure cloud server?”
Dealer
nodded.
“Replacement
training gear loaded and secured on the ship?”
Dealer
nodded again
“You
got the spray on tan stuff?”
“It
won’t last and it won’t look natural or pretty. Neither of us have experience
with this sort of thing.”
“I
know, but I’m damn near an albino and it should stop me from being recognized.”
“May
I suggest the dress?”
“Nope,
you lack a sense of Aesthetics.”
“Perhaps
it is an inherited flaw from my programmer.”
“Watch
it, Dealer. It’s dangerous to mix skill sets between the personalities this
early.”
“When
it happens, will I die?”
Laira
did not know how to respond to that.
* * * * *
Micro-Tier Suburbia,
Planet
Macro-Tier
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Tyrion
Kohari once went by a different name. He
knew he was related to Joseph Kempfana and that he served under his military
command which meant that he had military knowledge, and skills, yet he was
missing all of his own memories. He only knew what he did because he was given
that information by others. The neural remapping for his deep cover mission was
too thorough. Joseph Kempfana assured him that he willingly undertook this sacrifice
for him and Kohari believed him. He had no choice. Some nights he would wake up
screaming, but his past and any hopes, dreams and memories seemed permanently
locked away from him. Tyrion Kohari wasn’t a happy man, and the questions rose
in his head once again of what he may once have been, and what exactly he gave
up. Was he happy before, he didn’t know? Parts of him felt angry, lost and
cheated.
He
was ready to make his report. Many of the old tools of corruption once spread
by The Hierarchy came into power on their own and now were becoming a problem
for their creators. The Hierarchy stole the military ground forces out from
under The Consortium of Planets and used Kempfana as a fall guy. Now paybacks
are in order.
When
Colonel Kempfana took over Kohari’s criminal organization, things would be
slightly restructured in more of a military fashion and Kohari would become a
Major. The problem is, when that happens
I’ll need to have a Targlois sergeant in charge of other Targlois while still
having regular Human privates. The men won’t take kindly to that. These
thoughts plagued Kohari as he awaited Detective Chris Quesada.
The
detective, newly assigned here from New Earth, was late. Was he here to visit
Kohari – the highly respected businessman and owner of the World’s End chain of
restaurants, or Kohari – the highly feared criminal who had deep ties to Mob
Space? Well Quesada was brought in to fight the current corruption problem, so
the math wasn’t complicated to add up.
The
surveillance cameras picked up Detective Quesada getting out of his car with
three armed Targlois thugs. One looked like a security guard but he was dressed
as an anti-grav bike cop. That one even had on sunglasses. It appeared Tyrion’s
informant was correct, Quesada had no friends in the Micro-Tier police, otherwise
he wouldn’t have had to hire his own backup. This meeting was going to be
interesting indeed.
Kohari
focused his cameras on Quesada and his crew as they entered the front gates.
The cameras had standard audio and visual scanning and recording capabilities,
as well as x-ray, thermographic and metal detecting capabilities.
Kohari’s
estate was a huge sprawl of land in south east Suburbia. The estate consisted of
a preserved 8,100 square foot arts and craft inspired home, a two bedroom
gatehouse at the entrance to the six acre parcel, a carriage house with a
finished apartment, a separate eight vehicle garage, two barracks full of
guards, a spaceship landing pad, capable of supporting a mid size freighter,
and a lavish swimming pool. Besides the regular sized buildings, there were
four guard towers at the corners which housed spotlights, and deadly snipers.
Kohari even had two anti-air/anti-space cannons placed in his yard, one in
front of the main house and one in the rear.
Two
guards, Vladislav and Danso, walked forward to greet Quesada. Kohari was
focused on how Quesada was going to play this out.
Chris
Quesada was desperate, his career, his life hinged on his success here. He was
tasked with cleaning up the police force in Micro-Tier and according to his
newly purchased friend, Dennis Sanderson, Tyrion Kohari was the most honorable
of all the criminal overlords. Sanderson, an investigative reporter for the past
eight years, knew Micro-Tier’s players. Quesada didn’t. Sanderson put Quesada
onto Kohari. It was also Sanderson who recommended these particular Targlois
thugs. The lead thug went by the name of Gnum, and he seemed hyper intelligent
for a Targlois – which made him about as smart as an elementary school eight
year old on brain damaging drugs. Still Gnum was leagues ahead of the normal
Targlois in the intellect department.
The
car finished its gentle foot descent as the anti-gravs slowly powered down behind
the detective. The two guards in front of him were Human based. The one bearing
the name tag of Vladislav was a Chloraphyte. The other was a Nocturn. Nocturns
were originally designed to be miners on the iron planets. Some of those
planets were so full of electro-magnetic energies that robots and lights failed
and were destroyed. So Nocturns had to be engineered to be able to be energy
resistant, see in the dark, and withstand high amounts of pressure. Their air
was circulated to them miles above the electromagnetic fields and pumped down
to them through super long tubes. Due to pressure weaknesses, Nocturns had no
ears and were naturally deaf. This Nocturn guard had obvious cybernetic hearing
devices implanted on either side of his head. If Quesada needed to stun this
guard, he’d have to aim for those implants, without a conduit pass the skin,
stunners couldn’t overcome a Nocturn’s energy resistance.
“Stop
right there. Identify yourselves, keep your hands away from any weapons, state
your business and the Human better produce some identification.” This was from
the Chloraphyte.
Quesada
pulled his badge out from underneath his brown trench coat. “Chris Quesada,
police, I suggest you gentlemen back the hell up.”
“You
got a warrant?”
“I’m
not here for that, I’m here to just talk with Kohari.”
“Talk
about what?”
“Starting
some gang wars.” Quesada yelled this directly into a camera.
“Talking.
Don’t. Require. Weapons.” This was stilted out carefully with a pause between
each word by the Nocturn. Nocturns new to hearing, often times had difficulty
speaking. It came from a life time of being deaf.
“Gnum,
return all of our weapons to the trunk of the car please.”
The
brute dressed as the biker cop gathered up all of the weapons, then deposited
them into the trunk, but before he closed the trunk he produced four heavy
impact police riot shields which he passed out amongst his group.
“What
the hell’s this?”
“Vladislav,
this is called protection. Now are you guys going to escort us to see your boss
or what?”
* * * * *
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
The
nightmares kept coming. Joachim broke into a sweat and awoke with screams every
single time. Si-letah savored the horror of each of these events as a gourmet diner
does a fine meal. Si-letah’s kind had experimented on mankind since man first
walked on two legs. Si-letah knew how to break Joachim, and once broken,
Joachim would no longer be in control. The body would be his to run and there
was nothing the boy could do about it. The dreams would literally rip all of
the host’s willpower to shreds. Worse yet, it allowed the poor, trapped mind to
survive. And for years that mind would linger and it would feel the pain and
horror of the actions the body would have committed as the victim’s
consciousness would slowly merge with the possessor. More and more it would
convince itself that the crying whimpering persona was just a bundle of weak
self doubt. It would convince itself of these things and literally divide
itself off as some kind of survival method.
The
Grey has discovered the way to commit the perfect murder of sanity; its methods
turned the most loyal brotherhood into a cesspool of mistrust. Si-letah needed
this boy’s brain, his memories, and skills; so he started the shattering of
identity with Joachim’s own hatred.
He
had one regret; it would take a few years before the boys mind evolved to the
point where it could provide him with enough mental force to be truly powerful.
Ciro
pushed his head into the room. “Joachim, this is the fifth time tonight you screamed.
Your mom and Dodson won’t be back with Gustav for another few hours.”
“Where
is my dad?”
“Your dad is busy operating on Riana.”
“Mom
should operate on her, she’s the medical doctor.”
“It
can’t wait until your mom gets back.”
“Help
me.”
“I’m
not sure what to do to help you. I’m just a nobody and I’m scared.”
“Listen
to me… I have needs.”
“I’ll
try to help you with what you need. My nerves can’t take any more of this
screaming. I don’t get paid that much. I’m sorry, I’m not a counselor, I’m not
Dodson, not your Dad, nor your Mom, nor your sister. I’m just a nobody.”
“Ciro,
how long have you been practicing that speech?”
“About
an hour, Joachim.”
“Call
me Captain. You enjoyed teasing me with that name.”
“Joachim
that was just us playing around.”
“Call
me Captain!” Joachim hissed in fury.
“Yes,
Captain.”
“Good,
I’m hungry. Bring me something to eat please. Even a nothing nobody like
yourself can handle that.” And one day I
will bash your brains out, Ciro, I wonder if you’ll even know why I hate you.
Ciro
nervously walked out of the room and Joachim wondered when his hatred grew such
teeth.
* * * * *
Jayce
Thompson scratched at the recess in his skull. It was obvious to anyone who
looked at it that his head was dented. Thompson was bald. The bone never healed
right from an old injury where his dad threw him into a wall.
He
was at the fueling station a few days back scavenging metal when he saw a large
group of miners from Ore
Town pass through there.
Their vehicles didn’t look like they’d last much longer and they were worth
more than aluminum cans. Ore
Town produced barely
enough ore for the single factory on Okpara, that factory made cooling units
and it made cheap anti-grav vehicles designed to carry those cooling units to
different parts of the planet. Those vehicles were always breaking down, and
the market on them was abundant, it seems like everyone could always use a part
or two from them. So Jayce followed them at a safe distance on his bike. It was
a crappy bike, the anti-grav unit on it was solar powered, which meant it
barely pushed above the ground, and its propulsion energy was generated by
actually cycling the pedals around manually with his feet. Still, he would be
able to keep those vehicles in his sights as they moved at about the same speed
now that they were overloaded with people. Those three vehicles could maybe
hold twelve people total and with this type of strain, they were bound to break
down, and so Jayce Thomspon would be there to scavenge them.
He
would spend his days out looking for scrap and scraping by with his scavenging.
He couldn’t hold a job on a regular planet so he came here looking for work. At
first he thought it was his criminal record which was being held against him
having honest employment, but after a while he realized it was because he was
borderline mentally challenged and he irritated everyone he’s ever met. Oh, its
true, his IQ was tested at just two points higher than the high end of being
retarded, and his nicknames included “Irritation” and” Stupid Jayce”.
The
men Jayce were following stopped at the base of some sand dunes. Night time was
approaching, true night didn’t occur often enough around here, but it was
coming tonight. All the men seemed to be taking orders from one of those small
blue people and they were all armed. They were obviously wicked men about to do
some wicked work, and Jayce stopped pedaling. Jayce was wary of the law, so he
knew how to cover his tracks and he pulled out an older mostly functional
recorder and started to record the people before him.
* * * * *
At’toock
and his newly paid thugs started to wander into the Conlan dig. Twenty one
individuals moved with a single purpose: to destroy everything including the
lives of the people at the dig site. They were armed with miner tools, such as
picks and shovels, and with black powder guns. At’toock recruited them from Ore Town
a few days ago and brought them here. Each one was on a mild hallucinogenic,
cultivated from the environment around them, with violent side effects. They
were promised wealth and an escape from their mundane lives. The escape was through
the altered mental states from the drug. These weak willed and morally impoverished
workers from Ore Town followed these promises. Every one
of them also carried special enzymes as part of their blood now. These enzymes
will act as a clarion call to more than half of the dangerous species around
here. All it took was for their blood to be spilled and this was At’toock’s
backup plan in case the Conlan’s somehow won tonight’s fight.
It
was actually night time. One of the suns was blocked by a large gas giant which
shared this solar system with Okpara and the other two suns were actually on
the other side of the planet. True night like this came about once a week. Paul
Jordan was on security detail because no one else was available. He spotted the
crowd moving furtively forward, moving from one sand dune to another. Paul
hoped that Dodson or Riana could do something, but he knew better. Dodson
wasn’t here and Riana was in no condition to be out of recovery yet. He pressed
the silent alarm and even though Paul wasn’t a religious man by nature, he
prayed.
The
silent alarm went off and Jack swore at the flashing lights. Riana had fresh
stitches, and enough artificial blood to counter-act the shock. She had drugs
in her to help fight off the infection that was spreading from the sand mixing
into her abdominal muscles. She also had medicine in her to help put her under
so that her body could rest. Jack turned on the radio and got the report from
Paul.
“Twenty
or so armed people just crossed the western markers. If Dodson’s not back soon
or Riana isn’t fit to do something then we’re all dead.”
“Paul,
take cover and don’t get spotted. Dodson won’t be back for almost an hour and
Riana is still in no condition to fight. Hell even if she was, twenty people
are too much. I’ll try to slip us all out the eastern side of camp.”
“No,
Daddy, they’ll take everything, all of your research, all the youth you and mom
spent on dreaming about this find and actually working towards digging it up.
All of it will be taken away. Poof. Gone. All you have to do is run away and
they cash in on your dreams. I won’t let them do that to you and mom, Dad. Give
me my guns, my new guns. And my helmet, don’t forget my new helmet.”
“Riana,
you’re weak. You can’t do this.”
“Daddy,
I have to. It’s my duty. Now help me stand up.”
“There’s
too many.”
“No,
I’m pretty sure they didn’t bring enough.”
Riana
knew what she had to do. “Dad, when you get me prepped, bring me Dodson’s
silenced sniper rifle. And another thing, hurry.”
At’toock’s
mob went to work on demolishing the first excavator. It was an older model
which stood on three pylons with a giant yellow claw designed to scoop out
large chunks of ground. One of his new men, a guy by the name of Aldridge was
on top of it, hacking up the hydraulic lines with a pick axe, when a bright
blue bolt of energy took his face off. The mob started to scatter. At’toock
radioed them that he’d double their pay and that Aldridge’s pay was just going
to be redistributed to them. The miners regrouped, taking cover behind the remnant
of the large machine.
At’toock
stayed way behind his men, hiding behind the far ridge, where he could observe.
He was pleased with himself. Humans killing Humans. No one would bat an eye; no
one would come and properly investigate out here. Humans always killed Humans.
That
was the easy shot, her target was exposed, and awashed slightly in moonlight.
The next shot that mattered was with the sniper rifle. She started to line up
her shot and occasionally laid down suppression fire from her blasters. She
needed the invaders pinned down near the old X7 digger. Riana took a sharp
inhale of breath, held it and slowly released it as she squeezed off the sniper
shot. The round hit the lock on the side panel. It was heavy paneling and she
needed the door to be open. She needed the sniper rifle here because her
blaster bolts would probably have fused the panel shut. The shot did the trick
and the panel opened up nice. If she was lucky the next few shots would be all
that was needed. With her right hand still curled around the grip with finger
in the guard of the sniper rifle, and her eye still focused through the scope.
She opened fire with the blaster in her left hand. The blue bolts acted like
tracer rounds which helped her hit the exposed fuel tank of the X7. The
explosion dropped only three of the mob, but it did engulf six others in flames
and it lit the night up like a huge bonfire. It was disappointing, nothing like
the movies. All of the invaders didn’t out right die. However, it exposed the
remainder which were running for their lives. She fired off a dozen and a half more shots to
finish the job and pulled on her new helmet to make use of the scanners. No
active threats out there.
Riana
started to shake. In all of Dodson’s years in the military and as a private
security expert, he has only ever killed about twelve people. Including the
three Targlois from a few hours ago, Riana damn near doubled that number. Hopefully that was all the killing I have to
do. I just feel this awful guilt and terror in the back of my mind. I also
killed the child that I was today. I’m probably never going to be able to sleep
again.
She
stumbled back towards camp to see her father. It was a rare occurrence but it
wasn’t the only one, and it wouldn’t be her last, but Riana was wrong. She collapsed
and fell asleep halfway there.
Paul
Jordan was almost a third of the distance from his watch tower to Riana when
she collapsed. Paul in all of his years never seen anything like that. That wasn’t true. You know you’ve seen stuff
like this before. Those thoughts were unwanted so he thrust them back into
the sinkhole where he buries such memories. He was nervous about Riana’s wound,
about him actually having such a beautiful female in his arms again, part of
him wondered what would happen if he were a younger man, but he pushed those
thoughts aside as well. For being such a mighty warrior, Riana was just a young
lady and she didn’t weigh that much. Paul was old and his heart was pounding.
His left arm tingled then went numb as he struggled to carry her to her father.
At’toock
set down his binoculars. He was also shaking. His confidence was broken. The Human
girl turned weeks of planning on its head. She handled it with efficiency and
brutality. She kicked his primary plan aside, and he hoped the now freed
enzymes would do their job. Blaster bolts tended to burn flesh closed but the
falls of the bodies ripped those fresh burns open. At’toock hoped that was enough. All it would
take is one predator to open the veins on the bodies then this valley will
start filling with horrors. The galaxy had no more need of Delezerian Death
Commandos nor did it have need of their technology.
Dodson
was driving back; Gustav could barely handle the vehicle correctly when he was
behind the wheel. Dodson wasn’t sure if it would have been better if Gustav was
drunk, at least then they’d still have their radio on this thing. Elizabeta was
worried. Somewhere ahead in the dark a small fireball erupted into the night
sky with a loud whoomp like sound and a bonfire burned. By the blue flashes of
light he knew it was Riana. She should be asleep recovering from her wound.
Elizabeta was crying, she knew what was happening as well. Dodson vowed to
himself that Ristobar was going to pay, today Ristobar sent one of his own, a child
which worked for him, to the slaughter and now he sent another child to go pay
the butcher’s bill. The anti-grav was doing its top speed, and they were still
about two minutes out. The shooting stopped. In combat, two minutes were more
than enough time for Riana to have gotten herself killed. Even at night the
weather made Dodson sweat, but the thought of him not being there, of Riana
getting killed in his place gave him unwelcome chills.
Gustav
knew he failed the Conlans; he shouldn’t have taken so long on his pick up
journey. He spilled his last beer for the night on the damned radio so they
couldn’t keep in communication with the archeological dig. He hoped Ciro was
doing better. Ciro probably was enjoying his own beer and hiding. He should
have sent Ciro down instead. How hard could it be to watch Joachim? Ciro had it
easy, but Gustav, Gustav knew he was a failure. He hated his mistakes, he
always made them. He always failed. Dodson knew it; he always used to forgive
Gustav for it, but not this time. How could Dodson or the Conlans forgive him,
when he couldn’t forgive himself? Riana was probably dead and he blamed
himself. He ran his hands through his wild and unkempt hair then leaned over
the edge and threw up. He watched his previously eaten meals display themselves
briefly in the night before gravity and darkness swallowed them up.
Damn, Jack and your stupid dreams. Now
two of our children may be dying. How could I have been so dumb? Oh, Please let
my little girl be alive.
Her face revealed nothing but grim determination as Elizabeta triple checked
her new medical supplies. She took a vow to save lives, but now she wanted to
kill Ristobar, it seems his patience was at an end and she had news for him, so
was hers.
Jayce
Thompson had never seen anything like it. All of those evil men died. All
except for that little blue guy. Jayce normally wasn’t a hero, but he figured
that maybe, just maybe there’d be a fat reward so he slid one of his pry bars
out of the ratty looking bag attached to his bike, tucked it up so it rested
against the back of his arm with it’s tip resting in his palm so that from the
front, the bar wasn’t visible. It would remain unseen as long as he kept his
arm hanging by his side. Then he walked up towards the skiffs.
“Hello,
blue sir.”
“Get
away from me, Human or face my wrath.”
“Goodnight,
blue sir.” And Jayce swung the pry bar with all of his might, smashing it up
against At’toock’s temple.
After
looting his money, Jayce propped him up over top his shoulder and walked
towards the aftermath of the fight.
Dodson
was coming in from the south west, and as he rounded the edge of a huge sand
dune, the spotlights showed him a bald man carrying a hooded unconscious figure
and multiple vehicles including an old fashioned bike. With one hand, Dodson
steered the anti-grav into a cattycorner parking position, while with the other
he aimed his sidearm at the Human.
Gustav
and Elizabeta climbed out before their vehicle powered down.
“Gustav,
cover this guy and get his story, me and the doctor will go check it out closer
to our digs. After, me, doc, after me. Another thing, Gustav, try to not to
mess this one up as well.”
“I
won’t. I meant I will try, and I won’t mess up. You sir, drop the other guy!
No. I meant lower him slowly towards the ground and put your hands in the air.
Slower.”
Dodson
let Gustav’s voice drift away from him as he ran across the top of the sand
dunes. The sight before him was nerve wracking. A lot of burning and still
bodies. Some of the bodies were cut down with apparent heavy blaster fire. Some
were in a pile. Dodson ran over to the pile and starting pulling the bodies off.
His gloves went dirty red with sand mixed blood. Riana wasn’t at the bottom of
the pile.
“Dodson,
I’ll check these bodies for any survivors. Find Riana for me, please.”
She rarely used that word: please.
Dammit if she wasn’t married to my good friend. But, Dodson couldn’t think about
that now, he had to find Riana. There,
over there, Paul had collapsed yet he was still trying to pick her up to carry
her to safety.
Dodson
ran over to them and noticed the blood pouring from Riana’s side; he rolled up
her shirt and found the stitches tore loose on her abdominal muscles. He
applied pressure with his gloves. Paul was having some kind of heart attack.
“Elizabeta,
over here. Riana and Paul need you. Paul’s worse off, Riana’s bleeding is
slowing, and she’s breathing.”
* * * * *
Ristobar’s
Emporium,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Brick
and Melody waited patiently as the officer continued her investigation into the
slaying of the Targlois child. The question remained though as to why
Ristobar’s crew was in trouble, and the Secure-Cyde knock off droids owner
wasn’t.
“The
Targlois child was named ‘Poot’ after his farting sounds, is this correct Ms.
Morrison?”
Mina
Howard wasn’t a pretty girl. She was, however, the investigator for The
Consortium though, and Cord, Melody’s contact in The Consortium assured Melody
that Mina was into girls. Melody wished Mina was pretty; it makes it so much
harder to flirt when the other person knew you were too good for them.
“I
asked you a question.”
“Sorry,
I was distracted by your...”
“Don’t
be. I’m not easy on the eyes, I know. And I know I have a reputation for liking
girls, so please don’t play pretty girl interested in a hatchet face like me.”
“Okay
and yes, his name was Poot. And we fired him a few days before this incident.
You can ask Brick.”
Brick
grunted an affirmative.
“So,
how did he get the grenade to blow up the Conlan’s lift?”
“Everyone
around here knows that the Conlan’s chief of security loves grenades. Poot
probably pulled it from the back of the lift.”
“What’s
the security chief’s name?”
“Dodson.”
Brick
grunted another affirmative along with, “Dodson’s mean.”
“So,
it’s your guy’s words against theirs. What gives you guys more weight?”
“Brick,
go outside and get lost for a few hours.”
Brick
grunted another affirmative and walked out the door. Cord, always arranged
things nice and neat when she could meet his price and his price this time was
a video capture starring Mina and Melody and it was going to be for mature eyes
only.
He who knows
these things, and in fighting puts his knowledge into practice, will win
battles. He who knows them not, nor practices will surely be defeated.
-
Sun
Tzu’s Art of War.
Micro-Tier Suburbia,
Planet
Macro-Tier
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Tyrion
Kohari sat in his lounge chair surrounded by his elite guards. Detective Chris
Quesada sat across from him. Rain pelted the overhead skylights and the sides
of the glass doors which opened onto Kohari’s posh balconies that overlooked
his lavish estate. A fully realistic looking, but purely holographic fireplace
helped light the room.
“What’s
this about starting some gang war?”
“Word
is that you are an honest crook and that you try to fulfill your obligations.
Well I can help you fulfill perhaps your biggest obligation and all it will
cost is the obliteration of your competition and the cleaning of my own house.”
“You
have a house of cards. Knock it over and start it over without me. My
operations would be at considerably more risk if I went after my competition.”
“I
know you have a contract to grab Nigel Bachman, a High Clergy of The Hierarchy.
He is the most dangerous of prey, but you are obligated to get him.”
“I
applaud your information network. You are new to Macro-Tier yet you know so
much. Is this a clumsy attempt at a setup?”
“Nope.”
“To
which part, the clumsy part or the setup?”
“It’s
not a setup.”
“You’re
not a dirty cop. You have no recording devices on you. Why are you trying to
make a deal with a mobster? Planning on fitting in around here?”
“I
can give you Nigel Bachman. With enough time, I can give you anyone you want on
your current contract list.”
“Okay,
give me your Targlois, Gnum. My own Targlois could use a leader amongst their
own kind and he impresses me. Give him to me as a sign of good faith, and then
tell me why I should trust you about Bachman?”
“You
can have Gnum’s contract. The late Paladin, Joshua Huges. Before he fell to
the Zembeckis mold, he compiled records of Bachman’s illegal activity. If these
records were to turn up in my house, they’d disappear. However if someone as
influential as yourself got a hold of them, then the church would have to
sanction your move against Bachman or risk public shame. In exchange, you wipe
out your competition here and withdraw protection from dirty cops.”
“I’m
in no hurry to wipe out my own assets for this war. But I will get a war
started for you amongst the other syndicates. And I’ll withdraw protection from
a dirty cop to start with, but you better produce some of these records first.”
* * * * *
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Jack
was still suiting up in protective gear with Ciro’s help when his wife, his
injured daughter, his friend, his other employees and a few prisoners showed up
on an anti-grav lift outside of the main building. It was still dark out and
Jack was afraid to turn on the exterior lights. He was afraid of looking at his
daughter and seeing her more wounded, perhaps dying. Jack was a
xeno-archeologist, certified professor of many different scientific courses,
intellectual rebel who challenged the beliefs of the mainstream, award winner,
and coward. He was also selfish. He just put his own dreams in front of his
daughter’s health. He began to hate himself.
A
few hours later: Paul and Riana were in serious but stable condition. Elizabeta
finished administering treatment. The Arglois was terrified of Dodson and he
kept watching Dodson’s blood covered hands in fear as if Dodson did all the
killing himself personal and like. Ciro went to tend Joachim and Gustav helped
keep some weapons trained on the prisoners.
The
bald prisoner loudly stated his innocence and produced a shaky video of the
blue guy promising wealth and drugs to the mob if they destroyed and killed
everybody.
The
blue exclaimed that some things were best left buried in the past. Oh, and he
was tied up, so Jack felt no fear when he punched him in the face.
Elizabeta
walked into the room.
“Jack,
there’s no need for violence!”
Jack
replayed Jayce Thompson’s recording.
Elizabeta
whirled towards Jayce. “Mr. Thompson, you are free to go. What would you like
in exchange for this information and prisoner?”
“Just
to be able to gather up your scrap metals to recycle them.”
“Okay,
Gustav let Mr.Thompson go and see to his needs. Also give him some funds on the
side to compensate for his video and throw in an extra three thousand for
gratitude.” Elizabeta turned and slapped At’toock across his face.
“Did
you send those Targlois?”
“They
were sent by the Chloraphyte. I was hoping you Humans would just destroy each
other, but when the Targlois didn’t get the job done, I got more Humans to show
up for this work.”
Dodson
got into the discussion with. “I wonder what color your face turns when I choke
you. Most people’s faces turn blue. You’re already blue. I think I’ll find
out.”
“Ristobar’s
goons hurt the girl. You going to choke him too? He’s green after all; wonder
what color a Chloraphyte turns when he’s being choked?”
“You’re
right, Ristobar first, then you.” Dodson walked into the next room and started
loading up his sniper rifle. Jack followed him.
“Dodson, we need you here.”
“Jack,
someone has to stop Ristobar. Do you want to give him another chance? You want
him to succeed? You want to let that snake kill your children?”
“We
can call for some law.”
“Not
much law out here, Jack.”
Dodson
walked towards the lift as once again Jack took the coward’s way out and backed
down.
* * * * *
The Skyfarer
The outer
edge of Okpara Space
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Sergeant
Conrad Devlin, inter-stellar marine, once served under Joseph Kempfana himself.
He used to be a major with the name of Andrew Lehan, and he was one of the men
who testified against Kempfana. Now that Kempfana had escaped prison, the brass
thought it’d be a good idea if his name was changed and so Devlin was shuffled
out of the way into some backwater systems, as if a change of identity wasn’t
enough to protect him. Devlin knew Kempfana was scary. Kempfana was old school,
brilliant, and harsh. Joseph Kempfana also had strong morals. A leader like him
just got in the way of progress, so of course he had to be brought down.
Kempfana stood in the way of making lots of money, so like any obstacle, he got
removed. The problem was, Kempfana was back and out of prison. To think that a
person like him could still scare the daylights out of the new regime made
Devlin smirk.
Some
say, the new brass was scared to just have the old dog executed. Others say the
public would have rioted at the time. Devlin didn’t know, he just knew it was a
mistake to leave someone like Kempfana alive. Just bad business.
He
got a call from Mina Howard earlier on today so he set his ship, The Skyfarer,
on a course to put him on Okpara in a few hours. Devlin’s assignment was to
arrest and bring in an ex-military man by the name of Dodson on charges of
public endangerment, unlicensed ordinance and manslaughter. Dangerous
ex-military types always got the marines brought in to arrest them. Dodson is
going to get transported to the courts and he’ll get a fair trial, unless of course
he commits a felony while resisting arrest. If that happens then an
inter-stellar marine has the authority of judge, jury and executioner.
Devlin
had eight other marines with him on his ship. What he didn’t know was that he
also had a stow-away by the name of Schultz and Schultz was there to dump him
on Zembeckis.
* * * * *
Ristobar’s
Emporium,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Ristobar
slid Melody’s bonus across his desk towards her, she plugged the chip into her
portable and smiled at the amount, the light from one of the rising suns lit
her face up almost as much as her obvious greed. She disgusted Ristobar, all
whores disgusted him. She did an excellent job though in getting Dodson removed
from his path. In a few hours Dodson will get arrested. Everything is falling into place. This hasn’t happened in a long time.
Melody is such a pathetic, predictable gold digging slut, that she actually
makes me want to puke some time. I mean look at her expensive dress, who is she
trying to impress out here in the middle of nowhere? She’s a pathetic waste. But
she does get the job done, and with the payment I just gave her, she’ll be out
of my sight for a while. Now, no one will be able to oppose me from taking the
Conlan compound. I already have plans for all that old metal and those
crystals. Buyers lined up across the systems. Lots of profit for me. Sigh, it’s
going to be a good day, I think… Ristobar never got to finish that thought
as a bullet shattered his window and sprayed the back of his neck all over the
wall.
Melody
dove for cover, and got on her sub dermal radio.
“Brick,
there’s a sniper out there somewhere, get a vehicle and run it through the front
glass windows, just get us out of here, now!” Melody, a long time ago learned
how to be a survivor and rule one, you make friends where you go. Well in her
book, they’re more like tools, because they come in handy, and right now she
needed her tool, Brick to get her out of here.
Dodson
was putting away his sniping rifle and easing himself down the backside of the
large dune, when Mina Howard came around the corner with some newly acquired Secure-Cyde
robotic clones. The previous owner was
more than happy to turn them over as opposed to going to court and facing heavy
fines and prison. Dodson was staring down too many guns and wisely put his
hands up in the air.
“Dodson,
you’re under arrest for public endangerment, unlicensed ordinance, manslaughter
and outright murder. Please lower all side arms to the ground slowly. Nice
sniper rifle. Looks like you might get more charges against you.”
“About
that manslaughter. Who was that again?”
“That
was you. You committed manslaughter. By your confused look, I take it you meant
to ask who you supposedly killed.”
“Wow
brains and beauty in the whole package? I don’t understand why you’re not some
kind of movie star or something.”
She
pulled out a tazer unit.
“Oh.
I went a little far with the sarcasm thing. You’re probably going to taze me
unconscious and you’re probably going to do it through my nether regions.”
“I
think I can start there.”
In
the distance, an anti-grav bike launched itself through the glass window of
Ristobar’s shop. Brick was driving it. A moment later a screaming Melody was
riding away clinging to Brick’s back and beating him about the back of his head
with a purse. Both Dodson and the investigator paused for a bit to watch.
“Where
were we?”
“I
was going to tazer your nether regions.”
“Before
you do, answer my question, please.”
“A
Targlois child named ‘Poot’, and it was outside in broad daylight.”
“Those
two AI’s next to you killed him.”
“Yeah,
but it was your carelessness which caused it. Witnesses say that boy got his
grenade from your lift.”
“Wrong,
that boy put his armed and exploding grenade into my lift. I left my grenades
out at the dig where I work at.”
“Save
it for the judge. Why did you just kill Ristobar?”
“How’d
you know so fast, and why were you guys just hanging out around the corner?”
“I
had his office under surveillance.”
“So
why did you kill him?”
“I
wanted a poop bucket.” This with a raised eyebrow.
“What?
Why?”
“I
have to poop at times. I know, it’s a very personal and private shame I bear.”
“What?
Seriously why did you kill him?”
“Well,
okay here’s the truth. He’s one of two psychopaths who sent armed and dangerous
men into our camp to kill us. The other one is now a prisoner, back at camp.
Care to investigate that one?”
“Okay
so what’s this talk about a poop bucket?”
“I
promised him that if I ever killed him, I’d turn his skull into a poop bucket.”
“That
doesn’t even make sense.”
“That’s
what he said.”
“We
have to take the body with us for evidence. Now, why did that make you smile.”
A
ship landed in the distance, it was a marine ship. Dodson swore under his
breath for a moment and then asked “You called the marines in for me?”
* * * * *
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
The
ship landed outside of the main building. It was a gun ship with armor and
shields. It was called The Skyfarer and though it was half as small as the
Conlan’s ship, it was also about ten times more dangerous. Armed and armored
marines poured out of it, about nine of them, with them came two droids,
cheaper knock offs of the top of the line models, but still capable of
inflicting death and pain, last out of the ship was a Consortium investigator.
They moved forward as a group and met with a stammering Dr. Jack Conlan. Riana
watched them from a distance through her window while she was hooked into
machines which monitored her vitals. She couldn’t make out what they were
saying.
Ten
more minutes passed and Ciro and Gustav brought out the Arglois, who was
promptly arrested and drug aboard the ship by two marines. As a group the
marines’ ship left with the Arglois and without the two cheap security droids.
Riana wondered what that was about. Her father was looking old all of a sudden.
Riana’s
mother was asking her questions. Her wound in her side was pretty deep and her
blood loss was severe, but as long as she took it easy then her internal
stitches would hold and do their job. Riana closed her eyes.
Joachim
opened his. His mind wandered, his thoughts were unfocused. He felt a mind
belonging to an Arglois. Arglois used to
be always open to our kind. Immediately he wasn’t sure what he meant by
‘our kind’. Still he focused on the Arglois’ mind and he learned of the
enzymes.
Next
he focused on Ciro; he knew where to concentrate to get that bastard to do his
will. After the day’s end, Ciro would never be able to make fun of anyone
again, and Joachim would be free from living under the shadows of his family.
Freedom. He wanted it, he needed it. Joachim confused wanting to be free from
his bed, with Si-letah’s twisted version of being free from his won family. He
knew that Ciro would bring him those two new droids. The thought never occurred
to him as to how he knew there were two new droids in the first place. He
stared up at the ceiling and made plans.
To
take control this fast, Si-letah had to tie his fate and his life force
directly to Joachim’s. While Joachim lived Si-letah could no longer possess
others and if Joachim died then as long as Si-letah’s intellect wasn’t
shattered he’d be able to jump bodies again.
Across
the valley a new Arglois agent arrived, he had a briefcase full of money to buy
off the Conlans, and if they refused to sell he would buy local thugs to get
rid of them. Before he would approach them, he was going to see how things
currently in motion played out first. Lix’lohan was not a fool.
* * * * *
Grimm’s
Dockyards,
Mob Space
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Laira
overlooked her new ship; it was a beauty by the one and only Azurian
Corporation, it was their Cutter line, and was often referred to as the “Az
Cutter” which had a lot of connotations both good and bad. It was sleek in
design, built to be fast and to carry minimum crew and cargo. She had it
painted with royal purple highlights, the color which most pleased her about
sunset, so she named it “Evening’s Dawn”. It was an old smuggler’s ship that
was re-built and finished by two of the most notorious smugglers known, Mack
and Anders. Even though it was a re-build, it was still new to Laira. Anders of
Mack and Anders was standing in front of her.
“Now
that you paid us, I’m going to take you back for a big fat reward.” Anders
pulled a gun on her.
Laira
pivoted into Ander’s reach, while slapping one hand against the inside of his
elbow and the other up onto his wrist, when she pivoted back the other way, Anders’
arm was shoulder locked with elbow both above and behind him and his forearm
pressed to his bipeds and the tip of the gun pressed against his head, right
behind his ear. He was chicken winged and in danger of dying.
“What
the hell, Anders?! Are you looking to die?”
“No,
ma’am.”
“Then
why did you initiate this?”
Anders
radio belched out “It wasn’t him, miss. It was me.”
“See,
I told you it wasn’t me, I didn’t initiate this. It was your crazy droid that asked
us to do this.”
“Dealer?”
“Yeah
you heard him on the radio right? Plus, he holds our contract so…”
“I
can’t believe Mack would have agreed to this.”
“Sorry,
I meant it was your crazy droid that asked ME to do this.”
Dealer
stepped out from the rear of the ship. “Anders is correct, mistress Laira. You
yourself was always nervous, you’ve never been tested in a real fight. It is
time we started to build your confidence in that area.”
* * * * *
The Skyfarer
The outer
edge of Okpara Space
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Schultz
slipped down from the overhead compartment. These were only marines, so they
would not be up to detecting him. He was like a phantom, a boogey man,
something unseen in the dark until that last dreaded second. Schultz was an assassin,
trained in the arts of invisibility, poison and murder, and he had a little bit
of each one of those planned for his night.
It
would be easiest if he neutralized everybody here except for, Devlin. Then he
could put Devlin into the holding cell. Devlin was a great choice of a new name;
Schultz had to hand that to him. Schultz sounded too much like some kind of
guard’s name.
Schultz,
barely making a whisper slipped into the hallway. He checked the prisoner
roster and his heart almost stopped in fear. Arglois were terrifying. Schultz’s
father was also an assassin and the only teacher his father feared was an
Arglois. The Arglois mystics were pure evil boogey men. Damn, Schultz revised
his plan. He’d kill all the marines except Devlin, tie Devlin up in the bridge,
set the ship’s auto-pilot on a route to Zembeckis’ atmosphere and take the
escape pod before The Skyfarer ever got close enough to Zembeckis to matter.
Schultz was still getting paid, and as long as he avoided opening up the
prisoner cells he wouldn’t even have to confront the Arglois.
The
Arglois brought up memories of Schultz’s father. His father was killed by
another assassin, a Human by the name of Jay Ray. Jay Ray was supposedly the
best. One day Schultz was going to get vengeance.
First
up in the common area were the four off duty marines, two of which were
Nocturns. Nocturns by their very design were impervious to regular ballistic
damage, which meant no amount of regular clubbing, stabbing, cutting or normal
bullets would pierce their skin.
Silenced guns with armor piercers, on the other hand, will turn them
into meat puppets like normal guys.
Modern
day silencers reverse fed the sound waves back into each other; Schultz saw the
documentary on them. When the peaks and valleys on the sound chart met each
other in the proper manner, they cancelled each other out.
He
stepped into the room with his two silenced semi-automatics loaded to bear and
opened fire on all four of the men sitting around the poker table. The chips
danced with the impacts of bodies twitching against the play area. One of the
marines even had his gun half drawn; his name tag read “Sweitzer”. Schultz
paused for a moment; Sweitzer was his real last name. He looked carefully down
at the body and swore. The features fit his family. He might have killed a
relative. That moment’s pause cost him, as the other doorway opened up and
Devlin stood in it and opened fire on him.
“I’ll
have to beat you black and… crap, you’re already blue. I can’t just give you
half a beating. So I’m really going to have to try hard to make sure the
bruises show so that I can appreciate my work.”
“You
Humans are always violent and always bragging and boasting. You are chained to
your wall, and I am chained to mine.”
“I’ll
get my chance, and I’m going to hurt you so bad before I kill you, that you’ll
be the first guy in intensive care in the afterlife.”
At
that moment they both heard the blaster fire and Dodson wondered if his chance
would come after all.
Schultz’s
armor took the brunt of the blast, but still he felt his skin blister
underneath it. For most of his life he practiced the cold dead eyed look of a
killer, and now he used that look to feign death as he held his breath. Devlin
walked over to him and kicked his guns away. When the second gun went skidding
across the floor, Schultz jabbed Devlin in the ankle with a needle and watched
Devlin fall over twitching. His cocktail blend of venoms induced mild
hallucinations, and a pain so intense that it overloaded the nervous system of its
victim.
Shultz
rolled over to grab his guns and nearly screamed. As things shifted around and
his skin tore. His armor was partially melted into his flesh. It felt like one
of his nipples got the worst of it. The four other marines were coming for him
and suddenly he knew fear. Schultz was the wounded prey and predators were
after him. His bladder let loose all over the inside of his pants. He’s killed
plenty of people before and he’s been in tighter spots. What the hell is wrong with me? Having a bad day I guess.
A
blaster shot seared off his left ear, and suddenly he knew where his fear came
from, these guys weren’t victims, they were almost his equals. He returned fire
in an eye’s blink. The shot took the marine in the little indented looking part
of the face right above the upper lip and under the nose.
The
other three marines joined the fight and a flash bang went off in the room.
Schultz fired his guns off by memory and killed another marine even as his ears
bled. He fell on top of Devlin, rolled him overtop of himself and put a barrel
against his head. Schultz yelled out in pain and in warning. “He’s still alive,
surrender or I kill your sergeant!”
“You
do and that’s the last thing you’ll ever do.”
Schultz
heard him and noted his position to his left, then replied. “What? I can’t hear
from this ear. What did you say?”
Sure
enough from the other side of the fight. “He said if you do that’ll be the
last…” Shultz shot them both by echolocation. He unloaded the rest of the clips
from both guns, he only hit with a third of them, but with the armor piercers,
it was enough. He got up and went to the medicine cabinet, before he set about
the rest of his plan.
Dodson
saw the guard outside their cell leave in a hurry and a minute or so later he was
sure he heard a flash bang go off, and more blaster fire. There were faint
voices too, followed by an ominous silence.
A
wounded and stumbling gentleman wandered into view. “Sorry guys, but you’re
both on your way to Zembeckis. Can’t be helped. I mean I could release you
both, or either one, but either way I get too close to the blue wizard, and I
don’t tangle with blue wizards, they give me the heebie jeebies.”
“Let
me free and I’ll stomp the life out of the wizard.”
“Nope,
you’re mind controlled by his sorcerous powders, so don’t even lie.” He started
to stumble off.
“Wait!”
“Don’t
even lie.” It was lower now, the sound of a voice fading away.
* * * * *
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Gustav,
Ciro and the two droids the investigator gave them for security in exchange for
arresting Dodson headed out to examine the bodies from last night. What they
saw made them worried. Half digested clothes and partially chewed up personal
gear was all that was left of them. There were partially re-filled sand trap
holes, and there were shells and skeletons from some of the predators who lost
a fight over eating rights. There were also Geysonis in the area, about three
dozen worth and they were all wandering around, some of them started to wander
back towards the main buildings. The two droids opened fire on the Geysonis.
The loud blaster shots continued for a total of six seconds before they
finished up. Gustav and Ciro have never seen, or heard about, anything like
this before. They turned around and ran for all their worth back to base.
The
Geysonis smelled it, the enzyme which was stirring its instincts. It wanted to
place its eggs inside of it, it needed to do that. It also wanted to eat part
of it; it needed to eat part of it. Something was pressing down on its
primitive brain. The robots here were killing its kin. So it hid, it hid itself
on the underside of the droid right between its tracks. The pressure on the Geysonis’ brain gave it
instructions to follow. The droid’s top swiveled around and it started to move
quickly. The Geysonis grabbed the bottom of the droid and lifted itself up by
more than half of its pincers and hung on for its life. And that is the reason
why Dodson didn’t want any droid servants out here; most droids do not possess
a sense of touch outside of their hand units and couldn’t monitor themselves
for varmints.
Joachim
woke up. His eyes were clear, he was smiling. He told his mother that his fever
has passed, and her instruments confirmed his statement. Elizabeta was still
running the analyzer on the holo-imager for his brain and vital signs. There
was no injury, no infection, and no disease. There never were. He had symptoms
which included a fever but no culprit. Now his symptoms were gone. His neurons
still seemed to be firing a little fast and in a lot more volume, almost as if
his subconscious was in control while he was awake. It was odd to say the
least.
“Well
your fever is gone.”
“I
know, mom. When am I allowed to leave this bed?”
The
cheap knockoff robots entered the door from the hallway and in their monotonous
voices; both of them said “Patrol” before they turned around and left. A
passenger on the second droid rolled out from under it and slid under Riana’s
hospital bed.
“Wow,
‘Secure-Syds’?” Secure-Syd was the slang term applied to a Secure-Cyde knockoff.
“When do I get to check them out?”
“As
soon as you are done eating. You need to rebuild your strength.” Elizabeta rose
from her chair and walked over to the food cart.
The
Geysonis started to climb up Riana’s bed boards.
Elizabeta
started walking back towards Joachim with a sandwich.
A
new lump appeared underneath Riana’s sheets.
Joachim
bit into the bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich.
Riana
screamed as something bit through her stitches, and thrust its stinger into her
wound.
Elizabeta
cried out in worry and rushed towards Riana’s side and threw aside the covers.
The
doors bursted open and one of the Secure-Syds opened fire on the Geysonis. Its
shots cut Elizabeta in half as it killed the Geysonis.
Si-letah
smiled as some part of his mind wept in pain as the rest of his brain wept in
chaotic joy. He was Joachim now, fully and completely.
Riana
saw her mother vanish into chunks of meat wrapped in flesh and features. The
blaster fire was bright orange and it played out like a dismembered doll
breaking apart during sunset in red colored rain. The pain in her side combined
with the emotional shock drove her unconscious.
On
the third occupied medical bed of the room, Paul opened his eyes and saw the
mess and the smile on Joachim’s face. No,
this has to be forgotten for now; Joachim can’t know that I know. And so with everything else Paul did not want
to face or think about, Paul filed it away in the back of his mind.
Joachim
stood up and calmly disconnected Riana’s vital signs monitor.
Jack
ran into the room, slid to his knees, and started to cry; Gustav followed him
and started to pull him away from the blood soaked scene.
Si-letah
always prided himself on being versatile. While other Greys would be strong in
one major talent, Si-letah would have many developed talents, but in his own
mind, that all paled when compared to how he could set up situations to happen
the way that he planned it.
Ciro
followed the other two into the room.
“They’re
both dead, Ciro.” Or as good as.
“There’s also a dead Geysonis mixed in, which means we can’t take the bodies
off planet. Take them out back and bury them please.”
Ciro
pulled a sheet off of one of the empty beds and gathered up the rest of Dr.
Elizabeta Conlan into it and laid his grotesque burden tenderly onto Riana’s
unconscious body. He unlocked the wheels on the bed and pushed it out of the
room.
“What
happened to my beautiful ladies? What happened to Elizabeta and my daughter?”
“The
droids killed them, dad. The droids killed both of them. They aimed for a rogue
beastie, one of those arachnid like reptiles. It climbed into Riana’s bed and
it bit and stung her. Mom got in the way of the blaster fire.”
“How
did the Geysonis get in?”
“Judging
by the marks on that droid’s chassis, I’m betting it hitched a ride.”
“So
they killed both of my girls.”
“Yes,
dad.”
“Then
both droids should be destroyed!”
“Initiate
self preservation boolean true.”
Joachim
did not recall how he knew the command codes for these droids. The droids opened
fire on Jack and Gustav. Jack was leaning on Gustav, Joachim wasn’t sure which
one the droids aimed for, but either way they killed both of them. Once again
the thought of how he knew those codes bothered him. He got distracted from his
momentary loss of memory by the beautiful display of broken flesh in the
making. He paused for a second with his brow wrinkling in thought and then he
recalled how he knew those words. These droids once belonged to At’toock. That
little blue bastard had failsafes all around this part of Okpara to just wipe
out as many Humans as he could when he felt the timing was right.
Joachim
smiled; his mother and father were dead. His younger, smarter and perfect
sister was knocking on death’s door and getting put into the ground so that she
could suffer in her journey to oblivion.
He
was free, intellectually and emotionally free. Now the family fortune would be
his, and he’d sue The Consortium for dropping off two obviously defective droids.
With that command phrase most droids on this planet would kill anyone standing
except for the person who uttered those words. And then the program which did
it and the memory starting from a minute back would be altered. Bugs and crash
reports would overwrite the audio and visual records of hearing that command
and any auditory sounds in general. He’ll also be legally free and financially
free. No more intellectually inferior life forms for him to inhabit. They were
amongst the worst prisons.
He
sent out a message to that scrap collector, Thompson for him to come take
anything they were leaving behind. Scrap collectors on this planet poured
everything they could into the recyclers. Especially if stuff is tagged as
cheap knock-offs. Yes, I’ll just mark the
site as a fake, as it being unauthentic, a scam. Thompson will definitely just
have it weighed and recycled for cash, and all the evidence will just vanish.
He’ll
send Ciro back in a week to destroy what Thomspon didn’t collect. He’ll then file
false reports about the location of this dig site, and he’ll hack the local
reports that were previously filed. In three months time, Okpara will have
buried all evidence that Jayce Thompson and Ciro didn’t get rid of. He agreed
with that Arglois, At’toock: The galaxy had no more need of Delezerian Death
Commandos nor did it have need of their technology. Besides, he hated all
things Delezerian. That bitch commander killed his original body after all. He
walked over to Riana’s stuff and kicked the helmet off the cart. When Ciro came
back in, he’d grab his brain again and tell him to bury Gustav and Jack. And when he came back in a second time, Ciro
and Paul will be his assistants while he decided how he wanted to take over the
galaxy.
The
problem with his memory nagged him, he wasn’t sure why that happened, it had
never happened before, and his smile turned into a frown.
Ten
minutes after Joachim and his men left planet, Riana woke up in a shallow
grave, screaming in pain and anger. Her hands thrust past a jumble of body
parts and through the surface and she realized that she shared this grave, with
the mutilated bodies of her mother and her father and that poor bastard Gustav.
Some
sand clung to her in reddish brown clumps, a result of all the blood which
still poured from the combined parts of the dead. Her medical gown was torn,
and barely clinging to her. Her hair was sand filled and slicked back with
viscera. Her face was a painting in blood, tears, shock and raw emotions. She
was a beautiful ball of pain.
Her
side hurt, it felt like a hundred hornets were dive bombing her lateral dancer
abs and they had no intentions of stopping until she was dead. She fell towards
the sand, and caught herself with one hand, the other clutched to her side, she
started crawling towards the main building, but something was wrong. The ship
which used to be parked a hundred feet away from it was missing. She hoped
Joachim and Ciro and Paul were okay. She thought that Ristobar had survived
Dodson and had come back for revenge, as she did the agonizing and slow crawl
inside. She was lucky the doors were open. Luckier still as she found her
helmet lying on the floor, she put it on, she needed to learn what happened.
She played back its surveillance and watched Joachim stare past their mother as
a Geysonis crawled up under Riana’s covers. Joachim saw and smiled. He smiled
in joy when their mother got cut in half, he gave an obscure verbal command to
the two security droids and they killed her father and Gustav. Wrong, Joachim
killed her parents. Somehow he killed both of them. He was a monster, he wasn’t
her brother, not anymore and he did not deserve her parents. She saw it all,
even his seeming mental control of Ciro. It was like he was part Grey or
something. She needed to find a commander’s suit of armor so that she could
access the Delezerian computer files of what happened here a long time ago.
What exactly are the Greys and why did that war happen. Somehow it tied into
what changed Joachim into a monster.
Her
eyes closed and all she could see were parts of her parents’ butchered flesh
around her. She emotionally wanted to crawl away and die, she wanted to go back
in time and live there mentally. Back to before this happened. She knew she
couldn’t do that, and so she forced herself onwards.
First
she needed to do something about the venom warping the cell’s DNA in her side
like some kind of cancer. Her body wanted to rest, but she couldn’t afford to.
She crawled towards Dodson’s room. He was a smoker and he stocked plenty of
ammo. Unless she did something, the poison in her side would kill her, but the
solution her stumbling mind came upon might do it first. From what she recalled
about reading about the Geysonis venom, this solution was really only temporary
and it would become a dangerous treatment she’d have to perform once a week to
keep herself alive.
Small
snatches of rhyme escaped her lips. It was how she dealt with pain. It allowed
her to re-align and shift her thoughts and her sense of timing into a logical
cadence. Paul Jordan encouraged her to do this a long time ago, he claimed that
many master fighters did this, battle was a song and a dance, the trick was to
make it your own rhythm and force the other participants to stumble. If it was
her song now, then why was she stumbling?
When
she made it into the room, she opened his foot locker. Dodson kept a pile of
long matches for his cigars in here, in a striker box. He also had a box of
shotgun shells and a knife in there. She grabbed a handful of matches, one
shell and the knife. When she was ready, she chewed on the edge of a blanket
she worked free from the side of Dodson’s cot. It was in her mouth in case her
teeth wanted to slam shut on her tongue. She poured the gunpowder into her
wound, rolled over to point that side of her body upwards and set a lit match
against it. Her eyes and her body spasms told the tale of the agony, and she collapsed,
with a jet of flame still rising from her side.
An
hour later, Thompson arrived at the encampment, he saw Geysonis walking slugishly
towards the buildings in this heat. The ship was gone, there was a bloody trail
leading from a poorly dug mass grave of body parts. He hated “Die-Guys” as the
Geysonis were called. They were called that locally because they were mean
little bastards and the first part of their name is commonly pronounced “Guy”.
He pulled an ad-hoc mallet off of his bicycle, it was made from a strong old
pipe and he went to town on the four Die-Guys moving as a group.
He
went into the building and found Riana, he knew he would need to get the help
of Amazetta and her son, Markus, but first he needed to find some clothes for
the poor mostly naked and blood soaked girl. She was barely alive.
Amazetta
was wise and she would know what to do.
As
he was rummaging around in the other room, he thought he heard the young lady
wake up and begin rhyming something.
* * * * *
Low city,
Smallwood,
Outpost
planet outside of the Zembeckis systems,
Taliana
systems
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
A
strange alien thought pushed eagerly against Joshua's brain. It reminded him of
a child, with its lack of subtlety and lack of well formed thoughts. It wanted something;
Joshua could not figure it out. His skin was losing its pallor; he couldn’t
tell anybody if he was hot or cold, he lost that innate temperature sense. He
was dying. Turning into another devil cursed Zom-Beck. Maybe the thought was
the mold wanting to devour him. He rebelled and with his own thoughts he yelled
Get Back! The Zom-Becks around him
actually backed away from both him and backed away from his remaining men. The
few of his men still being held down were let go. Over half of his surviving
troops already had spores hacked up all over their faces though, or hacked into
wounds.
He
turned around and told his command, “If you are healthy and uninfected, leave.”
He
was in a nightmare. He wondered when the mold would kill him, and he wondered
how he could still think and perceive things.
His
sight was enhanced and he could see all of his dead, and the ones which were
infected lurching about. The alien thought came back, this time with a question
in a single word: Father?
It
was a panic and pain filled word, images flooded his mind a moment afterwards,
a marine ship damaged by external gunfire probably from when it blew through
the blockade, the ship crash landing on Zembeckis, three survivors – one of
which is an Arglois. They were all restrained. The Human in chains got free,
and he started to carve the skin off of a dead Chloraphyte’s face. Flames from
the crash was burning the mold, and the mold cried out to him to help it.
It has chosen me as a parent to it? At first this idea horrified Joshua,
but then he realized that he had an opportunity to teach it morality and the
Christian faith, still he saw the Zembeckis mold filled bodies stumbling about
and thought, This is my new flock, a
flock of the dying and the re-animated, why God, why hast thou forsaken me?
.
If eating
poison don't forget to lick the plate.
-
Traditional
Japanese proverb.
World’s End
Restaurant
Planet New
Earth
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
High
Investigator Ketchum was dressed non-chalantly enough to not get noticed, so it
came as no surprise that Quesada took a few extra minutes in finding his table.
Ketchum was an average looking guy with average dimensions. He had typically
bland facial expressions, average hair, and he had a very average looking,
sounding and acting everything: looks, voice, airs, attitude, demeanor, and
style of dress. His mind and his training were far from average, however so
that made him the perfect spy. The irony of meeting at a World’s End did not
escape him. Ketchum picked this place.
People
might look right past Ketchum because he looked average, but they looked past
Quesada too, because he looked like a bum. He looked like some guy who just
slept in his clothes.
The
meeting was short, Governor Peck wanted Quesada to get in tight with Kohari and
his group, continue cleaning up the dirty cops, but sell his soul to Kohari in
the process. Quesada was cleared to do everything it took to gain Kohari’s full
trust, and when enough evidence was stacked up, Quesada would have to take down
the remnants of Mob Space influence in Micro-Tier. It was going to get dirty
and bloody before Quesada was done.
Conlan
Archeological Digs,
Planet Okpara
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
It
had been a month. This girl: Riana, with the help of her helmet and hooking it
up through the giant display crystal, told her tale once more. This time it did
not end in the normal place. This time it continued onwards. She had discovered
the armor of Shiva Hull’ak, deceased Delezerian super soldier and high
commander of the Delezerian military. It was Shiva’s campaign that brought them
to this world; the Delezerians hunted their former masters. Their reasons were
legion. The least being that the Greys were monsters, and their many excursions
to different worlds with their sadistic experiments came to light. The greatest
reason Riana spoke of was the Delezerians were only an experimental race that
the Greys decided to cancel. The Delezerians as they evolved possessed too much
willpower.
She
wore Shiva’s armor, and carried Shiva’s weapons; she reviewed Shiva’s journals
and put herself through Delezerian training at all hours of the day. Her
audience of a handful of people knew this. They also knew her armor kept her
temperature cool so that the constant fevers didn’t fry her brain, and that the
cold slowed the re-occurring cancer like necrosis of her side to a steady crawl.
She gave them a home underneath the sands, in the Delezerian version of a super
battleship.
Thompson’s
family was part of the audience, and so were a few other families. One family
was run out of business by the late Ristobar; the other three families lost a
loved one to Ristobar’s goons.
Riana
started to stumble, and Amazetta walked forward and supported her. Amazetta was
dark of skin and bright of heart. She helped where she could.
Riana
left one more message to her audience before her apprentice, her first recruit
took over. That message was: One of the ancient evil members of the Greys did
not die; he only passed his consciousness along through the years from animal
to animal to an eventual Human being. He did that through some type of psionic
possession and that this Grey is gearing up for war, and galactic conquest.
Markus
stepped forward, he was young, and wearing the less cumbersome Delezerian scout
armor. He’d only been training for a few weeks, but he took his chance to
become a legend seriously. Markus spoke of those who were corrupt in power and
the need to re-establish the ancient Delezerian ways.
Ciro
and his gang of ruffians were all buried in the sand. They were buried right
next to a group of marines sent here with explosives. Riana killed them, she
killed them all. They were sent here to kill her and to kill everyone else.
Riana cried a few tears for Ciro, and then closed her emotions off again.
Someone put armed agents out watching the recycle station for Jayce. Riana and
Markus killed those guys.
She is the eternally wounded and
bleeding angel of death and we all follow her. My boy follows in her footsteps
now. This thought
brought a chill down Amazetta’s back and a sad smile to her lips.
* * * * *
Redemption
Space Station,
Borderland systems
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
It
had been a month. Laira heard about her family’s demise from the news networks.
Joachim had avoided the news reporters, and did not return any of her
communication attempts. Something was going on, and it had her nervous. The
co-ordinates which Joachim put in his official reports did not match the
co-ordinates Laira’s family had previously given her. She would pursue it now,
but she was too close to finding the one she sought, that she had to put aside
her investigation into her family. She refused to believe that her mom and dad,
sister and teacher and friends were dead. She refused. Chances are it was a
ruse, to protect their archeological finds. She’ll believe that, her heart had
to believe that.
She
would get some extra training first. With training from the ancient master,
she’d be able to do more to find her answers. She’d be able to compete for
worthwhile prize amounts. With her first big win, she’d re-hire Mack and Anders
to go check out the true co-ordinates.
She
sought Zongxiàn, a Shaolin monk whose name meant “Wisdom of the Ancients”, the
locals claim him to be a mentalist. Human mentalists were rare.
Laira
was sitting in the shadowed back corner of Sophie’s bar. Dealer sat next to
her. Across from her sat Bishop, who was a very secretive man. Maggie, the
barmaid, was dropping off their drinks. When Maggie left, Bishop informed her
that he could give her all the data on what happened to Dodson, but the ones
who traded this information to him insisted on whoever purchases it, delivers
it to the media within one week of buying it. If this did not go to the Press,
Bishop stood to lose a lot of money, so Laira’s life would be forfeit to him.
“Don’t
threaten me, Bishop. I could tear through you and all your men here.” Blasters
and firearms weren’t allowed on Redemption, so altercations were handled
through hand to hand combat.
“You
ready to test every bit of food or drink which gets placed in front of you for
poison?” He gestured to her beverage.
“Fair
enough. Which news reporter? And about the monk I seek?”
“Sanderson
wants the information. Oh, and besides my finder’s fee, Zongxiàn insists you
and your droid get a job working at the soup kitchens for the poor.”
“For
how long?”
Shrug.
“If
he doesn’t come see me in a week, then Bishop, I stand to lose a lot of time
from my carefully scheduled plans, and I will come looking for you and you can
consider your life forfeit.”
Her
answer came in Bishop’s taunting smile. Bishop didn’t seem concerned with Laira
killing him, but he should be, Laira has already participated and won two
underground martial arts tournaments here, from which a lot of the guards made
good money from her. They would look the other way if a physical altercation
went a little extreme. Bishop on the other hand did not think a devil worshipping
Goth girl could kill anyone who walked in the faith. The Hierarchy trained him
to be one of their agents after all, but no one here knew that.
* * * * *
Micro-Tier Suburbia,
Planet
Macro-Tier
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Rusty,
Trakel, and Schultz were bringing in the package to an old grove of trees, per
Kohari’s orders. Quesada’s information and connections proved invaluable in
acquiring his holiness Nigel Bachman, a High Clergy of The Hierarchy. It took a
month to figure out the plan and to eventually grab him.
Bachman
was proving to be a rude and arrogant captive, so Schultz hit him. Guns were
pulled all the way around, but none faster than Rusty’s.
“Our
new boss. Kohari’s new boss, Kempfana, wants the package alive and healthy.”
“It’s
a person we’re talking about, Rusty, he’s not some package. Packages shut up
when you tell them to.”
“Schultz,
take a moment to think about what you just told Rusty.”
Their
transport coasted in the night. It was spring time, the sky was lit by the
moons and the stars and the auto-pilot did just fine in this weather and
lighting. All three members of Trakel’s gang, including Trakel, were in the
open back area with their package which was now knocked cold and bleeding
slightly.
“Rusty,
if you want to pass as Human, you can’t be faster than me. People won’t believe
that.”
“Sure,
Schultz, I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Schultz,
clean the blood up and can the chatter, we’re almost there.”
Kempfana
was here, and he was impressed by Kohari’s work. The men were organized, there
was even a competent sergeant Targlois in charge of the other members of his
race. That Targlois’ name was Gnum and he liked dressing like the cop from that
action vid, “Highway Death Patrol”. Kempfana smiled, that big brute even had a
3D poster of the actor from that movie, Trent Michaels, in his locker.
The
beauticians did a fine job, turning thirty members of a street gang into clean
looking individuals. Those individuals were dressed up in clothing of the Clergy,
they were gagged and bound and had nooses around their necks. The ropes were
already draped over the branches of many of the trees around here.
Kempfana
studied the art of hanging people, just for Nigel Bachman. Bachman will help
hang all thirty gang members, believing them all to be junior members of his
faith. Then Bachman will get partially hung then cut down. If it was judged
that Bachman would survive a second hanging that night, Bachman would hang
again. If Bachman was too weak for even a single partial hanging he would still
have a noose draped over his head but at the last moment, he wouldn’t hang. This
will continue for a month.
Kempfana
had Dr. Cooper to give him a hand to make sure that Bachman wouldn’t die. After a day, Nigel’s favorite expression will
no longer be “Don’t leave me hanging.” It will probably be “Don’t make me hang
others anymore.” And before the week is
over Kempfana thought it would probably change to “Don’t hang me anymore.”
Kempfana
knew Nigel was behind a lot of his recent pain: the order that came in to have
Kempfana’s family killed had that catch phrase in it, “Don’t leave me hanging”.
The
lift arrived and Bachman was unconscious. So Dr. Cooper and his pretty
assistant, Alexis, started to revive him. If Bachman couldn’t be revived then
Trakel and his boys were getting hung instead. Lucky for them, but unlucky for
Bachman, Dr. Cooper knew his job well, and within moments Bachman stirred awake.
* * * * *
Kempfana’s
estates,
Planet
Macro-Tier
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Quesada
had Detective John Martinez by the balls, literally, they were being held onto
by a pair of long handled pliers.
“You
don’t look so hot.”
“Ow,
come on, ease up, this is quite painful.” Martinez
said that with liquid hot tears pouring from his giant bloodshot brown eyes,
while gritting his teeth.
“What’s
painful is watching you only turn in half the evidence of that drug bust. You
kept three bricks of the shit for yourself.” Quesada released the pliers and
pushed the overweight detective into a chair. Two armed guards, by the names of
Vladislav and Danso started strapping Martinez in place.
“You
know, I needed some juice on the streets to make a bigger bust, let it out and
about in town and follow the trail.” It came across as a desperate lie, which
didn’t even pass Quesada’s smell test as far as he was concerned.
“You
needed it to give to your drug dealer and his little enterprise of hoodlums so
that he could turn around and pay you 60% of the profits, you mean.”
“You
bring me here, by force to a crime lord’s house, and you accuse me of being the
dirty cop? What the hell?”
“Kohari’s
pulling out of the drug business.”
“So
he wants to make sure no one can fill that void? There is enough room for you
as a partner.”
“Shut
up, you’re a dirty cop, and I don’t like dirty cops.”
“Have
you looked in the mirror?”
The
reply came in the pliers grip on Martinez’s
thumb, a grip which turned the thumb over backwards while breaking it.
When
the screaming stopped, Quesada continued the conversation. “Give me names, Martinez, give me the
names of the other dirty cops and the criminals they’re in bed with, and you’ll
get to live. I have alibis and witnesses and you won’t even have a speck of evidence
that I did this to you. You can walk away from this Martinez, just give me those names.”
* * * * *
The Skyfarer
Planet Zembeckis
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Sargeant
Devlin finally died; his cabin fever and wanting to leave the safety of the
ship drove Dodson into killing him. It was a quick kill. Dodson already had a
gun trained on Devlin under the table when Devlin decided to draw his weapon.
At’toock
purchased his life temporarily by fixing the water purification unit. Their
food supplies were designed to support nine people for three months. They had a
while, but occasionally one of the Zom-Becks would make it up to the crystal
canopy, or the crystal gunner’s turret above them and they’d just stare down at
Dodson or At’toock.
At’toock
knew he needed to stay useful so bought more time to his existence by providing
more time to the existence of Dodson. At’toock got the external flamethrowers
working on the Skyfarer, they kept the mold back.
“This
mold, the whole Zom-Beck thing, all of this, because you Arglois were foolish
enough to let some Targlois help out with your research? I know you Arglois are
all book smart, and your race as a whole lack common sense, but geesh, really?”
“Look
Dodson, we don’t like to talk about Zembeckis.”
“Shame
too much to bear? Come on, it was only one solar system that got wiped out and
the damage done occasionally keeps doing damage today. What’s to be ashamed of?”
“Five,
six, seven times a day for the past month, you bother me about this?”
“Because
your ancestors’ mistake will turn us into meat puppets.”
“What
if I told you it wasn’t a mistake? What if you found out that the Targlois had nothing
to do with Zembeckis? It was the Delezerians, okay, they made us do it. They
had a Grey with a neural inhibitor on his head, that Grey was unconscious, they
dared not kill it, it had mastered the art of transferring its consciousness
and if it died, it would have just jumped bodies. So we designed and unleashed
a mold that would destroy all other life forms.”
“Why
didn’t they just put him on a rocket and launch him into a star then?”
“The
Delezerians suspected too much meaning into the Grey’s mantra of they were
children of the stars. The leading Delezerian scientists pointed out that some
of the psionic recordings of Grey activity occurred at the same wavelengths as
solar energy. Our own scientists disagreed with those foolish Delezerians.
“They
were Human, you know. Delezerians were only genetically modified Human beings.
Their violence was an all too Human trait. And for that the death of a whole
solar system was laid at the feet of my people.”
“So
why blame the Targlois and not yourselves or the Delezerians?”
“The
Targlois were created by combining Human and Arglois DNA. We Arglois and our
science were still needed at the time, and the Delezerians were the liberating
force for all of us. So our hatred of the violence, our hatred of what he were
forced to do by the foolish fears of Humans… we decided to blame the Targlois.
The Targlois signified our failure in so many ways.” At’toock looked like he
was about to cry.
“Did
all the Greys know that possession trick?”
“No,
only two that we were aware of, the first was dropped off on a planet which
only held mold as its other life form. The second was at the final battle.”
“Okpara?”
“Yes.
The mold was dropped off there as well, but in its infancy it was devoured by
Geysonis. They ate it and loved it.”
“So
if we dropped off Geysonis on this planet, we could cure the mold problem?”
“No,
the mold evolved here. It started evolving when the mind of a dead Grey
possessed it. Don’t be so frightened Dodson, that intellect fell apart, it has
no form or even memories, from what the Arglois high council could tell. It did
however provide the mold with a rudimentary intelligence. Within a year after
the Grey was dropped off, the mold started animating the infected and the dead
to spread itself.”
* * * * *
Cassandra’s
Epic, North Park
Planet Praxis
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Mack
and Anders were the only two patrons at this early in the morning of
Cassandra’s Epic. The Epic was a bar, owned by a slightly overweight guy named
J. Prinzo. Prinzo asked everyone to call him J. It was sleazy as far as bars
go. Dim lighting, the old fashioned halogen kind, none of the Delezerian
crystals here. There was a faint smell about the place of cheap soap used to
scrub away urine. The walls were replicated redwood with actual real pine trim.
The tables were full of graffiti carved one doodle or letter at a time for a
few decades. Prinzo himself was the only staff member here, and he was tending
bar.
Prinzo
had a young man’s haircut for his old gray hairs, small rounded glasses for his
failing eyesight and a chin which could be described as caved in looking. The
fact that he didn’t have corrective eye surgery spoke volumes of his
frugalness. If it was possible for someone to have a negative jaw line, Prinzo
was that someone. He bragged about having sex with a dumb drug addicted whore
named Michelle. Michelle apparently dated a gangster by the name of Trakel.
“Yeah,
we heard of him.” Was Mack’s only reply.
Anders
on the other hand was the less intellectual of the two and proved it by saying.
“Yeah, and he’s a business partner of ours, so best hope we don’t spill our
guts to him and sing, because he will kill you. Having sex with the man’s lady
isn’t cool Prinzo. Prince- O? Prince of shit if you ask me.”
“Trakel
might be your guys’ business partner, but he’s my friend.”
“So
you sleep with a friend’s girl, behind his back, genius?”
“Enough!
Stop threatening our host, and let the man continue serving us drinks.”
“Enough?
Do you even know what that word means? I mean, why are we running errands for
the two sisters still?”
“Because
you pulled your gun out on one of them when she was only fifteen, threatened to
backstab her and practically ransom her and she was our client at the time, Einstein!”
“You
got the hots for the older sister.”
“So
what if I do? That has got nothing to do with it. You don’t violate a client’s
trust just because you think it’s easy money. That destroys our reputation.”
“Her
droid thought it’d be convenient to preserve our reputation, so no harm no
foul.”
“You’re
an idiot.” Mack slapped Anders across
the back of his head. “If the droid hadn’t of done that, Laira would have
beaten you into a coma or worse, and no one would hire us ever again.”
As
Mack and Anders got up to walk out, a few familiar faces stepped into the bar. Shawn
“Tall tales” Higgens and his friend Joey Bareliss walked in. They were both
privateers and both of them were known for taking the occasional high risk
gamble.
The
four men staring at each other were on mildly friendly terms. Higgens had a
knack for sometimes being on the opposite side of a contract which Mack was on.
Mack gave Higgens a cold eyed look and then a quick smile as he and Anders
walked out the door.
* * * * *
New Citadel
Planet Zembeckis
312 A.E.E.
(After Earth’s End)
Joshua
Hughes, former Paladin of The Hierarchy, finished construction of his Citadel
on the mold infested planet. He should have been dead by a few weeks. Instead
he walked in some weird Purgatory between life and death. He guessed that it
had to do with his old wound. His missing biological left foot. Everywhere he
has turned more sickly green and slightly blue and a bit grey, everywhere but
his stump, his stump was turning more blue than anything else. The mold he carried
around himself was a different color than the rest of the infected; it had
spots of vibrant blue through out it. His men, the nine hundred and thirty
seven infected that he found and kept with him were no longer being devoured by
the mold, only changed, like him. They also had blue spots on them, but if they
wandered too far away from him for too long, the blue went away and the mold
devoured them.
His
men barely held true intellect, unlike himself who held most of his former
life’s. He wondered if this would occur with all Geysonis bite sufferers. He
didn’t have the answers. There was an Arglois here, the first one ever to be on
Zembeckis since the mold devoured everything. The Arglois had blue skin which
was blue like parts of Joshua’s flesh. And from the fungus Joshua Huges
learned that the Arglois knew the truth of the birth of the Zom-Becks. Joshua
needed that Arglois’ secrets, so for now he consciously kept as much mold and
infected away from that crashed ship as he could.
There
were so many things to work out, but currently he needed a moment of clarity,
it was time for devotion. As one co-ordinated unit, nine hundred and thirty
eight Infected clumsily knelt and groaned and moaned their inept attempts at a prayer
to God, which was Psalm 1.
“Because
Jesus has given me his righteousness and godliness, I declare that he is making
me like a tree growing by a stream. He is causing me to walk in the fruit of
the spirit and produce fruit for the kingdom. He is insuring that my
fruitfulness does not wither. He causes everything I do to prosper. Father,
because these confessions are true and in agreement with your word, I ask you
to do whatever it takes in me and in the world around me to keep them true. I
ask this, not because I deserve it, but because I am a subject in the Kingdom of Jesus and he deserves it and has paid
the full price for it to be so.” Joshua knew most of his Zom-Beck troops did
not understand these words, not yet. The living dead were sorely lacking in
brains. But he’d fix that.
