Kat yells, “No, you can’t.”
“I most certainly can. She is a traitor to the Guild, and tried to escape her sentence. There isn’t anything you can do anyway, so just watch and be quiet.”
Kat struggles about, but can’t get her head free from the grip. She watches in slow motion as the free arm points at Hanna. The fingers spin up like a fan before the shot comes out. The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber was muffled. Kat wasn’t sure if it was just the way it was supposed to sound or if it was everything slowing down. The bullet goes to the right of her spine and Hanna doesn’t even make a sound. Her body just flinches a little.
Celeste says, “That should do it. Now your turn. I can promise that I won’t kill you, but I do want to leave you with a reminder. This is my prison, and no one leaves without me saying so.”
The barrel is placed on the left side of where her bellybutton. The heat of the barrel is going through her clothes and feel like it's burning her skin. Kat takes Whisper and fires off a few more rounds into the hydraulics and hoses. It doesn’t stop the fingers from spinning up and another muffled blast. There was a hot pain where the barrel pulled away from. She places her hand over it and pulls it up to her face to see her blood wet fingers.
Three explosions ring out on the back of the mech. Kat is dropped to the ground. She looks up to the sky and sees Gravan hanging out of the back of Knox’s shuttle.
He yells out, “Here Kat take this!” Throwing Fury.
Celeste is spinning around trying to get control of her suit back in order. The explosions must have caught her off guard. Fury lands on the ground close to Kat, but out of arms reach. Kat cringes as she tries to move closer to the pistol. Sharp pains run up her side making it hard to breath. Celeste regains control of the suit, focusing on the shuttle.
Two boxes shoot out of the back and are filled with tiny red tipped missiles. Kat takes a deep breath, crawling to her knees, and lunges at Fury wrapping her fingers around the grip.
Kat says, “Whisper I need Wrath.”
“You know I said that I never wanted to do that again.”
“I know, but don’t you think we kind of need it right now.”
“You’ll pay me back for this.”
Fury says, “Whisper you’re always so salty, just relax. Wrath is just the two of us. It won’t be that bad.”
Whisper says, “Easy for you to say. I have to do all of the heavy lifting. Plus having you in my internal processes just feels weird.”
Kat says, “I know what you mean Whisper, but we don’t have a choice here.”
Kat takes Whisper off her wrist and hooks it around Fury’s center. The two fuse together with a blue light as Whisper spins around Fury’s nanite chamber.
They say in unison, “Wrath online.”
Kat says, “Great. Get that gravity bullet ready.”
“Gravity bullets ineffective against current target. Available options, Flare, Meteor, or Divinity.”
“How fast can you make those?”
“Flare in thirty-seconds, Meteor five minutes, Divinity two days.”
“Flare it is then, load that.”
Wrath’s nanite chamber spins up rapidly, “Command accepted, Flare bullets ready in twenty-eight seconds.”
Twenty to thirty missiles fire out of the mech toward the shuttle. Gravan has Hanna in his arms carrying her on to the ramp. He covers her as the missiles hit the shield, and shatter through it. Two or three missiles still make it through. The shuttle is on fire. The rectangle boxes close back into the mech.
Celeste says, “I will not allow that shuttle to leaving the ground again.”
The hands spin up, and open fire on the shuttle. Bullets pierce through the side and an explosion throws Hanna and Gravan from the ramp. Wrath’s nanite chamber slows its spinning down and Kat hears a click.
Wrath says, “Process complete, six shells chambered.”
Kat holds up Wrath. Her cybernetic eye has a cross hair placed where she points Wrath. She places it right at the cockpit and pulls the trigger four times. Each bullet hits the mech with a splat. Spreading out from the place of impact. Celeste turns towards Kat and laughs.
She says, “What was that?”
Kat says, “Magi-tech Flare bullets.”
Celeste’s eyes flash with recognition and worry as she flails her arms trying to get the goop off of her armor. It spreads over to everything she touches.
Wrath says, “Flare in three-seconds. Please stand back.”
Kat watches as the goop bubbles and ignites. It explodes in a huge ball of fire. Kat is knocked down by a concussive blast of heat. Another blast follows another which follows another. She leans forward to see the molten pieces of the mech-suit falling in clumps on the ground. The cockpit was more or less intact, but the arms and legs were nothing but burning mounds. Celeste is struggling within the cockpit to get out, and Kat can’t see a way for her to do that through the flames.
Celeste yells, “This is my prison, and no one escapes. No. One.”
She bangs herself against the back of her chair a few times, and Kat sees light through a crack open up behind her. Celeste takes her hands and opens the cockpit up. Wiggling her upper half out, she raises her closed fists up to her face like a boxer. White mist starts to swirl around and the fire seems to die down slightly. As the mist thickens it dies down even more. Celeste is completely blocked from view before the mist goes down and spreads out across the ground putting the remaining fire out.
Kat takes aim, and fires off a round.
Celeste doesn’t move and the bullet hits her shield spreading out just like the others had. It drops to the ground as her shield falls. Celeste raises her open hand to the goop on the ground and cold wind and snow flows out of her hand covering the goop, freezing it over.
She says, “Silly girl. You should know better than to use fire magic against an ice mage.”
Kat snaps back, “I always thought fire melted ice.”
“Ooo, and you have a feisty attitude. Albright was right about you after all, I am going to have fun with you.”
Kat aims another shot, and fires. Celeste slightly turns her head as the bullet misses her completely.
She says excitedly, “Are you so scared that you would miss from this close. It’s that adorable. There are so many things I will get to do to you now that I know I can get that kind of response out of you. I just love it.”
Kat smiles, “I didn’t miss.”
Celeste turns to look back at the mech-suit on the ground covered in frost, with a single red splotch of goop. She hold out both of her hands making a half-moon shield toward the mech, barely getting it into place before the explosion.
Kat says placing the barrel of Wrath on Celeste’s back, “Rail-cannon.”
Wrath says, “Rail-cannon online.”
Celeste turns her head as Kat pulls and holds down the trigger. Six wisps of air mix with Celeste’s grunts of pain. The bullet reignites the flame, as Celeste slumps into Kat’s arms. Kat can see hate fill her eyes before her shield falls and her gaze glaze over.
Kat lays her down and turns to Gravan. He’s in the middle of preforming CPR on Hanna. Kat walks carefully over to him, her own wound reminding her she’d been shot. Looking down at it and sees her whole left side of her body covered in blood and tries to press down on it more with her left hand.
Gravan stops as Hanna takes in a breath. He looks over to Kat and says, “Are you ok?”
Kat says, “I’ll live, its just painful. I think that was the point. How’s Hanna?”
“Not good. It looks like the bullet might have hit an artery, but we need to get back to the Felicity. There might be a med kit that can slow the bleeding in the shuttle, but I don’t know where it is.”
“This is Knox’s shuttle right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then I know where it is. I’ll go get it.”
Kat shuffles over to the shuttle, and tells Wrath they can separate. She goes into the c
ockpit and finds the first aid kit where it always was, under his control panel where he sits, and shuffles back out. She hands the kit over to Gravan and sits down next to him. Whisper was ready to be disconnected from Fury, so she places her back around her wrist.
Kat asks, “Do you think she’ll be ok?”
Gravan answers, “I think so. Knox is in orbit with Felicity right now, I just need to contact him to come and get us.”
Kat says laying down, “Good. I think I’m going to rest now.”
12
Kat wakes up in her bed aboard the Felicity. Her whole body hurt, but her bullet wound hurts the most. She checks the area, but it was no longer bleeding. It had been bandaged up. Whisper wasn’t around her wrist, and she didn’t see Fury or Gravan. They must have been controlling the ship.
The doors open and Gravan walks in.
He says, “Oh your up. Good. How are you feeling?”
“Like the day after a long shore leave.”
“So not that bad then.”
Kat smirks. She then remembers how badly Hanna was injured. “How’s Hanna?”
Gravan lowers his head and looks away.
“Oh no, don’t tell me.”
“It’s not that. She’s alive. It’s just she lost the use of her right arm. The bullet clipped a few nerves and hit a couple of her cybernetic implants. She might be able to get everything back with time, but we don’t know yet.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Jack said it was better than losing her forever, and wants to thank you for all that you did. We have another issue now though.”
“What’s that?”
“Terra. Hanna told us all about her, and more about the Foremid. We have to get her back, even if it's only because she’s Hanna’s cousin.”
Kat knew part of the story with it, but didn’t really believe the whole Terra is the key to keeping winning the war for the Foremid. That was only the first part of the problem.
She says, “We don’t even know where they were going.”
Whisper says, “Actually we do.”
Kat says, “What are you talking about Whisper?”
“When I was searching the egg, it wasn’t only blocking the signals out. It was collecting data and sending it out. It was to a dark sector, so they might have a space station or base out there. Its within Guild territory and only a few days trip from Ragnarok.”
“I don’t know about all of this. We don’t really have the man power, supplies, or the health to be doing this right now.”
Gravan says, “Yes, but we are the only people in the universe that knows this is happening. If we wait, there might not be a way to stop them.”
Kat sits up in bed, sharp pains shoot over her body, but she tries to ignore them. Gravan hurries over to her side, and she bets he saw her wince when she sat up. She was going to need to work on not letting her feeling be shown as much on her face.
She says, “I’m alright. Let me go talk to Hanna. Can I talk to Hanna?”
He nods, “She’s awake, and in pretty much the same condition as you are.”
Kat lets Gravan help her out of bed, and down to the medical bay. On her way there she can smell something cooking from the common room that smells just like Gale’s chicken soup. Something Kat was always treated to when she was sick or injured. She squeezed into Gravan a little tighter, she didn’t remember telling him about that and didn’t think Gale showed him that recipe. Just the smell of it made her feel better. In the medical bay, Jack is sitting in a chair next to Hanna’s side, holding her hand. He looks up and smiles.
Jack says, “Kat, you’re alright. That’s a relief.”
“Thanks. How’s Hanna?”
“She’s here, and in one piece thanks to you.”
Hanna’s eyes open and she says, “Well mostly one piece. I think a left a little blood back on the surface.”
Kat cringes at that, saying, “Sorry about that.”
“It isn’t your fault. If it wasn’t for you, I would still be locked up in that hellhole. I still don’t know what they were planning on. I’m just glad you got me out before I found out.”
Kat hesitates for a moment, not wanting to bring up the subject. “So.”
Hanna says, “So.” Holding the o in the air.
“What is all of this about, and why do we have to do this? I owe Terra for saving my hide sure, but I don’t think we can win against the Foremid on their own turf. You saw the way they took apart that unescapable prison.”
“I did, and it's the reason we have to go. They will do that to everywhere humans are. The only reason the Guild has had an advantage is because of the Eydulans giving them magic. The Foremid are evil, and you saw it. If they get magic, there is nothing that will stop them.”
“What’s an Eye-do-lawn?”
“Eydulan. They are a race of humanoids that are the very essence of magic. Just a small drop of their blood can allow someone to cast spells. Back when I was a loyal Guild member working in the medical sector I got lost one day. I found a holding cell of live human like animals that could talk. They were saying all types of nasty things to me, calling me names, speaking in a language that I couldn’t understand. Then that’s when I saw it. I looked into a surgical room, through the one way glass, and they were cutting this glass sphere out of this bird-man.
He was howling and crying at the pain, but they didn’t care. Once they removed it, his body just slumped, and they started to dissect him. It was all I could do just to keep myself from screaming or throwing up. I ran out the way I came in. They were eerily quiet as I ran out. It took me months of digging around to find out that the cybernetic implants that give us mages our abilities and power had compacted tissue and cells from those poor creatures.
That’s when I was discovered. I was able to get away and made my way to the Earth Empire, hiding as a soldier. I started to collect the spheres because there was something in me that told me it was the right thing to do. A voice in my head telling me to save them, and that by gathering and protecting the spheres I was doing that.”
“Ok so let me just say this to make sure I am understanding this right. There is an alien race of animal people, like birds, rabbits, dogs, and cats, where magic comes from. Then when you put pieces of them inside your body you can cast magic.”
“Yes, that is a good summation. More or less.”
“And the Foremid want magic but don’t know the secret of making the magic work, unlike the Guild.”
“Yes. Terra is an experiment. She is compatible with all types of Eydulans. There are over twenty types in her body right now, which makes her a walking army.”
“How do they even know about her?”
“I don’t know, but they had to have information on what was going on in the prison. When she got punished and sent to her sleep chamber, that was their que to attack.”
Kat crosses her arms and finds a chair to sit down on. There were so many things that she was just told it was hard to process them all. If the Guild knew there was alien life that was out there and kept it to themselves. The Gluttons were touted as a group of deranged humans that have been out in the darkness of space for too long. To know they are actually two alien races out there and one is being used like cattle is crazier to even think about.
Alien life had been something that humans had searched for in the first hundred years of exploring the nearby galaxies. They found some animals and plants, but nothing that could communicate. It wasn’t too strange to think there might have actually been someone else out there. It was just a lot for Kat to take in considering they are trying to wipe humans out of existence.
Kat says, “Alright. I guess you’re right. No one would believe us if we tell them a story like this anyway. If we contact the Guild, who knows about all of this, they will just try to kill us or lock us up. Terra needs rescuing and I guess we don’t have a stealthy personnel carrier for nothing.”
Knox comes over the speakers, “That’s great to hear Kitty Kat.
I’ll plug in the coordinates that Whisper was tracking and head that direction now. Just go find Gale and get yourself some grub. There is going to be a lot work to do soon, and you’re going to need your strength.”
“Knox!? What are you doing here?”
“Well, I couldn’t leave you in a place like that, and since Gale and I haven’t been on a trip in some time. We figured it was about time to start traveling.”
“But it’s going to be dangerous.”
“This old man can hold his own, and as far as Gale is concerned, I’m scared of her. So there is nothing to worry about with her.”
Kat laughs. “You’re afraid of Gale.”
“Aren’t you?” He says with a smile in his voice.
Kat remembers all the times when she got in trouble when she was younger, and the feeling of dread that she felt when Gale would come to punish her.
She says, “You’re right I guess, I am afraid of her.”
Knox laughs. “See, then there isn’t any worrying about us now. Lets focus on rescuing that poor little girl captured by the boogie men.”
Kat looks around the room and sees it full of friends and loved ones. Everyone was ready to risk their lives, and stay on this small ship for who knows how long, running from all that’s about to start chasing them. If they’re lucky. It might not be that green hill with the suns setting in the background, but it was home.
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Nightmares & Dreams: A Science Fantasy Space Western: Eydulan Series Book 2 Page 12
