Stellarnet Rebel

by J. L. Hilton

  Duin knew how Belloc felt about J’ni. And he knew that if Belloc could make it through the military zone to steal a ship and get them off of Glin, he could make it to J’ni and get her the hell out of Sector M. Or he would die trying. Duin took a moment to appreciate the fact that he hadn’t killed the younger Glin after all.

  “Where are you going? Gimme those gloves,” Blaze ordered.

  “I need them,” Belloc told the officer. “Use your Mysteria app.”

  “I don’t have the goddamn Mysteria app!”

  “Use my device, colonel,” offered one of Blaze’s airmen.

  “Gossamer Darkmoon?” Blaze’s voice was fading. “I have to repel a goddamn alien attack as Gossamer Darkmoon…?”

  Duin searched the “users online” list for Mysteria and touched the name Gossamer Darkmoon. “Blaze, it’s Duin. Can you hear me? What’s going on?” Duin ran into his garden and grabbed the vicious, barbed sword he’d created. Sparks danced along its length as he swung it through the air.

  A sickly green-skinned fey-wight answered with the colonel’s voice. “We’re trying to hold off a Tikati onslaught. They’re attacking all four hangars in Sectors C, K, O and W, and parked their asses on Sector M.”

  Duin slipped a coil of chain over his shoulder. The chain was attached to a handle about the length of his forearm. On the other end was a small spiked hook. It was a metal version of a hunting weapon known as a wurak on Glin.

  Through his bracer, he could hear a cacophony of screaming and mayhem, including the sharp retort of projectile weapons. Meanwhile, the ever-present reverberation shook the colony. The garden’s back door wouldn’t open with his key or access code. Duin zapped the control panel and the door opened.

  “Duin?” This was J’ni’s voice, coming from his bracer. He could barely hear her. On his arm, he saw the image of a Glin who looked like J’ni but lacked human ears, hair, or her intricate tattooed eyebrow designs. Instead, she had viridian-colored skin on the back of her head and neck, and a face so pale it almost glowed. He guessed it was a Glin incarnation programmed by Hax, in case J’ni ever wanted to play Mysteria.

  “Are you alright?” Duin had to zap the next door to get into the 50s thoroughfare. The corridor was darker than usual, and the dim walls lacked any markers, maps, ads or directions. A few blocks down, someone was yelling that the data keys didn’t work. Other colonists ran past him, futilely trying to get their devices to connect to the Asternet.

  “I’m trying to get out. The Tikati are everywhere and—” Another wave of noise drowned out her words.

  “I’m coming,” he said as he ran. “Belloc and I are both on our way.”

  Over more screaming and unidentifiable sounds, Duin caught the words “egg vendor near Sector H.”

  “I’m with a squad of UN PKs right below the Colony Square,” said Belloc’s incarnation, the connection to him still open on Duin’s arm. “We’re coming up the N-side stairwell.” Belloc was much closer to J’ni’s location than Duin was.

  Great Ocean, Duin prayed, protect her until Belloc can get there.

  “’Lo, Duin.” This time, the voice wasn’t coming from his bracer. It came from a very young female running toward him. Her white hair was heavily decorated with wires and other bits which bounced as she ran, and she carried a contraption of polished metal, lights, and what looked like leather and glass. She was followed by five other humans who had some unusual-looking backpacks, electroshock poles, guns, gloves and flashing Mysteria T-shirts. One carried a sword.

  “Looking for group?” she called to Duin.

  “I’m going to get J’ni,” he said without stopping. “She was in the market when Tikat attacked.”

  “You can see everything from the Tech Center. C’mon, that’s where we’re going.” She touched her glove and the door opened to the R-42 stairwell. It was a straight shot from there to the Tech Center. If she could open hallways, it would be faster than if Duin had to zap his way through. And if the emergency walls in the thoroughfares started closing up on him, he’d be stuck completely. Assuming the live feeds still worked as she said, he could locate J’ni and Belloc, then meet up with them, hopefully killing several Tikati along the way.

  Duin changed course and followed the gamers.

  “Sucks meeting again like this,” the female said to Duin as they ran to the 40s thoroughfare.

  “I can’t recall meeting before.”

  They crossed the thoroughfare to the opposite stairwell.

  In the R-32 hallway, there were several colonists, residents of the block, who peppered them with questions.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Can you get on the Asternet?”

  “How did you open the door? We couldn’t get out.”

  The white-haired female touched her glove again and they entered the next stairwell. The colonists followed them, until she opened the door to the 30s thoroughfare and was met with jets of flame, terrified shrieks and a horrific smell. The colonists quickly retreated to their compartments.

  Duin squeezed his eyes shut as the fire’s afterimage stained his vision.

  “You good, Duin?” she asked.

  One of her companions stuck his head through the doorway, looking up and down the thoroughfare. “I’ve got a line of sight on eight mobs, heading east from our position, armed with zippos.”

  “Awesome.” She turned a knob on her weapon and it made a hissing noise. “Any suggestions, your Glinness?”

  “Don’t get burned,” said Duin in a strained voice. J’ni is not afraid of fire, he reminded himself. The vivid, nightmarish thought of her being killed by a Tikati flamethrower made his anger surge until it drowned out his fear. His zap-sword crackled.

  “Any suggestions, other than the obvious?” she replied.

  “Stand back.” Duin pushed through the doorway. Melted control panels, sparking wires and the still-burning bodies of colonists stretched out to his right. The Tikati were to his left, less than a block away, systematically burning and destroying anything or anyone they could find.

  Lifting their weapons, the gamers fanned out behind Duin. They were spotted by the Tikati rearguard, which chattered in its clicking language. Several sets of flickering eyes turned and looked at Duin. These Tikati were not in bavat, and they did not have the human-like visage of Kitik. Their eyes glowed, but their plated heads were tilted back to reveal enormous mouths lined with sharp teeth. What looked like body armor was actually their own skin, hardened by millenniums of living under the conditions of Tikat.

  “Don’t let their appearance frighten you,” Duin said.

  “No prob,” said the gamer with the sword.

  Then the Tikati transformed. The necks, arms and legs of each creature telescoped into long, segmented, insectlike limbs, expanding until the creatures filled the entire height and width of the corridor.

  “Mother of god,” said the swordsman.

  “Don’t worry, they are easy to kill.” Shrugging the chain off of his shoulder, he let it slide down his arm, uncoiling and ringing when it hit the metal floor. Duin caught the handle in his hand.

  “How the hell you figure?” said another gamer, who wielded a shock pole and had the Mysteria logo shaved into her glowing magenta hair.

  Duin lifted his zap-sword. It crackled with lightning and illuminated the malice in his eyes. “I’ve killed them before.”

  He spread his arms, waving the zap-sword and the chain whip. Beckoning, he called out, “Come, try to relocate this Glin!”

  The two Tikati nearest to him released streams of flame. Duin lunged forward and swung his wurak, which spiraled around one of the flamethrowers. He yanked, disarming the Tikati, then hit its leg with his zap-sword. The sword crackled and the creature stumbled forward, falling to the ground dead.

  The gamers with the odd backpacks shot streams of white chemicals, dousing the flames. The white-haired female used her weapon—which turned out to be a laser gun. A thin orange line shot over Duin’s head.
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br />   Duin dodged another jet of flame and bounded right into the middle of the Tikati, spinning his chain. It crackled with bio-electricity, like his sword. All he needed to do was connect with any one of their segmented limbs, and the zap would kill them.

  Between Duin, the leader with the laser gun, and the assistance of the dousers, several Tikati went down within seconds. The last two crawled over the bodies of their cohorts to get to Duin. He swung the chain whip, catching one of their flamethrowers, and pulled, trying to drag his enemy into the range of his swinging zap-sword. In this tug-of-war, flames roared from the Tikati’s weapon and swept across Duin. Duin yelled and twisted, snapping the flamethrower and the Tikati’s arm off entirely. His zap-sword connected and the creature shuddered and fell. The gamers finished off the remaining Tikati.

  Duin looked at himself and realized he wasn’t burned. The military-issue suit resisted fire as well as bullets, electricity and radiation.

  “What’d they drop?” asked one of the gamers with a douser.

  “Just their zippos,” said the sword-wielding gamer.

  “Moving on.” The white-haired female touched her glove and opened the stairwell into block R-22. “Duin takes point, he’s the tank.”

  Duin led the way into the connecting hallway. “And who are you, exactly?”

  “Nik.”

  “J’ni’s former blockmate Nik? We thought you were male. And either dead or nefarious. Are you nefarious?”

  “Sometimes. But I didn’t kaboom the block, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Then how did you survive?”

  “I wasn’t there,” she said. “I was with Hax.”

  “But, they l’upped your locator and couldn’t find you,” said Duin.

  “I always left that locator in my compartment. It was destroyed.”

  As they entered the Tech Center, Nik slung her weapon over her shoulder. Duin coiled his wurak. They passed a Hax with purple hair and another with green. When they reached a Hax with long black hair, Nik kissed him.

  “Look who I found,” she said. “He says Genny might be trapped in the market.”

  “Let’s see.” Hax examined the wall. Every inch of wall space was covered with windows. Most of them appeared to be live feeds of the colony, including cameras that showed the battle raging between the Tikati and the Earth forces, in the skies above Asteria.

  Duin searched for a feed from Sector M. “I thought the Asternet wasn’t working.”

  “Affirmative, the Asternet is down,” said the black-haired Hax. “But the Haxnet servers are in Level Zero, where the Tikati can’t get them.”

  “There’s a Level Zero?”

  Hax pointed down. “Underneath Asteria Colony. All part of my diabolical plan to overthrow the military-industrial complex if it ever becomes too oppressive. Also good for naps when I’m s’posed to be working. But alien attack trumps secret lair.”

  The tech wiggled his finger, causing several windows to move across the wall. Some of the windows were black—the netcams not working. When Hax spread his hands in the air, one of the windows enlarged until it filled the wall from floor to ceiling, creating a life-sized image of the horrific scene in the Colony Square. Tikati were entering through a hole in the ceiling, and all of the thoroughfares had been closed off in an attempt to contain the threat. But as Duin and the others knew, some Tikati had managed to get out into the rest of the colony.

  Duin picked Belloc out of the chaos by his fluid, agile movements and the back of his dark blue head. The word SELKIE-2 floated in white letters above him.

  Hax touched a device in his ear. “Hey, Mario, the princess is hiding behind the pipe twenty feet to your left.”

  “Princess?” Then Duin saw her. J’ni was flat on the floor, wedged alongside one of the large pipes that crossed the open area of the market. Letters above her said BL0GG1RL. She wasn’t moving.

  Dodging the crossfire of the Tikati, the Earth military, a few gamers and the colony police, Belloc jumped over pipes and debris to reach her. His wallump suit was torn and singed beyond repair. Areas of exposed skin on his torso, arm and thigh were burned.

  “How is he breathing in there?” asked Nik.

  The Tikati were used to such conditions. The human cops and troops had spacesuits. There was obviously oxygen, as indicated by the flames, but the air was thick with toxic fumes and black clouds of smoke that billowed from burning bodies and smoldering plastic.

  “He’s holding his breath.” Duin’s eyes remained glued to the window. “Glin can do that a long time.”

  A jet of fire flared in J’ni’s direction, and Belloc threw his body over hers. One of the UN peacekeepers launched a short-range rocket into the chest of the Tikati with the flamethrower.

  Duin yelled into the Mysteria com-channel on his bracer.

  “Belloc, is she alive? Belloc!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  J’ni felt the searing heat of the Tikati flames, then someone shielded her back. A glimpse of his gloves through her stinging eyes identified her protector, and her terror was replaced by relief. She heard Duin’s voice but couldn’t answer. Holding her shawl against her mouth and nose, she struggled to continue breathing.

  Belloc peered over the pipe, then he helped her to her feet. Most of the fight was on the other side of the center and Tikati had stopped coming in through the ceiling.

  She could hear Hax’s voice through Belloc’s glove. “You need to get out of there. If one of those Tikati ships decides to take off, you’re going to lose the rest of the air. I’ll open the doors for you.”

  They ran. Within a few strides of the stairwell, it opened for them and clanged shut again as soon as they were over the threshold. The door on the opposite side of the stairwell opened and they entered the H-97 hallway. They didn’t stop until they were in the 90s thoroughfare.

  Belloc fell back against the wall. J’ni collapsed in his arms, exhausted and shaken.

  She felt his chest expand with great gulps of air.

  “I didn’t…breathe…for over—” he glanced at his glove, “—fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re the lucky one.” Talking sent her into a coughing fit, and he held her until it passed. She saw the holes in his suit and patches of blistered and blackened skin. A gash, dark with blood, crossed his right shoulder and there was another on the side of his leg.

  “We should go to the med-block.” She wheezed. “It’s not far.”

  Duin’s voice spoke through the Mysteria app on her bracer. “J’ni, my love, while tenacity and compassion are some of your most admirable qualities, I am prepared to ask Belloc to carry you kicking and screaming straight to Aileen’s.”

  Belloc shrugged his good shoulder and nodded his head in agreement. “You’ll be safer there.”

  She cleared her throat, but her voice was still hoarse. “Where are you?” she asked Duin.

  “In the Tech Center.”

  Duin explained how he could see her on the netcams from there. He also told her that three large Tikati ships had landed on top of Sector M and cut their way in, while a barrage of smaller enemy vessels kept the Air & Space Force busy outside. Via the Colony Square, bands of Tikati were ravaging the thoroughfares of Asteria.

  Belloc said, “We should move.” But in spite of his suggestion, he didn’t move. She was still resting against him.

  J’ni didn’t want to move. As always, Belloc was the eye of the hurricane, and she wanted another moment there. But she knew it couldn’t last too long. She straightened and took his hand, heading to Sector I, back into the storm.

  She spoke into her bracer. “Hax, if your servers are working, does that mean you can reach the Stellarnet and let Earth know what’s happening? Can I send vids to INC?”

  “The Tikati ganked our satellites,” said Hax. “The military has a few hidden communication stations. But without the orbital enhancers, the signal is weak at best and will take forever to get there.”

  Just ahead, at the border between
Sectors H and I, the thoroughfare was blocked by a wall. As J’ni and Belloc approached, a gap opened to let them pass and immediately closed again behind them. They hadn’t gone a block when they were stopped by a group of colonists armed with shock poles, high-tech crossbows and conventional projectile weapons.

  Belloc stepped protectively between J’ni and the others.

  “How in the hell did you get in?” A man in a blood-spattered, knitted sweater pointed his gun at them. He was as tall as Belloc but twice as wide.

  “Are you going to shoot us, Brendan?” Belloc asked. Brendan was a bodhrán player who arrived on Asteria a few weeks before. J’ni recognized him from the music sessions.

  “Should I put you out of your misery? What the hell happened to you?”

  They told him what they knew about the Colony Square, the Tikati attack, and how she and Belloc reached Sector I.

  Then Brendan told his own story.

  “We shut the entire sector off from the rest of the colony when the Asternet went down. A few of those things got in, though, before we finished the job. We took care of them, but we’re still on guard.”

  J’ni didn’t bother asking how they sealed off the sector without the benefit of the Asternet or the cooperation of the Asteria police. She imagined they had their ways, the way Hax had his own shenanigans.

  Aileen’s was headquarters, hospital, arsenal and auditorium. Musicians played while patrols exchanged information and those who normally served pints were dispensing weapons or preparing med supplies. She noticed that Seth was there, too, helping Owen sort munitions on a long row of tables down the middle of the room. She wondered why he wasn’t in the military zone. He must have been here when everything was locked down.

  “We’re in the pub,” she reported over the channel to Duin.

  “Good.” He sounded rushed. “Stay close to Belloc. Please.”

  “The colonel says some of his military ships shifted to the Solar System.” This was Hax, on Belloc’s glove. “So, Earth should know wassup. Hopefully, they’ll send reinforcements and several oxygen tankers. The colony is ass for air, with everything leaking and burning.”