Uprising of the Exiled (Splintered Galaxy Book 2)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Ella sensed that Avearan, in control of her body, found the medical kit in question and was in the process of opening it up. Oh my god, wait a few seconds before you touch the gem, Ella pleaded with her mind.

  Fuck that.

  The person on that data pad.

  Is of no concern to me.

  She leaned in closer to get a better view of the pad. There was no doubt about it; the picture that loaded was none other than Jake “Jazz” Johnson. And then the tram, the Rabuabin girls and everyone else aboard vanished and were replaced with Ella staring down at the gem within the Winston Churchill’s habitat ring infirmary. Two, no three, ePistols were behind her head, hissing as they charged and powered on. The armed escort to take her into the brig for questioning had arrived.

  … … …

  ►► ESV Winston Churchill, Earth Orbit

  ► Sol System

  Chloe’s haggard body staggered into the quarters she shared with Sarah. Sarah rested her body up on the top bunk, holding her holo pad in her hands. Judging by the seemingly never-ending flickering yellow and red lights painting her face and the sound of guns raging, she concluded that Sarah was watching a movie, or playing videogames; these days it was hard to tell the difference.

  The top of Chloe’s jumpsuit tore away and was tossed on the floor. Being neat and tidy was the least of her concerns right now. Sitting down on her bottom bunk was the only thing that mattered. Much better, she thought as she looked at her sweat-drenched tank top and her dog tags hanging aimlessly from the refection of herself in the nearby mirror. Time for a shower, she thought and then brushed her hands through the top of the brown hair on her head. Yeah, definitely time for a shower.

  “You know,” Sarah’s voice said from up above. “I can transfer to another room and you can have Chris stay here with you.”

  Chloe signed. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because, you two are clearly fucking each other with hats off,” Sarah replied.

  Chloe’s teeth began to grind as she entered deny-everything mode. “I’m not!”

  “Shut up, he was asking about you not long after the debriefing,” Chloe heard Sarah’s entertainment come to a pause. Afterward, Sarah continued to speak. “You know me; I gotta pry into my big sister’s business and learn the truth!”

  “Sarah—”

  “He digs you, and you dig him; at least you did until we got back to Earth,” Sarah said. “There’s no regulation against men and women sharing quarters, last time I checked.”

  “And sleeping with your senior officer is a good way to get put out the air lock.”

  “Chloe, times have changed. Nobody in this new world we live in gives a shit if you’re fucking a member of the crew, someone above or below rank.” Chloe’s body fell backward as her hands pressed against her flushing face. “Given the billons of lives lost during the invasion, a person hooking up is a good thing, regardless of the situation.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” Chloe said after a long pause. “I’m busy, we’re busy, too much shit has happened since we got back. I fucking died and then came back, for Christ’s sake! Back at Alpha Cent, it was easier; we were building the EDF forces and training. There was lots of time back then, and I gave him all of it.”

  “The line of work we do is deadly, if you keep pushing him away and something happens, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

  Chloe’s hands left her face and softly rested next to her body. “I’ll be fine,” she finally said. Sarah leaped off the top bunk onto the floor below, and without saying a word, she stepped toward the entrance of their quarters. Chloe raised her head and asked, “Where are you going?”

  Sarah stopped just before the door, and revealed to Chloe, “I need a drink.” And then she left, causing Chloe to grunt.

  … … …

  Sarah’s intoxicated head whipped back against the soft lounge chair while Tom’s slightly bandaged body and Grace both indulged in a drink of their own as they sat down side by side with Sarah. The flight crew, as per usual, was engaged in their card games at the far corner of the lounge, the glass sliding door keeping their laughter and yelling inside.

  It took Sarah some time to process that Tom and Grace had joined her at the bar, but once it did, she faced Tom with a charming smile on her face.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked and smiled back.

  “You a barkeep now?” Sarah asked.

  “I can tell something is eating you up from the inside out,” Tom said.

  “Just a bit…irritated.” Sarah speech was slightly slurred.

  “At?”

  “Everything! State of Earth, state of…hold up…yeah EDF ’n’ shit. Fuck.” Her fist slammed against the bar counter.

  “What’s wrong with EDF?” Grace asked as she sipped her beer.

  “Well I don’t have command of fuck all,” Sarah revealed. “We like, fuckin’ uh fuckin’ like four? Yeah four teams. Chloe is leader of team one. OK, cool. I’m happy for her, I’m happy she has a man to fuck. ’Cause fuck, she was such a bitch when she was single.”

  “So you feel jelly of your sister?” Tom said. “She got a man in her life, she’s a team leader, and you’ve got to take orders from her.”

  “You a counselor now?” Sarah’s drunken voice replied, all three of them began to laugh. “So Dark Lejorania, Proxima Centauri, whatever the fuck you wanna call that system, there’s a planet there called Foicanta. We were checking the place out, looking for bases to build, and places for uh people, our people that is, to live. Then out of fuckin’ nowhere comes Radiance heretics!” Tom smiled and nodded as her story progressed onward. “Yeah, that fucked-up religious cult of theirs. They tried pulling a fast one on Chloe and me just before the invasion—musta wanted a rematch, ’cause those fuckers came out with guns blazing. I led the team, we tore them the fuck up, and I tore the roof of that place! And…the EDF members I was with? We used to work together in the marines. Hell, I protected them during an attack in Chicago. But hey, let’s not make Sarah a team leader, even a team leader of a group of people she meshes well with. Let’s make her take orders from her older sister. Like fuck, man!”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Grace chimed in.

  “Ha! You agree?” Sarah said.

  “No, but the ‘fuck’ part. I think you need to get fucked,” Tom’s mouth erupted with more laugher as Sarah’s reddening face gave Grace a what-the-hell look. “This is a ship full of lonely and horny navy personnel. I’m sure one of them will be more than glad to help you out!”

  “I don’t shit where I eat. You can have at ’em,” Sarah said after a brief pause.

  Grace elegantly replied. “I don’t fuck guys.”

  “Provided that you’re not sober,” Tom said to Grace.

  “That only happened once,” Grace replied.

  “Twice, remember, Rayes?”

  “Fuck, yeah, I do.” Grace then poured more of her beer down her throat.

  “Holy shit…it’s been ages though,” Sarah slowly said and then struggled to get out of her chair. “I should go,” she said and then slowly walked toward the exit.

  “Rub one out or something. Get the frustration outta you, before it messes with you on the battlefield,” Tom said as Sarah made her exit. “Booze, nature’s truth serum.”

  “That so?” Grace said.

  “She just revealed that she’s jealous of her sister, the existence of Radiance heretics, and that Chloe isn’t available, but Sarah is.”

  Grace’s fist placed a light jab on Tom’s shoulder. “Just remember, I saw her first,” she said.

  “And I talked with her first. Besides, pretty sure she only does men.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Grace said while she finished her drink.

  … … …

  Twenty minutes had passed since the exchange between the two sisters. Chloe felt her eyelids slowly shutting under the weight of fatigue. As tempting as it was to call it a night, there was that shower she really n
eeded. She forced her body up and out of the bunk, then toward a sliding door leading to their washroom.

  It was a simple and cramped room. Whoever designed it didn’t give a damn about those who suffered from claustrophobia. Hand sink, mirror, toilet, and shower with a small narrow passageway giving one access; nothing more and nothing less. She stripped out of her uniform and entered the warm refreshing and cleansing blanket of water that splashed across her battle-worn body. Her soap-covered hands crossed her back to wash it. It felt different, yet familiar, and she thought back as to why it felt different.

  The ridges of scars that she had gotten used to weren’t there. Her back was in the same condition it was before the Hashmedai invasion—no plasma burn scars. This can’t be.

  As her shower ended, she walked, more like power walked, toward the mist-covered mirror. Chloe’s hands wiped away a circular clearing against the glass, revealing her drenched athletically toned body while she turned around, keeping her head toward the mirror in an attempt to examine her back. There were indeed no scars, EVE was right. She gazed a minute longer wide-eyed, hoping she was wrong, hoping that the mist buildup was making her miss something. It didn’t change a damn thing; her scars were missing, and so were her answers as to why it happened.

  “EVE, how much information has Radiance officially shared with the UNE?” Chloe asked.

  EVE’s voice transmitted over the intercom. “There are approximately seven hundred thousand files uploaded to my database.”

  “Are there any reported cases of Radiance people healing rapidly without the aid of doctors or medication?”

  “Zero cases reported.”

  Chloe grimaced at that response, time to stop beating around the bush. “Are they any reports about red gems that emit psionic energy?”

  There was a pause while EVE performed the search. “Zero cases reported.”

  “How about Radiance religion? Who are their deities?”

  “The Radiance Union warships’ three gods: Stoarior, Tym, and Livie. There are four hundred files regarding this,” EVE’s voice replied.

  Chloe rested both of her hands against the countertop and glared at her naked body in the mirror, looking for smaller scars she received throughout life and her tours in Afghanistan and Iraqi. Nothing, her body was free of any signs of wear and tear.

  Her mind started thinking back to the last time she had scars. She remembered having them when coming aboard, and settling in. OK, then what happened? The transport fiasco, getting shot in the head—only for those wounds to heal right up as if nothing happened, thanks to that strange woman in the visions.

  Then it hit her. Those visions, that voice calling out to her when she was dying and then again when she confronted Jazz. Her eyes shut as she replayed the visions out in her head, those women spoke of mending her and Ella, like they were some kind of god.

  No, goddess.

  Her eyes opened as she asked. “How about goddess? Is there any talk of goddesses in Radiance religion?”

  “No data available.”

  Chloe’s chest took in a deep breath; her questions were getting her nothing but frustration. She might have to join Sarah soon if this kept up. “Anything on heretics and what they believe?”

  “No data available.”

  No fucking data available or cases reported on anything. And then she began to ponder more at her recent thought. “What’s the difference between ‘zero cases reported’ and ‘no data available’?”

  “Zero cases reported indicates that there are no files that have a reference to your inquiry. No data available indicates there are files, but they are empty.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why would they be empty?”

  “Unknown. It is possible someone removed lines of information from it.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” The Radiance Union was a form of galactic church and state. Censoring information that goes against their doctrine was probably more commonplace than people thought.

  Chapter 21

  ►► Dasht-e Kavir Desert, Earth

  ► Sol System

  The Dasht-e Kavir prison was located deep within a glass crater in the middle of the Dasht-e Kavir desert in Iran. The idea behind it was simple: should prisoners escape, they’d find themselves in the middle of a searing hot and hostile environment. Then there’s the massive desert on the outside of the crater. Simply put, there was no place to run; the landscape would be your undoing, especially if you were Hashmedai.

  The crater was forged during the Hashmedai invasion of Earth, when their ships bombarded the planet with superheated balls of plasma. Oddly enough, this particular crater was different from the rest that scarred Earth in the sense that it did not hit any cities or military bases. A misfire most likely, since the impact was created during a time when humans began to strike back at their alien invaders with nuclear weapons.

  All in the past now.

  A Hashmedai transport ship owned by the HLF made its final approach to the Dasht-e Kavir desert via the Gulf of Oman. The craft sped toward its destination covertly, keeping low to avoid radar detection. Whigli put his psionic mind to work and remotely operated it with his thoughts as he and Destiny sat up front in the cockpit. Jazz took a seat toward the back of the transport, geared and armed for the jailbreak operation that awaited them. Eupiar sat next to Veloshira, crossed-legged, her arms folded, and sitting next to him with a stale face aimed toward Jazz as the barren wasteland came into view from the forward windshield.

  Jazz remained silent, for he knew that his partner in assassination was eager do to just that, assassinate their targets, being the last thing that was on his mind. He looked at Destiny, who wore light UNE combat armor and held a long eSniper rifle in her hands. Her fingers swiped across the screen to perform a series of systems checks on the weapon.

  Unlike all other eWeapons which were human-made versions of Radiance magnetic weapons, the sniper rifle was built from the ground up, using the technology Radiance provided humanity. The concept of long-range combat wasn’t common among Radiance and Hashmedai alike. That and Radiance rifles already had a large range and the ability to zoom in at a target a great distance away. What they did lack, however, was the power to launch projectiles significantly larger than the ones typically manufactured with nano machines within the rifle.

  eSniper rifle bullets were massive. The extra firepower from the oversize rifle allowed it to launch larger-size bullets at velocities that could pierce through personal shields of an enemy target with one or two shots. The larger size of the rifle meant that the nano machines inside could manufacture the heavier and larger rounds at a faster pace. They were unlike rifles and pistols, in which the larger the round, the longer it took to produce, and therefore had a slower firing rate.

  “This is a waste of time,” Veloshira’s Hashmedai voice protested. “When are we going to finish work with our task?”

  Jazz replied in the Hashmedai tongue. “Rescuing the future heir to the empire is not a waste of time.”

  “It’s not our mission. Besides, I doubt the empress will accept the bastard human hybrid into the imperial family.”

  “It is important; he has details that might lead us to our targets.”

  A lie, but it shut her up for the time being, only to cause Whigli to address him seconds later in English. “He has details? You always stretch the truth like that?”

  “It keeps her quiet for now,” Jazz said in English. “Making life harder for the order, that’s my real quest here as of now.”

  “A quest that’s about to start.” Destiny jumped in as her finger performed the last system check on her eSniper rifle. “Everyone remember your role?” she addressed the occupants of the transport.

  Jazz’s head nodded toward her after going over the game plan once more in his head. Destiny snipes guards in the tower, while Whigli bombards the prison with his pyrokinetics talents, while Jazz and Veloshira escort Eupiar in to hack into the computers so that they can locate and extract Dany
al and disable the mind shield preventing psionics from teleporting in and out. Whether all that went off without issues was another story, one that Jazz was too familiar with at this point.

  The transport slowly hovered and descended to land within the glassy crater, sending swirls of dust and tiny rocks in the air. Its side entrance flipped open and two sets of footprints from invisible targets plopped on the dusty surface. Then another set of footprints appeared, one after another, creating a path toward the lone prison camp in the direct center of the crater. A pathway that Eupiar’s pep-filled footsteps followed, with her laptop bag swaying back and forth as she moved.

  Whigli’s cybernetic implants wired into his shirtless upper body and radiated a bright blue. Seconds later his body floated into the sunny and cloudless skies and headed toward the prison. As the team scurried off into play, Destiny’s body entered a prone position, aiming her rifle toward the four towers boxing in the prison.

  The holographic display for the rifle displayed to her what she had directly targeted: a group of unsuspecting prison guards in the towers. She moved her sights down, and the hologram painted a new picture of guards on patrol along the tops of the prison walls. Moving her sights up, she saw Whigli charge his psionic might. His arms began to glow a bright orange and pointed down toward the prison camp. Her trigger finger was placed an inch away from the trigger of the rifle as her targeting crosshairs locked on the head of the first guard in the tower closet toward Jazz and the rest of the team.

  A storm of white fireballs fell from the skies, creating a multitude of set explosions and plumes of black smoke in the air as panicking guards raced for cover. Destiny’s bullets raced toward their heads before they could get there. They were all going to need closed-casket funerals.

  … … …

  ►► Dasht-e Kavir Crater Prison, Earth