by Paul Centeno
The nurse withdrew, disappointed at his response.
“What happened to your armor?” Shirakaya asked.
Rah’tera inhaled and exhaled deeply. “It malfunctioned. Only my breathing apparatus is working.”
“You can’t breathe without it?”
He shook his head. “Not yet at least.”
“Go help the others, sis,” Shirakaya said. At her sister’s nod, she went on, “I’m still a bit worried. Are you really okay?”
Rah’tera responded, “I always manage no matter—”
“Shira,” Narja interjected via KLD. “Xethren is on our screen. He has a mission for us.”
The freelancer sighed. “I’m on my way,” she said, ending the link. “I need you alive,” she added to Rah’tera before leaving. “Don’t let me down.”
Struggling to breathe, the sandstalker saluted her.
II
Solar Fields
Shirakaya returned to the bridge. As expected, the contact appeared on the visual screen at the fore. Xethren had been pacing back and forth in his office until she arrived. He waited for her to sit before speaking.
“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” he said in a tone of sarcasm.
“I’ve been busy,” she snapped, fingers drumming on her armchair. “How can we serve you?”
Xethren grinned at her. “Remember that delicate, diplomatic mission I mentioned before your Death Ships escapade?” As she glumly nodded her head, he went on, “Very good. It’s time for us to make our move. Let me explain. Every hundred cycles, there is a shift of power in Jye Xeu Zeikein—better known to us as Star City. Your job is to make sure the next leader rises to power without fault. Problem is, ninety percent of the population do not like her. I don’t even like her and I’m not a citizen there.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me...”
“I’m afraid not,” he said, irked. “There is no one better for the job. Your reward will be eighty-five thousand reons. Now, unless you wish for the Guild Master to be notified of your resentment, you will accept this mission.”
“What else is there to know?”
The contact let out a snigger. “This will be the first time a female rules as Praetor. Her name is Feya Morgesis, Viceroy of planet Sephyen in the Wulga Fein Galaxy. House Morgesis, however, is currently residing in the awe-inspiring Star City. That’s where you’ll find her. Good luck.”
Silence descended over the flight deck for a long moment after Xethren ended the kinetic link transmission. The freelancer sat in her command chair, frustrated. All she wanted to do was continue her quest to regain her arcane power. A part of her wanted to ignore the new mission, but she knew without guilds she would never have risen up again after being excommunicated from the military. Furthermore, choosing to ignore this mission would be tantamount to suicide what with her name being put on a kill list in the assassin’s guild.
“Vokken,” she called out, “inform the others of what has transpired and that I’d like them to come here so we can discuss what to do next.”
“Done,” he said.
Within just a few minutes, the crew joined her at the bridge. With the exception of Rah’tera, who was still recovering, they all stood before the freelancer. Even her brother had come along, which made Shirakaya feel confident that he had willingly joined her band of mercenaries. And though Dojin was present, he didn’t seem happy.
“Star City?” the renegade said, grimacing. “You do realize that if the arcane barrier fails for even a microsecond, we’d be vaporized, right?”
“Don’t be a dumbass,” Myris responded. “That’s never happened before.”
“Regardless, we don’t have a choice,” Shirakaya said. “Quite frankly, I don’t like this mission. It’s a major setback. What frustrates me the most is we just got Khal to join us. We were supposed to start working on getting my power back. Anything political is usually time-consuming, which means we’re going to be stuck at Star City for a while. Worse—”
“This may actually work in your favor, sis,” Khal’jan interjected.
“Huh?”
“First off, it’s a good place to let Commander Jeyphen and his platoon off. Once they’re there, it’ll be easy for them to get transportation to Pravura. Second, the artifact that Rah’tera helped me recover is something you’ll probably want on this quest of yours. Problem is, it needs to be rejuvenated with magical ions. But fear not, at Star City we can regenerate its enchantment by tapping into the sun’s power.”
“Khal, you’re a genius!”
“Nah,” he blushed.
“Maybe you should split us into two groups,” Dojin suggested. “A few of us can help you while the others assist Khal with that thing.”
“It’s called the Eye of Soth’yugon,” Khal’jan said.
“Eye of Suck-my-cock…got it.”
Xorvaj clamped his fists together. “Then we have a plan. Kick the military off our battleship, pilfer Star City’s energy, and kill the Praetor.”
“Not funny, Xorvaj,” Shirakaya said.
“I found it amusing,” Rah’tera said, emerging from an X-Phaser.
The crew gave him a warm welcome, patting him on his back. Xeza joined in, producing multiple sing-song urps.
“Welcome back to the living, Rah’tera,” Khal’jan said.
“You look like a corpse that someone shitted on five times,” Dojin said, shaking his scarred hand. “Hope you can survive another round of shit.”
“Quite possibly,” he replied with a smirk that pained him.
“All right,” Shirakaya said. “We all know what needs to be done. Narja, set a course for Jye Xeu Zeikein.”
“Aye,” she said, activating Marauder’s cosmodrive.
The crew went to their seats. Shortly after, the interstellar battleship entered a chasm and zoomed through dimensional space faster than the speed of magic. They left the Syichi-Photh Kos Galaxy and flew noquria. At first, the mercenaries caught a glimpse of blurry stars and planets. In time, however, even the celestial bodies vanished altogether.
For the next hour, Marauder advanced through a glistening, prismatic realm between dimensions. The cosmic passage left Myris dazzled. She never once took her eyes off it. Even the sìsô stared at it, her furry face fixed on the gleaming, multicolored lights shaped like beams. Glancing at the sìsô, Shirakaya chuckled softly.
This is it, she told herself. This is my home. This is my second family. It may not be today or tomorrow…but someday my magic will return.
“Approaching the Wulga Fein Galaxy,” Narja said.
Returning to the present moment, Shirakaya fixed her eyes ahead. “Perfect. Let’s give the cosmodrive a break and use the arcane engine.”
Narja complied, exiting dimensional space. The prismatic chasm collapsed, Marauder breaking away from the void tunnel. Just then, the battleship accelerated at an unnatural speed past several rogue stars and intergalactic planets. At far-flung distances, the mercenaries noticed two galaxies. One spiraled esoria while the other swirled in the noqurian quadrant—Narja flew toward the latter.
“Are we getting close?” Xorvaj asked impatiently.
“To say galaxies are enormous is an understatement,” Vokken responded. “That being said, we are currently eighty-five million light cycles away from Jye Xeu Zeikein, better known as Star City.”
Xorvaj suddenly regretted asking his question, craning his neck and giving the crew a derisive expression.
“We’re almost there, big guy,” Myris said, cracking a smile.
Eventually, the Marauder entered Wulga Fein. The crew passed by three solar systems where a multitude of xentari spacecrafts were entering and exiting nearby moons. Several other vessels drifted about, trading in space. Other commercial vehicles among them were transporting passengers to different planets within the same quadrant.
A couple of xentari merchants sent signals to the Marauder in an attempt to trade, but Narja ignored them and left the soudarian quadrant
of Wulga Fein. She increased her velocity, flying toward what first appeared to be a blank region of space. Yet, as they drew closer, the battleship’s primary radar pulsed; it revealed something in the deep blackness.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Jye Xeu Zeikein became visible to the crew. Myris brought the sìsô to the fore, gazing in awe at the incredible sight. Like the other passengers in Marauder, they witnessed an onyx-colored, spherical city larger than a sun. Suspended in space, it glowed like a black star with a circumference of three million, six-hundred thousand and fifty-three miles.
Shirakaya had never been to this city before. Even though she’d seen images of it on the TDE, nothing could quite describe the feeling she experienced now as she looked at it with her own eyes for the first time. She stood up, slack-jawed. The city could fit over a million planets the size of Pravura into it. Jye Xeu Zeikein was, without a doubt, the size of a sun.
“Holy mother of balls,” Dojin blurted out. “Who would’ve freakin’ thought I’d live to see this epic shit.”
“Yah,” the oracle said. “It’s totally wicked.”
“The legendary Star City,” Yarasuro said, mesmerized.
Xorvaj drooled. “It looks like an impenetrable, metallic black hole. I should’ve hijacked this city instead of Eternimus.”
“Are the rumors true?” Rah’tera asked, his tone conveying a degree of pain.
The archeologist eagerly responded, “It may be hard to believe, but yes. At the core of this solar-powered paradise of a city dwells one of the largest stars in the universe. It took the xyimorphs an entire millennium to build around the veiled sun, using its corona as the primary power source.”
“Really?” Narja said, her eyebrows raised. “A thousand cycles?”
“Indeed,” Khal’jan confirmed. “It may not look like heaven from the outside, but believe me...inside is the epitome of bliss hidden from all existence.”
Shirakaya smiled. “Fancy words, Khal. You sound like you’ve been there.”
“Despite all my research on Jye Xeu Zeikein, I’m afraid that even I have never had the honor of entering such a majestic place. The Guild Master must have some serious power considering he authorized us to visit.”
“This is no ordinary parley,” Shirakaya said. “We’re dealing with an extremely primordial ritual that requires delicate diplomacy.”
“Your missions are intense as always, sis.”
Vokken appeared on the screen. “Your sister will be fine as long as she doesn’t respond to them the way she did to me when we first met.”
“Unlike you, they won’t be shooting me on sight.”
The arcane intelligence merely grinned at her before dematerializing.
“He’s a real piece of work,” Shirakaya commented.
“As incredible as it is to witness the former Nempada emperor integrated into your ship as an arcane intelligence, I don’t understand how you could trust him,” Khal’jan said. “I mean, he could potentially go rogue at any moment.”
“He wouldn’t dare.”
Before anyone could disagree with the freelancer, a signal resonated on the flight deck’s primary interface.
“The xyimorphs are hailing us,” Narja said.
“Here we go,” Shirakaya acknowledged. “Open a telecommunications channel to their frequency.”
“Aye.”
Once the channel activated, the crew saw a trio of warrior-like beings. Two of them were guards who had golden irises, long white hair, pointy ears that grew downward, a pair of beige feathered wings, and fair light-colored skin. Clad in dalikonium, their silvery armor shone with gold trimming throughout their hauberks, pauldrons, and greaves.
While both muscular warriors were male, the third was unmistakably female—her defining breasts unable to be hidden. Cleavage aside, she appeared quite different from her comrades with twilight skin, crimson irises, and blackened wings. She wore a gemmed circlet over her fiery red hair and donned onyx plated armor purposely designed to reveal her bosom.
“Greetings,” the freelancer said.
“Prostrate before the chosen one: Her Eternity,” one of the xyimorphs stated, wielding a staff on the screen.
With the exception of Myris who merely bowed her head, the crew complied. Dojin resisted at first, but for the sake of the mission, he uncomfortably decided to prostrate like the others.
“I am Eternity. Past. Present. Future. I am Feya Morgesis,” the female xyimorph said with absolution. “This realm is destined to be mine, and you shall serve me well to obtain it.”
“Yes, Your Eternity,” Shirakaya said, trying not to smirk after hearing Dojin poorly disguise a snigger with a cough. “We are beyond honored to be in your presence. It will be a blessing to serve you. Together, we shall see to it that you reach the Solar Throne without the slightest dispute.”
Feya fixed her eyes on the humyn. “Rise,” she said smugly, waiting for Shirakaya and her squad to stand. “You comprehend politics very well. I approve you to be in my presence until my ascension. Serve my conclave, and you shall be rewarded.”
“Thank you, Your Eternity.”
“Find my servant Teiga at Lengdos Citadel and rest in my realm for the duration of this solar day. By dawn, you may arrive at House Morgesis to become my shield.”
As the transmission ended, Marauder was caught in a tractor beam. Narja deactivated her vessel, declining to resist. Drawing closer to the portal-like gateway, there came a point when the crew could only see the city’s exterior walls rather than stars and nebulae. Reaching the gateway, Marauder went through it as if entering a black hole and vanished from outer space.
III
Division
After rematerializing, the mercenaries found themselves exiting a gargantuan cavern bordered by seemingly endless mountains. Many of them gawked as they laid their eyes on an artificial atmosphere with floating islands high above the mainland. Their battleship continued to be guided, maneuvering away from a valley. Beyond the vale lay a lush jungle where a radiant citadel stood surrounded by crenellated towers and numerous structures whose curved eaves extended far past the walls.
The citadel itself resembled a divine fortress that looked as if it had been carved by a god through a celestial mountain. Stone bridges, ramparts, and turrets rose from the structure, enveloped in nature. And at the center of the dazzling citadel lay a steamy fissure where jamna poured like a waterfall into a shimmering lake.
No one could find the words to express what they were witnessing. They simply remained silent as their vessel advanced. Even the sìsô couldn’t take her eyes off the nature-rich metropolis, at least until she caught sight of a xyimorph flying from one floating island to another with his ivory wings. Not a moment later, another flew alongside their craft, gliding toward a tower ahead. Xeza produced an urp several times and clocked her head in wonder as the crew rapidly realized that seeing a denizen in the sky was an ordinary part of life there.
After a short time, Marauder reached one of the citadel’s many mountainous turrets. As they approached, an enormous part of its granite wall lifted open. The ship maneuvered inside the lit-up lair, stonework sealing behind it. Flying down, a legion of armored xyimorphs marched toward the battleship in column formation.
Commander Jeyphen soon saw them from a porthole, his face becoming contorted. “Star City?” he said to himself, his brow furrowed. With haste, he ported to the bridge. “Shirakaya, what in all the heavens are we doing here?”
“I have a mission here that determines the future of xyimorphs,” she said. “You’re free to seek out a xentari shuttle with your platoon and return to Pravura. We, however, cannot leave until Her Eternity—Feya Morgesis—is seated on the Solar Throne.” She hastily walked past the commander as if he meant nothing while signaling her crew. “All right, Shadow Mercs, let’s move out.”
Shirakaya and her crew abandoned the open-mouthed commander who eventually started to gather his distraught brigade. In the meantime, a dozen xyimorphs we
re blowing trumpets as the Shadow Mercs disembarked from their vessel. Though startled by the extravagant welcome, the mercenaries greeted as many of them as possible.
“Why do I want to punch them all in their faces?” Dojin said.
“Uhhh...maybe cos you’re a dumbass?” the oracle retorted. “What they’re doing for us is super cool.”
Shirakaya glanced at her. “It does seem nice, Myris, but deep down inside many of them probably resent our presence. Although we can all agree that Dojin is a dumbass, it’s important for us to be on guard. Search your feelings. I’m sure you’ll see the ugly truth.”
“Agreed,” the mutant said. “Your divination is key here.”
“Okie dokie,” the young oracle said in a slightly disappointed tone. “If there’re any wild emotions I sense, I’ll let you know.”
The freelancer smiled at her, leaving the cavernous docking lair. Once outside, they strode freely across a bridge where a river ran several hundred feet beneath it. Past the bridge, the squad followed a pathway through a jungle where feyzalas chirped from thick branches. Their singsong tweets soothed the mercenaries, relieving their stress.
Xeza produced a series of urps, as if trying to chirp with the feyzalas. Myris kissed her tiny snout, appreciating her loving behavior. Despite feeling calm, the ghensoth wore a ghastly visage when he heard the sounds. Such peace defied his being, yet he somehow surrendered to it. Dojin was the only one who resisted such tranquility, illogically bringing the premature death of Zadoya to his mind in order to keep himself bitter.
“Truly remarkable,” Khal’jan said.
“Is this what utopia is supposed to be like?” Rah’tera asked.
“Call me crazy,” Dojin blurted out, “but I prefer the slums of Pravura any day over this angelic shit.”
“You’re crazy,” Myris said.
Most of the mercenaries laughed as they walked deeper through the forest. Countless fresh fruits and vegetables were growing on trees around them. The colorful foliage swayed in the gentle breeze. And along their path, water trickled peacefully, forming into a creek ahead. After traveling by foot for a kilometer, they reached a crossroad with cascading waterfalls.
