by Greg Dragon
~*~*~*~
On the outskirts of the city of Soreble where Val Tracker and his marines had landed, the signal of a red, holographic crystal appeared above Val’s wrist-comm and he knew that the bomb had gone off successfully on Geral.
“Let’s get it!” he screamed at his men. He rushed from behind some bushes with his stargun blazing at any Geralos he caught moving. The two hundred marines behind him fanned out into the city and Val ran to a nearby building and began screaming into his comm for the Phasers to give them cover. Phantom fighters littered the skies as the marines held the ground. Due to the suddenness of the attack, the Geralos were unable to mount a defense to maintain their hold of the city. Val stood fully armored in his bomber gear and he looked like a large droid of death as he yelled and fired at all angles around him. He was beginning to feel the battle rage, but when the Geralos armed themselves and fought back against his marines, he became angrier and decided he needed to change tactics.
“Hey, Bwane, new orders. I want you to take a team around the city and start taking down those atmosphere poles! This is our planet and I want to be able to breathe the oxygen that is natural to it, not Geralos mist. Do you understand me?”
“It’s done, Colonel. Give us a few!”
Val nodded with pride, as he knew that Bwane would see to his commands successfully. He then signaled for several of the soldiers to follow him as he headed to what appeared to be a large car garage. They were running across a broken stone bridge when the Geralos began firing rockets at their location. Four soldiers were caught in the blast and injured by the time they were halfway across it. Val Tracker was angry at the lack of air cover and pulled up his arm to scream into his comm when Tayden Lark interrupted him.
“Sorry, Val, we got it. Were there any casualties from that blast?”
“Don’t you worry about it, Tayden. Just put fire on those boys so we can get to the garage.”
“You got it!”
Val did not know that Tayden Lark was commanding the air cover herself, but the thought of it made him feel safe, so he pushed his men and women to move faster on the garage, while several stayed back with a medic to tend to the wounded. When he got to the bottom floor of the four-level garage, Val thought back to the time when humans were all over Vestalia and the garage held cars, trucks and motorcycles. Soreble seemed like a painful memory of what humanity once was and it hurt his heart to see the occupation up close, now that he was in it. Like Rafian, he was a son of Vestalia, but he had never been on the planet. Free humans had not lived on Vestalia for over a hundred years, so when they would mention “Vestalia” or “our planet,” it was more of an idea than a reality. Now Val was seeing the history of his people through the ruined buildings, empty vehicles and the absence of oxygen within the city walls. He was sure that every Geralos would die that day, or he would die in the dirt of the planet, where a true son of Vestalia belonged.
In one of the buildings that looked to have been a hospital at one time, the assassin, Marika Tsuno, made her way quietly through the halls. When the attack on Soreble was announced, she was enlisted to play the part of reconnaissance while her new partner, Marian, stayed behind to assist Tayden. They had grown close since their arrangement and had spent a lot of time together since.
She knew the Geralos were using the building as a farm, but she was not sure if any of the humans inside were alive, or what to expect when she found them. She would slide past a door and look inside, just in case there were Geralos ready to shoot her on sight. A few times, she had caught some in a room, squatting down against windows to fight against Val’s soldiers, but she dispatched them silently with her knives as she continued her search for the missing humans.
By the time she made it up to the third floor, she had gotten tired of playing it safe. She started kicking in doors with her gun drawn, until she found a room where she saw a number of humans tied down on beds with tubes running into their arms. Some had their heads cut open, dead, and others were traumatized and crying, but locked in a form of stasis that prevented them from screaming. Though she was Casanian and did not consider the fight for Vestalia her own, Marika was upset at the audacity of the Geralos; to take a planet and treat its people as experiments. She touched her leg and a long, silvery spear appeared inside her hand as she walked past all the beds, looking for the Geralos keeper. When she finally found her, she was cowering behind a curtain, hoping that Marika would miss her. Upon seeing the cruel weapon in Marika’s hands, she panicked and made to get up and run.
“CRUTA!” Marika hissed and thrust the spear into the Geralos’s stomach, causing her to make a gargled scream until she pulled it out of her.
The Geralos woman looked up at the assassin, begging for mercy, but this just prompted Marika to stick her again, this time in the leg, and then in the shoulder and once again in the stomach. Marika stuck the woman until she no longer screamed and her rage had diminished a bit. She then went from bed to bed, unlocking the restraints and freeing the people. She then dropped a tracker inside the room so that once the city was liberated, the marines could come back to rescue the inhabitants. After freeing all of the prisoners, she opened an adjoining door, where she found a network of toddlers—birthed from the women in the farm—floating in liquid tanks. It was too much to take, and she dropped another tracker before beating a hasty retreat. It was time to return to what she knew how to do best, which was to hunt down her enemies and murder them.
~*~*~*~
Rafian and Yuth kept to the shadows of the city as the hour grew late. They took their time in finding the building that Yuth had left his Whyte parked on. They could not allow it to be found or taken by the Geralos, as it could reveal the location of many of their hidden bunkers throughout the galaxy. In the distance, a section of the Geralos city was burning from the building that had exploded, and the city was in a panic. Reinforcements from across the country flew in to find the saboteurs and Rafian hoped that Dott had found a way to escape.
“What do you think of Dott, Yuth? Do you think you could bring her up close to your level if we promoted her?”
Yuth Varience had not said a word for the two hours they’d spent crawling the city. He looked at Rafian curiously, as his three eyelids blinked rhythmically to keep the sweat from blinding him within his cracked COREX mask.
“She’s one of us, Rafian. You should have seen her; she made me proud. Laern, too, though I know that you aren’t too fond of him. They came in with subpar equipment for fighting the Geralos and he lost his life for it. When he was alive, he fought bravely and handled the las-sword the way I taught him. Dott did her best, but what impressed me was her courage when facing death. She should become more than an agent, possibly a Phaser Ace, and we should do her the honors.”
“Thank you. I will consider it then, if she’s alive.”
“Oh, she’s alive, Commander. In fact, she will be waiting by the Whyte for us to fly her home. The crystal I gave her had a twin that I left there.” Upon saying that, he gave one of his rare smiles that revealed the curious fanged teeth of his people, and Rafian could not help but chuckle at his comrade’s confidence.
When they reached the building and scaled it to the top, Yuth used a device on his belt to uncloak the Whyte. As he moved to climb up into the cockpit, he noticed the injured Dott sitting under the wing with a satisfied smile on her face.
“How long have you been waiting here, Dott?” he asked. He hopped down and began examining her wounds.
“Commander! I did it. I did what the Supreme Leader instructed me to do.”
On the other side of the craft, where she had not seen him standing, Rafian listened. He was humbled at the amount of importance Dott placed in his approval. He had left her as a test, though his original plan had been to deploy the bomb himself. When he saw her there and knew her to be one of their hopefuls, he decided on a whim to let her do it, so that she could prove herself through the manipulation of the crystals. He played he
r words over and over in his mind and while he hated the old Jumper moniker of “Supreme Leader,” the way she said it made him understand just how revered he was among them. Taking a deep breath to snap out of it, he walked around to where Dott sat and smiled at her.
“You finished the mission.”
“It is what we do, sir, for I am a Phaser.”
“You know, Tayden Lark would be the happiest woman alive to hear you speak those words, Dott, especially in your current state. So, how did you get out?”
Dott struggled to stand. She got to her feet with a renewed fire in her dark brown eyes as she rested against the Whyte. “I set the bomb and then threw a crystal over the edge and jumped into the tear it created.”
“Did you get hurt prior to your jump?”
“The stupid crystal struck the stairs and opened up near them, so I hit the rail upon entry. I think it cracked some ribs.”
“What you did was an advanced move that even the most experienced of us are hesitant to try. This tells me a lot about you. Hold it together for a few more hours. Yuth and I are going to get you home.”
~*~*~*~
It was four months after the taking of Soreble when the Phasers decided that a celebration was in order. The marines occupied the city and were slow and methodical in seeking out any hidden Geralos. They were also fighting back against any would-be attempts to reclaim the city by its distant allies. Taking territory was always risky in any war, as the enemy could strike at your weakest points to reclaim territory, force attrition, or catch you off guard where you could lose everything. To make sure that human territory stayed human, the Alliance military would rebuild the cities, set up barracks and keep the communication open whenever they were attacked.
Inside a large, saucer-shaped building, a number of marines, Phasers and civilians gathered to celebrate the success of that fateful mission which had brought humanity back to the city of Soreble. The building sat on top of the highest mountain that bordered the valley where Zallus was. On one side, it had a large expanse of beach and there was a thick forest on the other. They called it “The Revival Center” and typically they used it as an office for holding meetings with important visitors.
Rafian had arrived with Val Tracker in the middle of the night and the friends had separated when Val saw how lovely Marika looked in her sheer black dress. Rafian went to the bar to get a drink and a break from the citizens who had swarmed him to thank and congratulate him. Val walked up to Marika, who shook her head in amusement when she saw him approaching with two glasses of wine in his hands—one she assumed was meant to be hers.
“Hey! Marika, is it? Let’s play a game.”
“Something tells me I am not going to be interested in this game of yours, big man,” she said.
“Well, let’s see, eh? You may like this game.”
“Okay, what is it?” She took the wine glass from him and sipped it slowly while eyeing him suspiciously.
“If I can guess the number of spots on your head, you let me take a look at the spots on your chierne.”
“You are as much a Marine as I assumed you to be, you big oaf. What if I change the rules – to you guessing the amount of spots on my head to determine whether or not I pull out your small intestines or not? Eh? THAT sound good to you?”
Val clapped his hands so loud that the entire room turned to look at him. “Wooooo!” he bellowed. “I like this girl! Okay, okay-okay, I was just messing around with you. See I’m actually joking, but you, I think you’re actually considering that threat you threw at me. So I’m gonna apologize and back away slowly now.”
“Oh, relax, Val. I’m just messing around with you. Okay, then, I’ll have your drink and if you keep me entertained, maybe I’ll let you give me that spot check. But, if you fall in love with me—like you humans tend to do with women like me—I may just have to pull out your intestines to get you to back the hell off.”
“I’ll take those odds. You better believe I’ll take them,” he said as he stared at her, smiling, unable to look away from her beautiful eyes, the pupils as black as a Geralos heart.
“How many Casanian girls has that pathetic line worked on for you, by the way?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been in Meluvia for a few years and there aren’t many Casanian women there.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
He was brazen, the way she thought all men should be. Marika would not admit it, but Val was the type of marine she was attracted to. It was what made it easy for her to fall into Rafian’s bed, and why she was secretly happy that Val mentioned her spots. Some humans were not attracted to Casanians and it was always an obstacle when it came to finding dates. They were a beautiful species by human standards, but they had red skin that came in a variety of shades, and spots on their hairless heads and shoulders. Val had mentioned the spots, and the fact that he was comfortable enough to joke about them let her know that he had no issues with her.
The pair walked over to the bar and continued talking while Rafian—who was watching them go at it across the room—smiled in admiration at his friend's luck. He found a lonely seat near the glass door and rested there, listening to the music and sipping his drink. It was a nice party and the servicemen and women danced and mingled with one another freely. He wanted to trigger his cloaking device and become invisible so that no one would bother him with small talk, but he knew that it would be a temporary solution, at best. Someone would corner him eventually.
He got up, walked across the room and touched his hand against the Courian glass. It shimmered and vanished to allow him to exit the room before shimmering once more and solidifying again behind him. It was nighttime and he looked out over the violet ocean at the reflection of the moon as he tried to count the waves that reflected its light. As he scanned the beach that ran alongside the building, he saw a pair of lovers on the sand, doing a variety of things that demanded more privacy. It was embarrassing to stare, so he focused forward, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
A noise brought him around with a start as Camille materialized from the room. She slid effortlessly over to stand at the railing next to him.
“This is some sort of romantic backdrop, isn’t it?” she asked, in a way that made him feel her smile through the words without looking at her.
Nodding and looking at her for a second, Rafian resumed his thousand-yard stare into the night, as if she were a mere distraction.
“I don’t want to ruin your alone time, Raf. I know how important these moments are to you, but I can never catch you to talk to you.”
“What’s going on?”
“Well, a couple things that I’m concerned about. Can you please look at me?”
Turning to look at Camille, Rafian noticed that her hair had been cut into the teased, short hair-do that she hated. She was wearing a dress, something she never used to do.
“What’s on your mind, Cammy?”
“You’ve been avoiding me. I know you have, so please do not deny it. You’ve also been avoiding Marian. I know this because she took it out on me recently, assuming I was the reason somehow. You know, I probably know you better than anyone in this city does and I can honestly tell you that you are in a darker place than I have ever seen you in. I’m a little worried.”
Not knowing how to respond, Rafian rubbed his hands the way he always did when at a loss for words. He averted his gaze to the shore, where he saw that Val and Marika had taken their conversation for a romantic walk on the beach.
“Looks like we’re going to have to turn Val into a Phaser after all,” he said. “I know that he keeps on refusing, but it’s not his prerogative to do so. Plus, he has the heart of our Casanian assassin; he’s going to have to become one of us, if he plans to keep her.” With that he gave the couple a bit of a smirk, then raised his glass mockingly at Camille. “Can’t have love without conflict now can we, Cam?”
“Hey, nice try at changing the subject, Rafian,
but there is something else I need to tell you, too.”
“What is it?”
She hesitated. “The connection. You know … our connection? It’s … it’s gone.”
Rafian turned to look at her. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s strange, but I can no longer sense you when you’re close. You no longer make me… you know… when you’re near. It’s as if we’ve never made love, Rafian. It is completely gone!”
What Camille was referring to was the bond she had made with Rafian due to her Filan genes. Filans could only have one mate in their life; it was a reliance that made them physically sick when apart from their lover. The bond came with another side effect that had gotten Rafian in trouble on more than one occasion, and it was due to Camille being able to sense him whenever he was near. When Camille had slept with Rafian aboard their mercenary ship so many years ago, she hadn’t told him about the repercussions, so when it was done and they had been together, she was permanently bonded to him, even though he had married Marian.
Rafian shook his head in disbelief. “How is that even possible, Camille? What do you mean it is gone?”
“I think it was the cloning. Ever since you got me off that ship and flew me back here to clone, I have been feeling a bit different. Mostly in a good way, but I know that our bond is one of a number of things that got lost with my old body.”
Maybe I should clone then, Rafian thought, as he wished that he could get her out of his head.
“Nothing has changed in my mind though, Raf. I am still in love with you, despite the chemical connection being gone. I still think about you constantly, about everything we’ve been through and I still wish… well, I wish that we could go back.”
Rafian sighed and replied with resignation in his voice. “That right there is why I have been staying away from you two. I don’t like running from my problems. Hell, I never thought that I’d have to. But this love triangle of ours – I no longer want to be in it. I have tried reasoning with myself on how I can make this work, but the only solution that comes to mind is to get away from you both. It’s been working well for me and with the chemical connection being gone, I suggest you find a way to get over me, too.”
