by Greg Dragon
“Oh, hush.”
They continued to tease one another playfully until Rafian’s got a call from Tayden Lark.
“Tayden, what’s the plan?”
“Raf, the situation there on Dystalis is worse than you think. Val and Laern were hurt pretty badly and the majority of the marines there have been routed.”
“Where are the marines currently?”
“I’m sending you the coordinates, but they are backed into a closed off street. Those lizards…I’ve never seen anything like it. Raf, just—“
“Is the big man alive?”
“Barely. We are thinking we may need to operate on him. He could end up with replacement parts…that’s if he pulls through.”
Rafian felt a heaviness come over him when he heard Tayden’s words, and he felt exhausted and sad for his friend’s state. Marian saw the change in him and knew that he loved Val the way that one loves a brother. He forced himself to gain composure and put the situation out of his mind. “What about Laern Cobo? How bad is the Phaser?”
“He got maimed and horribly infected. It doesn’t look good, Rafian, and he has used up his cloning token from that mission a few months past.”
“Listen to me, Tayden. I want them both alive – do you hear me? Dying is not an option for them and I want them to understand this. We have some of the best doctors in the entire alliance down there and you tell them that I request for these men to pull through. Put them in stasis and do what needs to be done, if possible. Make Laern sleep a year if that’s what it takes for him to clone through. Val…put his brain into a cel-toc, whatever – just make sure they pull through.”
“I won’t let them die, Rafian. But realize that these lizards are nothing like the ones we have been fighting all of these years. They are numerous and skilled. You should wait for—“
“We finish the mission, Tayden. Two of our best went down doing that and—how the hell did they get out? Did Laern pop a crystal and pull them through, or did you jump in? We can’t have them learn about the jumping. How were they rescued, Tayden?”
“It was Dott. I don’t know how she managed it, but she rescued them. She said they have a cyborg lizard down there that had her dead to rights. She was pretty messed up, Rafian; she was frightened out of her mind. Let me assemble the hawks and we can jump through and do a bombing run while we wait for the Meluvians to get their act together. Meanwhile, you can find this mechanic lizard and take it out. How does that sound?”
Rafian listened to the strategy Tayden was suggesting and thought about the loss in Meluvian life that would result from it. “Tayden, that’s a negative. Grab the aces and all the recruits and jump in at these coordinates. There have been too many Meluvian casualties and I don’t want us to be responsible for a blanket massacre. We are trained to be specialists, to be precise, so let’s act like it. On your lead I want you to bring order back to the city.”
“Sure, Raf, but do you think they’re ready? The recruits, I mean. Some of them haven’t even—“
“Tayden, three of our Aces are out of commission. None of our recruits are new to warfare; they were the best of the best in their lives before the Phaser Agency. We don’t have the luxury to pick and choose from them at the moment. Look, I know I’m asking a lot and you haven’t been out here much, but Tayden, what else can we do?”
“I’m gearing up right now, Rafian, so don’t think anything of it; you can rely on me. What’s your plan of attack?”
“Same as always, rurit. I’m gonna fight the fan with air.” He hung up the comm and Marian turned her chair around slowly and looked at him.
“So, we’re flying into a schtill storm, is that what I heard from you?”
“Yes, we are.”
“And it will be the two of us against a host of mysteriously skilled murderers?”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
She smiled coyly at him and spun back around to take the ship off of autopilot. “So what the hell is a rurit? I assume it’s a pet name that’s going to make me want to kill you before the Geralos do. Am I wrong?”
“It’s a pet name.”
“Remind me to kick your ass after the war, husband.”
“As long as after you finish kicking my ass, you stick around,” he joked.
Marian flew the cruiser into a swarm of Crak-Ti dropships and began to exchange shots with them as she tried to find a place for them to deploy.
“Open the hatch, Rhee. I’m ready. Set the auto and we hop out and find the Marines.”
“We are going to get our asses kicked, Rafian. Are you sure about this?”
“More than sure, babe. Open it up.”
She opened the circular hatch in the middle of the ship and Rafian ran, somersaulted and fell through it to a sky littered with lasers and gunfire as an intense battle took place above Dystalis.
~*~*~*~
When Frank OTA looked around at the empty Phaser base, he felt slightly panicked. If there was ever a time for the Geralos to reclaim the territory from the Phasers, this was it. Tayden Lark had jumped to Meluvia with over seventy percent of their force and left him behind to play leader and be the bell ringer in case something happened. He wondered at their defenses; if the force field that bordered the Phaser agency would hold, and if they were truly hidden from the Geralos as Rafian and Tayden believed. Worrying didn’t do much, so he made his rounds to check on the recruits, reminding them that they were the “it” if anything was to happen and instructing them to carry a weapon at all times until the fight for Meluvia was resolved. This routine went on for the better part of the day and though he grew tired by evening, his stressing would not allow him to stop.
The city was unaware of the missing Phasers—Tayden’s jump had to be fast and unplanned to save Dystalis—so he spoke to the mayor about defensive maneuvers and made a personal trip to Aurora’s house. The two knew each other from their years on Helysian and he was elated when Rafian told him that she was now in Zallus, but he had not gotten time to visit her and the family. Now he was going to her with grim news and instructions, and it burned him to no end that this was how he would be greeting an old friend.
“Don’t you dare stand out there and ask to be invited in, you handsome lug. C’mere!” Aurora shouted at him as soon as he got to her doorway. He did just that, hugging her tight as he let the door slide shut behind him. She seemed smaller than he remembered, skinnier and more muscular. She had her hair out in the wild afro that was her trademark and behind her within his stroller was a toddler who seemed just as happy to see him.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am that you live here now Aury,” he said as he released the bear hug, fearful he would crush her to death. She was still the young girl with the smile that could light up a room and as he took her in, Velman appeared from the bedroom and crossed the room to shake his hand firmly. Frank pulled him in from the shake to hug him tightly – they had been cadets together on a few missions and a shake would not suffice for men that had gone through so much together. Velman was older, of course, but his beard almost made him unrecognizable. “Look at you with the beard, brother. I tell you, that poor child over there does not stand a chance. Mom has hair that goes on forever and dad has a beard that goes on forever. He’s going to have to shave every day!”
All three began to laugh at his terrible joke and little Ian, who was amused by the shouting adults in the room, instinctively began to laugh, too, which made them laugh even more. It was what Frank needed and within an hour he was at the dinner table enjoying the food Velman had been cooking and playing with Ian, who was told that this was his “Uncle Frank.” Uncle was a term of respect for adults that children were instructed to use when there was a friend to the family, but to Frank, it was much more. Hearing the words made him want to play protector to the child and be there to watch him grow into a great Vestalian.
“You all don’t get to age, do you, Frank? You don’t look a day older t
han twenty, brother,” Velman said as he looked at Frank with interest.
“We can age, I thank you for the compliment. The only thing we aren’t allowed to do is to become inefficient…wait. Raf would kill me. That sounded awfully harsh didn’t it?” The couple nodded slowly as they waited to hear what it was that Frank truly meant. “Okay, let me just spell it out. We are meant to be spectacular fighters, defenders of the galaxy against aggressors like the Geralos lizards. So, if I lose a limb, come down with a deadly disease, or get damaged to the point where my quality of life is crazy, I am forced to clone.”
Aurora was intrigued when she heard this and leaned in to whisper, as if she might be in trouble if she asked it out loud. “Cloned? So, is it still you when you clone, or is it some clever replica that gets downloaded your memories and such so that the rest of us aren’t freaked out?”
“The details are a bit hard to explain, Aury, but it’s us. We don’t get to pass on easily as Phasers.”
“So, what’s to stop you all from abusing that? I mean, it’s for a great cause and a super-necessary one, yeah, but what’s to stop someone from being reckless and putting people’s lives in danger because they can just clone and get a second chance? It doesn’t really seem fair.”
Frank noticed that Velman stood wide-eyed and quiet as Aurora needled him for answers and he wondered if he knew about the cloning, or if it was just so much to process that he couldn’t get involved in the questioning.
“Considering the things we are made to do to earn this privilege, Aurora, it is fair. We get one clone per year unless Rafian, our Supreme Leader, deems it worthy to violate that rule. There’s a young guy in the hospital, poisoned with toxins and missing an arm from the las-sword of a Geralos. He used up his cloning privilege earlier this year, so he may have to live in discomfort for a time unless Tayden can convince Rafian that he is worth it. Outside of the limitation that stops a scenario like the one you’re painting, there is also the fact that one cannot clone oneself. You need a skilled, knowledgeable Phaser to do it for you. Right now, the only ones with that skillset is myself, the Supreme Leader, Tayden Lark and Camille YAN.”
Aurora’s mind was blown. She did not know these things about the Phasers, and as she listened to Frank she felt a bit betrayed that Rafian had not confided them to her earlier. She was his only family outside of Marian and the fact that he was not allowed to die or fall short of being the perfect warrior made her feel sad. It was great that her brother was now virtually immortal, but what kind of life did it mean in the long term? The thought made her balk and she grabbed Frank’s hand to force him to look at her.
“What does this mean for Rafian, Frank? Are Phasers allowed to retire, to have a chance at a normal life with family, friends and loved ones? If the answer is no, then I will die before him, Ian will die before him and while it’s great that his wife gets to be immortal with him, what becomes of their humanity? You lose friends, life becomes this cycle of sadness, loss and depression, and you only know how to kill, pop up on bad guys, police the galaxy, but nothing of family…true family. Please tell me you all have an out.”
Frank stared at her with an apologetic expression on his face for the answer that he would be forced to give. There was no backing out of the dark education. If a Phaser was at the end of his/her line and truly wanted out, the best way to do this would be to talk to Rafian and Tayden. Special exceptions could be made for someone they knew to be worn through and finished with the life, but for the Supreme Leader, Rafian VCA, only the makers could grant him respite from his charge. “We can retire Aurora, but unfortunately, Rafian doesn’t get that option. Look, I’ve told you all too much as it is. The cloning is no big secret, but Rafian is…well, how can I put it? He’s special; he was chosen. Supreme Leader isn’t an elected position, nor is it one that you can pass on. He is here to protect us and he extends that privilege to warriors like myself.”
Aurora sat back hard without taking her eyes off of Frank, twisting her lips into a grimace that made it seem like she wanted to spit. “I know that I am being unrealistic with my dreams, Frank, but I want my brother to live and die happily with people who love him. I owe him my life, as do several hundred people in the galaxy, but I love him. We are practically of the same blood. Everything he has ever done is for Anstractor; everything! Why would he be cursed like this for being such a harbinger of hope for people like me?” She began to weep when she said this and Velman snatched her close to console her.
Frank sipped at the juice that was in front of him and wondered what had encouraged him to be so candid about their mortality. He knew how close Aurora was to Rafian, but he hadn’t known that the Phasers frightened her. He wished they had the ability to reverse time, because if they did he would have come in, made nice and then told them that the town was on lockdown till the Phasers returned. They could clone and fight like hellions, but they couldn’t manipulate time, so he sat and sipped his juice.
“I’m sorry, Frank,” Aurora said. “You don’t need me screaming at you because of my fear. I’m happy to see you and I want you to visit us often.”
“I definitely intend to do that.”
Aurora wiped her face and then looked off to the side. When she looked back at Frank, she had a mischievous smile on her face. He wondered how she could switch her moods so easily, but it was good to see her smile—Aurora was a woman he wanted to keep happy.
“So, mister. You and Tayden, huh? I would have never guessed that you liked loud, little crutas like her, but from what I hear you two can’t keep your hands off one another.”
Frank almost choked upon hearing this. As he collected himself, Velman laughed and excused himself. “I’m going to let you two catch up. Come on Ian, let’s go get you to bed, boy.”
When he left the room, Frank looked at Aurora, his face red from embarrassment. “H-how did you come by this news, Aury?”
“Hmm, let’s just say that the flight from Helysian had me in a vessel with two other women that are very close to you. Girls talk, as you know, and someone let me in on a little too much about their sub-commander’s… erm, sleeping habits. It’s okay, Frankie, your secret dies with me. I just wanted to tease you about it.”
“You mean it dies with you, Velman and the kid,” he grumbled as he thought about the havoc it would cause if Tayden knew that Phasers were talking. “Seriously, Aurora, we can’t talk about this; it’s out of bounds. We aren’t official, may not ever be official, so it would be in my best interest to change the subject and ask you to forget it. Oh, and we’re on lockdown due to the war. Has anyone showed you how to make your apartment slip into bunker mode?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we went through the whole ordeal when we moved in. Look, I’m just happy for you, that’s all. Phaser women seem to all be crutas—except for Marian and Cammy—but if you can get along with the queen of the mice, then I’m happy for you.” She gave him a devilish grin, as if it would cover up the harsh words that she had for Tayden.
“I’m staying out of it, whatever it is between you and Tay.”
He hung out for another hour to help Aurora clear the table and then to smoke a cigar with Velman. But once the hour grew late, he felt guilty for staying so long and excused himself to run back to the base. It was dusty and dry as he sped along the path from the city to the base and he didn’t notice the odd-shaped ship land behind the mountains to the north. Normally, he was always checking the skies, but Aurora’s jokes about Tayden had thrown him off and as he drove the hover bike slowly along, he was looking down at the screen, trying to assess whether she would spread the gossip.
~*~*~*~
Marian set the autopilot so that the ship would circle the area while defending itself and then ran to the hatch and dived out after her husband. It had been a while since she had been in a firefight and the adrenaline ran through her like a current, forcing a smile of excitement to cross her lips.
They activated the wings on their backpacks and glid
ed to the streets. A number of Crak-Ti saw them approach and moved to cut them up with their white-edged swords. Marian threw down a crystal and popped up behind them with her blade humming. As they fell in pain from the mortal wounds she dealt, Rafian picked up one of their swords and turned it on. He had always loved the dual wielding fighters that he saw on vids as a young soldier, and had always practiced to be as good as they were in the real application of the fighting arts. Crak-Ti warriors came at him in pairs and in bunches as he dashed this way and that, letting his twin blades weave slashes of death into their ranks. He wanted the metallic Geralos that he had heard about and he was not going to wait for him to escape, heal, and spring another trap before facing him.
The couple took on all challengers, most confused by the fighting style of the Mera-Ku master, but Marian’s Lucan fencing arts threw them off, as well. They had trained together for a moment like this—the rare time when husband and wife would have to watch each other’s back on the battlefield. The Crak-Ti were in a class of their own, but the acrobatic maneuvers and crystal-play of the VCA couple could not be beaten. To see a Mera-Ku monk fight was akin to watching a master of dance perform maneuvers that didn’t seem humanly possible in cadence. The Crak-Ti couldn’t keep up with Rafian’s blade, and after a time they fled from them to find less skilled victims cowering or hiding within the city.
Once they broke off, Rafian sheathed his blades, pulled out a pulse rifle and began to pick them off as he made his way to the Vestalian marines, who cheered him on as they closed the distance from the drop to where they were standing. As they ran over to the humans, a tough-looking blonde came out to meet them and saluted hard at the sight of Rafian VCA.
“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Hera Kane, sir. It’s an honor to see you!”
“At ease, Marine. What’s your situation?” Rafian said, putting all formalities to the side.
“We are cut to pieces, sir. The lizards have been on us hard the entire day and they fight like nothing that I’ve seen so far. What you did just now though, you have them running scared. I heard stories about Phasers, but that—that was nothing short of amazing.”
