Guardians (Æthyrium Rising - Guardians Book 1)

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  The ship was just like a regular hospital, bigger, but the same, so finding my way around didn’t take too much brain power.

  It seemed that the ‘Blocks’ were just large rooms attached to stretching hallways with a few corners here and there to match the shape of the ship.

  Eventually I found a door that said ‘G Block’ and started to jog. A few seconds later I found ‘F Block’ and I started running. ‘E Block’, I was sprinting. ‘D Block’ and I was sliding around corners and slipping on something trailing down my legs.

  As gross as it sounds, I just assumed it was my bladder giving out and kept going until finally I slid around a corner and saw the ‘C Block’ door.

  I slowed down, steadied my faltering breathing, for some reason I didn’t want them to think that I’d run, don’t know why. Once I was mostly in control of my lungs I stepped inside and immediately spotted Tyr lying on a bed, “Hey buddy.” I said with a wave.

  He looked up and went to wave with his left arm which had been hidden from view.

  That’s when I saw what was wrong.

  “Oh. Shit, sorry.” he said before waving with the arm that still had a hand.

  “Gods Tyr! What happened?”

  He seemed more disappointed than sad as he looked down at the forearm that wasn’t, a metal strap and gauze wrapped around it at the elbow to conceal the stump, “To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember. They’ve got me on a fair bit of… everything. Man I feel good.” he said as he fell back and returned to enjoying the spectacle of the ceiling.

  I felt a crack and heard Mouse’s signature gasp from behind me, which made me spin to see her, “Hey sweetie! How did you get off-world?”

  “Your legs!” she shrieked.

  My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “What, it’s just a little…” that’s when I looked down and saw that part of my shin bone was showing.

  I chuckled for a second, then gave one hard laugh, “Well… shit.”

  I vaguely remember collapsing.

  A Rude Awakening

  After I passed out I remember being shifted around a lot, there was a brief period of stillness when flashing red lights forced their way into my trippy dreams. The words “She’s getting away!” and “There’s a turtle in the hangar!” floated around a lot before I drifted away completely.

  From there it was all dreams.

  A giant hand floated down from the stars and picked me up by the waist, followed by some incoherent giant babbling, to be honest it freaked me right out.

  Suddenly there were blaring sirens, flashing red lights and screams. It took me what felt like a few hours of blinking to realise that I wasn’t asleep anymore.

  I shot up and felt lucid enough to know that I wasn’t under any form of medication. The pain in my legs was gone and, after throwing off my blanket and doing some fairly intense pat-downs through the hospital gown, saw that no bones were jutting out.

  A sigh of relief later and I noticed that I was completely alone. Well, except for the massive Commonwealth Destroyer cruising outside the Block’s window.

  “Hello?” I asked as I climbed out of my bed and walked over to the window that I hadn’t noticed the last time I’d been awake.

  I knew that I wasn’t going to find anyone and the people who’d been screaming were long gone, but it seemed the thing to do when waking up from a mini-coma.

  I looked around outside of the window for floating debris or crew, but instead found a planet. There was no way that I’d been out for any less than a week.

  My brain split and information started flooding in, memories of me being transferred to another ship. I was on a gurney, ripping through a hall, I passed an armoury.

  The pain vanished and I knew where I needed to go.

  A few minutes of hard-core sprinting later I found the armoury and hit the button next to the door. I wasted no time in rummaging through the crap and gadgets that were strewn throughout the room and instead found three glass tubes that looked more like display cases than anything with ‘Raethir Mk. I’ embossed on a metal bar above them.

  The first two, labelled Mouse and Tyr Jadari were empty, but the one in the middle was most definitely not.

  It had some kind of suit inside it that I half-recognised, and, without reading my name printed across the glass, knew it was mine. It was, in a word, menacing.

  The first thing that stole my attention was the glass over the eyes, which was slitted in the middle across the nose while the rest followed the contours of the eyes in a very angular and pointed fashion.

  After a quick examination it became obvious that the entire red and black suit followed that trend. It was like a mix between a wetsuit, a demonic space samurai, and the astronaut equivalent of plate mail.

  I don’t know if I’m getting it across enough, but I think it’s certainly better than ‘red and black space armour’.

  I pressed my hand up on the glass and it flashed green for a second before flying open and pushing the suit forward. I didn’t waste a second and placed my palms on the gloves of the suit, something that I felt like I’d done a thousand time before, and felt a tingling sensation ripple through my arms as the suit started the process of attaching itself to me. The helmet collapsed into pauldrons as the rest bonded with me, forcing me to move around so that it fit perfectly around my body.

  When it finally decided it was happy with its positioning I felt a buzzing sensation ripple across my skin, and, before I could ask what in the Hells it was doing, a fine mist that had been my hospital gown vented out of the armour.

  “Well,” I said before using my chin to hit the button at the base of my collarbone, the helmet engulfing my head in response as the energy screen that I’d first thought was glass flickered to life, “that was an experience.”

  Inappropriate Use

  After I loaded up with a sidearm, grenades, and a laser assault rifle I made a bee-line for the evac station, finding that it was completely devoid of life. It probably shouldn’t have taken me that long to think about it, but I finally checked for life signs on board the ship with my HUD and found none.

  Not so much as a rat was left on the ship, and I was sure the Commonwealth Destroyer wasn’t far from figuring that out as well. I couldn’t just let them have it though, not with all the information that could potentially be on board.

  Then an evil thought passed through my mind, leaving a sly grin across my face in its wake, ‘Perhaps I could give it to them?’

  In a heartbeat I was bounding toward the command deck. I felt like I’d been on the ship a thousand times before and knew everything about it. Something inside me knew that that was weird, but a bigger and louder part of me made it very clear that that was a problem for another day.

  Once I got to the command area I found a wide open door and no AI welcome mat to announce my arrival, something that, for some reason, I’d been expecting. I wasn’t too fussed though, AIs always freaked me out anyway.

  I looked out the layered hard-glass screen that separated the command deck from the freezing death just outside, as well as the Destroyer that looked like it was getting ready to punch a hole right about where I was standing.

  I stopped gawking and got into the warp navigator’s chair and, in an act that absolutely stunned me, set in the coordinates that would put my ship right in the middle of the Destroyer, overriding at least twenty safety protocols in the process.

  I know, I know, what a waste of Federation resources, but everyone else had abandoned the thing, at least I found a use for it.

  After that I shot back to the evac station, ignoring the gurgling in my gut as I got into the nearest Casing I could find, hooked the rifle up on the inside, strapped in, and hit the button that shot me out of the ship.

  It was not a pleasant sensation.

  I let go of my straps for just long enough to type in some codes on the Casing’s keypad that made the front, top and sides of the pod transparent, yet another thing that there was no possible way I knew how to do,
before returning to my white-knuckled grip of the straps. Once I got past the shaking and turbulence I looked up to see another Federation ship coming through a warp tear, clearly responding to a distress call that the others left before abandoning me. It was a fairly small Cruiser, and wouldn’t have had a hope against the Commonwealth Destroyer on its own.

  But it wasn’t.

  The Destroyer came about, charging up its primary guns, the captain of the vessel obviously thinking that my ship had simply cut and run.

  Stupid thought, really.

  A warp tear opened roughly in the middle of the Destroyer as my ship came ripping through the hull.

  The small Cruiser didn’t take any chances though, it released a volley of what I guessed was anything and everything that they had on board, lighting the Destroyer up in beautiful arcs of warp energy and briefly billowing flames.

  A few seconds passed by and then the Commonwealth ship split in two.

  I took some time to whoop and cheer at the glorious kick in the teeth we’d just smashed the Commonwealth with, before returning to panic as my pod broke the small planet’s atmosphere and started to heat up.

  All I could do was watch as the planet sped up toward me. I had faith in my tech, don’t get me wrong, but I also didn’t want to take any chances.

  I punched in some more codes on the keypad and opened up a direct channel to the small Cruiser, “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Omega One” ‘Omega One?’ I asked myself without stopping, “coming in hot on an unknown planet. Speed, Gods! Three eight five kilometres per hour. Trajectory… unknown. Requesting immediate medical attention.”

  Nothing but static came back.

  I went to keep talking to the static, but decided it’d be much more effective if I switched over to an open channel. I had to repeat the message in full five times before I got a response.

  “This is Senior Lieutenant Nicholas Jayeet, medical support will be unavailable Omega One.” a young and obviously shaken but hiding it because of his rank voice came through.

  “With all due respect, why the fuck not, sir?” I asked bluntly.

  “We’ve got a problem with the Commonwealth up here.” he said, completely ignoring my inappropriate response.

  “I just warped a frigate into that steaming heap of slag that the Commonwealth calls a ship Lieutenant, it’s out of commission sir.”

  “Omega One…” he paused and let silence hang over the channel before giving a pained sigh, “look up.”

  I scoffed and looked starward, expecting to see a floating wreckage that further proved my point, but instead saw something that turned my stomach, two Commonwealth Heavy Destroyers that were a little over twice the size of the original Destroyer, or six times the size of Jayeet’s Cruiser.

  “I’ve activated the necessary destruct protocols, and I’m going to try my best to take one of these bastards with us. I’m sorry Omega One, but help’s not coming any time soon. You mustn’t let the Commonwealth gain access to the planet. No matter what.”

  “Yes sir.” I said before saluting the man as he threw his ship into full gear directly toward the closest of the Heavy Destroyers, self-destructing maybe five hundred metres from his target.

  I’d like to say that Nicholas’ sacrifice made a difference, I really would, but that’s not how things play out in the real world.

  In fact, as much as I hate to say it, he probably made it about ten million times worse, at least for that period, as the damage sustained to the Commonwealth vessel from the blast forced it to come in for a rough landing on the planet’s surface.

  I made a silent prayer to the Gods for Nicholas and his men before looking down to the forest that had finally come into view, and took in one deep breath.

  I hate flying.

  Neural Networking

  For some stupid reason the Casing had decided that, at about the ten thousand foot mark, it would be fun to start spinning and tumbling. Hot air was ripping into the pod from somewhere and I was fighting the urge to not pass out as my brain pressed against the back of my skull.

  The pod was screaming at me, yelling about a collision course and how descent control had failed as a few of the thrusters went off, effectively slowing me down and getting me at a less vomitus angle.

  I tried to ignore the fact that the thing was clearly a lot more intelligent than the Casings I’d been used to, that it had codes you could activate that weren’t just for opening the door. Hells, not only did it have comms, it had a bloody on-board computer with auto-thrusters and the works.

  Luckily, perhaps that’s the wrong word for it, but luckily I stopped thinking about all the fancy tech and started focussing on the beautiful green death that was in a hurry to meet me.

  That’s when I saw my saviour and almost cried in relief.

  I cleared my throat and opened up a comm-line with the Pangolin tank, “This is Omega One coming in hot! Out of the Pangolin!”

  The top popped open and I watched as two tiny figures clambered out and ran out of sight into the forest.

  “Collision imminent, adjust trajector-”

  “SHUT IT!” I barked as I smashed the speakers above my head.

  In a naïve attempt to wake up from my nightmare, I locked my eyes shut and waited. Less than a second later I heard crashing and, in the second after that, breathed a sigh of relief as I was consumed by Jelly.

  After the flames from the destroyed Pangolin died down enough the pod zapped the Jelly and I was free to crack my way out of the expensive pile of slag, dusting the powdery remains off my armour as I jumped down onto the black and crispy dirt surrounding my landing site.

  I stretched my arms and legs and gave a few quick jumps to reaffirm that I was on solid ground. “Rifle!” I blurted out almost sadly as I spun to face the burnt-to-shit pod.

  “Yeah,” a familiar voice said from the forest behind me, “fire don’t tend to treat weapons lightly. Now turn around nice and slowly with your hands behind your head.”

  I slowly started to turn, my fingers locked behind my head, when I recognised the voice, “Tyr?” I asked as I faced my Raethir armour wearing brother on the edge of the forest, a pistol in his hands that was levelled with my head.

  It took him a second as well, the armour must’ve been distorting our voices more than I thought, but once he figured it out he relaxed and pushed a button behind his ear, the helmet collapsing into pauldrons as they had on the ship.

  “You’re alive!? For Gods’ sake woman! What in the Hells’ wrong with you? Warping into a Commonwealth Destroyer like that? Dropping into and completely destroying our tank!”

  I pushed the button behind my ear and started walking toward him as my helmet slipped away, “I missed you too,” I said with a smile, “oh! And I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking. And that frigate was empty!”

  Tyr chuckled as I reached him and gave him a big hug, “No it bloody wasn’t! At least fifty hijacked Androids were all through the lower half of the ship.”

  “Oh… Well… Well that’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Not when you nearly get yourself killed you twit!” he said laughingly.

  I’d have loved to continue, but it was at that moment that Mouse came blasting out of the forest and jump-hugged me and refused to let go until we’d both tumbled to the ground.

  I must admit that having her come at me like that with her helmet still active was absolutely terrifying, I almost couldn’t wait to get into the nearest trench possible and start scaring the shit out of the infantry.

  But immature games would have to wait.

  “You nearly died!” Mouse shouted as she disengaged her helmet and helped me to my feet, “It was all like whirowr, and then it was all vwoomp, and then KADOOSH! It was awesome!”

  She stopped as she noticed my smile getting weaker and weaker.

  “Oh yeah… We um… We heard it over the channel. We tried to respond but…”

  I raised my hand to dismiss her, “It’s fine,” I lied, “just as long a
s we follow his last orders. Have you guys figured out what’s so special about this planet yet?”

  They both shook their heads and Tyr pointed out the destroyed tank, “Only thing we’ve found was the Pangolin. Both of us woke up no more than half hour ago in the Casings, and they’d already touched down. It felt kinda weird that someone else dressed me…”

  I laughed, “Believe me when I say putting it on isn’t much more comfortable than waking up in it.” I said before looking back up at the Commonwealth ship looming over us, “So you know no one’s coming, right?”

  Tyr nodded as I looked back over to him and Mouse, “We know, ain’t gonna stop us from holding out against the Commonwealth though. Nicholas and his men had to have died for a reason.”

  I nodded in agreeance, “Too true. First thing’s first Tyr and I need to douse those flames, don’t want any unexpected company, and I need you to find us a place to crash Mouse.”

  Without so much as another word, Mouse disappeared back into the tree line, scooping up the assault rifle she’d dropped before tackling me, while Tyr and I started kicking dirt into the mostly dead blaze.

  Everything we were doing seemed kind of familiar, but I wasn’t quite ready to start talking about it with the others on the off chance that it was just me.

  The Eir was a distant memory, and I mean really distant, like weeks before any of what we were doing on the planet. I knew what the heavily armoured Pangolin hover tank was from sight, even though I’d only ever seen pictures of prototypes.

  I was using high-tech versions of the Casings without thinking about it, and what I did with the ship? I couldn’t even begin to describe. It was like cell memory that had decided to come to me all at once.

  As much as I wanted to keep questioning it and dig further into the enigma that was my own mind, there was also a part of me that wanted to complete the mission, whatever the mission was.