by James Somers
The sniper spoke into a com-link attached to his lapel. “Master, may I take the shot.”
Over the com-link came the reply, “You may take the shot. We are in position.”
The sniper touched the trigger of his long rifle and an infrared beam, visible only through the telescopic lens, appeared on the chest of the white haired male standing on the ledge. He waited for the right moment as traffic from the airway lanes passed between him and his target. A nice break between vehicles provided the perfect opportunity and the sniper squeezed gently on the rifle trigger.
☼
Kale looked over the city wondering how he and Wynn would be able to maneuver unnoticed among the dark skinned Vorn long enough to find Lucin without being attacked or apprehended by the military presence. The Vorn military might have been defeated during the beginning of the Baruk conflict back on Castai, but they were reported to still be quite active on Demigoth. And two Barudii would likely be seen as hostile invaders and subject to every bit of malice they could manage.
Kale looked back at Wynn still standing on the opposite ledge near the building’s corner. He was still watching the monitor for clues to Lucin’s whereabouts in the city.
“Have you seen anything on the monitor that might indicate he’s here in the city?” asked Kale.
“Well I haven’t—“
A single silent, burst of energy slammed into Wynn’s chest as he spoke. Blood stained the wall behind the Barudii warrior as he stumbled back and caught the corner of the building with his left hand.
Kale couldn’t believe it, “Wynn!”
The elder warrior slumped down along the wall and struggled to crane his neck around the corner to see Kale as he got to his feet to come to Wynn’s aid.
“Kale,” he said weakly as he bled profusely from the entry and exit wounds, “RUN!!”
More shots began to peck into the wall of the building around Wynn. His head dropped lifeless as the last bit of blood pressure failed him. Kale’s friend and teacher was dead.
The shots continued, but were coming from different buildings around Kale. He took off running down the length of the ledge, igniting a kemstick along the way. Shots were coming from every direction. Kale leapt away from the ledge and allowed his self to drop back down into the alley way between the buildings.
Kale landed amid puddles of water in the alley, but he was not alone.
“How good of you to come to my party,” said Lucin. There were at least a dozen people with him; all of them looked very much like the feral Horva from Castai, but they appeared more lucid. “I’ve found more followers since my arrival,” said Lucin confidently.
Kale was still brandishing his ignited weapon before him, but the alley was a dead end behind him. The only way out appeared to be through Lucin and his minions.
“I didn’t think you found the Horva body very hospitable,” said Kale.
“Interesting thing, it seems the first generation clones possessed something these don’t.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Wasn’t it?” replied Lucin.
“Well, will it be one at a time or altogether?” said Kale to the whole group.
Lucin was clearly amused by the young man’s confidence, considering his predicament. “Your father wouldn’t share your optimism, I think,” said Lucin.
Kale knew Lucin was baiting him, but his fury won out and he rushed ahead at him and his Horva followers. Several of the Horva rushed in between Kale and their master to protect him. Kale slew them quickly without a break in his stride and kept gunning for the Mithrial-man.
Lucin brought forth a surge of kinetic power that captured Kale and sent him flying back into a number of garbage collection containers at the rear of the alley, despite his mental efforts to counter the attack. Clearly, Lucin was gaining in strength and Kale realized he was facing off with a being of far greater power and immeasurable evil. He clamored out of the garbage containers and hurled his body through a nearby window and into the darkened building, hoping to escape and fight another day.
Once inside the building, Kale ran through the narrow corridor he found before him. More of Lucin’s Horva leapt out from the shadows to attack him; they were everywhere. Kale engaged them with his blade and hand to hand.
Lucin has been waiting for us to come. This attack is too coordinated, thought Kale as he fought off the Horva and tried to keep moving.
“You can run, little king, but you cannot hide!” shouted Lucin from somewhere within the building. He was close. Kale found an opportunity to flee the Horva and took it.
Outside the building, people were milling about on the streets as normal. The glass of one large front window in the building burst outward as a young light skinned man jumped through, carrying a sword of light. Kale hit the ground running as glass shards scattered everywhere on the sidewalk and into the street. He saw motorized vehicles running on treads and others on wheels in the street before him and he considered commandeering one of them to try and make his getaway faster.
A lesser man might have thought he was running out of fear, but Kale’s intention was to win the battle with Lucin and he was outmatched at the moment. He had to get away so that he could ultimately defeat him.
As he looked over a few of the passing vehicles, Kale’s moment of indecision was enough to allow his pursuers to catch up to him. A Horva man came at him from behind. Kale deflected the man’s melee weapon with one hand and with the other he used the attacker’s momentum to send him on into the street. The dark skinned man collided with one of the wheeled vehicles, sending his battered form sailing across the pavement like discarded doll. Two more were coming at him through the window Kale had shattered—one carried a pulse weapon and the other held a short sword.
Kale hurled his blade at the man with the rifle as he tried to take aim and fire on the Barudii warrior. The other man slashed at Kale, but he evaded him easily; stepping in to quickly disarm the man of his sword and land several powerful blows to his stomach, throat and jaw. His attacker fell backward onto the pavement bleeding from his mouth. Kales blade was still planted in the man with the gun further away.
Pulse laser fire began to erupt from every direction upon Kale’s position. Instinctively the young king shielded his self within a kinetic bubble. The hollow sounds of laser bolt impacts was deafening inside the bubble. Kale searched in every direction but the sight was the same—everywhere around him soldiers and civilians alike were closing in and firing automatic weapons. Kale looked like the victim at the center of a neon-insect attack as laser fire came upon him like rain within his mentally generated forcefield.
Lucin walked into the street and up to the kinetic bubble. All weapons went silent as he approached. Kale turned to find the Mithrial-man there behind him. Lucin exerted his own power upon Kale and the charged bubble around the king failed. The two men were suddenly toe to toe and a lightning fast exchange of fists took place with Lucin landing a blow to the side of the young man’s face. Kale reeled back, staggering as though he had been belted with a piece of stone. Lucin quickly snatched the boy king up, his feet dangling in the air. He looked the youth straight in the face, “You cocky human. How dare you even attempt to engage me,” said Lucin and he spit in Kale’s face and then threw him into the side of the vehicle already stopped in road next to them. Kale’s body shattered the glass windows of the vehicle’s doors as the metal caved in. He fell to the ground face first before Lucin and lost consciousness.
☼
Grod and Emil stared in disbelief at the huge monitor plastered to the side of the gargantuan building reaching to the clouds before them. The city of Gaj was a truly magnificent place to behold, with its busy streets and bustling pedestrians constantly on the go from sunrise to sunrise and on and on. Grod thought it a dizzying cycle—don’t these people ever sleep, he wondered.
But the event being played in a continuous loop as news broadcasting before their eyes was staggering in a way that left them completely speech
less. Pictures of a white haired, fair skinned man lying in a slump with lifeless eyes and a pained expression frozen upon his face chilled Grod to the bone. It was incomprehensible—Wynn Gareth, Barudii Master Warrior, was dead at the hands of the Vorn and Horva residing in this shining megalopolis.
The video images of Wynn continued to the point where his body was removed from the building ledge he had been killed upon. The disturbing images continued further though, revealing the fate of Kale. He could be seen in the middle of one Gaj’s busy streets throwing a man into an oncoming vehicle and taking down two other combatants before forming a kinetic forcefield to protect his self from a massive barrage of laser fire. Then he appeared; Lucin himself. The two struggled before the cameras and Lucin got the better of the young king. After showing Kale being bound and hauled away from the street, the video cut to an announcement of the public execution of the Barudii king. The day was set for today, a few hours from now, in a large spectator sports arena.
“We’ve got to find out where that place is,” said Grod.
Emil was stunned—he couldn’t take his eyes off of his best friend being taken down by Lucin himself. He had faced the Mithrial-man himself and lost, but for Kale to lose was astounding. Lucin was growing in power to be sure and Emil wondered how they could ever defeat him.
“Emil?” said Grod while shaking his son out of his minor trance. “We’ve not got much time to find Kale.”
Those words pulled him back to the task at hand. The men pulled up the satchels they had carried with them and proceeded down the street looking for the nearest public transport depot. The Barudii’s weakness among the Vorn was not Grod or Emil’s—they blended perfectly with the natives.
☼
Lucin walked out of the officiator’s suite onto the terrace overlooking the Gaj city arena. The terrace was reserved only for dignitaries and his name had spread quickly as the defeater of the Barudii enemy. Many of the people living in Gaj city could remember the attacks by the Barudii sphere weapon. A large portion of the megalopolis had been destroyed during planet-wide attacks. The sports arena and the entire western city complex were dedicated to those who had lost their lives in the attacks. To have the latest Barudii king bound before them and awaiting a horrible public death was merely justice in their eyes.
It’s the perfect scenario, thought Lucin. They hate the Barudii because of the sphere and none of them seem to understand who I am.
Of course, Lucin was not without his own followers. He had been quite busy assimilating as many Vorn and Horva as possible and then sending those out to assimilate others into his will. In the two weeks after his arrival in the city, Lucin had managed to incorporate nearly ten thousand Vorn and Horva into his group of symbytes. The Horva were best suited for the kind of task he had in mind; complete domination. These later generation clones were certainly not the prized specimens he might have craved. But the first generation clones, like Grod, possessed immunity capable of destroying his symbyte form within their bodies.
The crowd beyond the terrace was cheering wildly. Word was spreading quickly about the great charismatic warrior among their people, Lucin. He alone had been able to defeat and capture the Barudii king. In the middle of the arena was a fair skinned young man; the object of their bloodlust. The Barudii would die as a further memorial to the Vorn that had been killed years ago.
☼
Kale tried to open his eyes, but they did not wish to obey him. He attempted to maneuver, but his bands held him fast to the stone column standing in the arena. Thousands upon thousands of dark skinned people were cheering as they watched him. Kale had a feeling the cheering had little to do with well wishing.
Several barred doors stood at the far end of the arena ahead of him. Kale watched as a dozen leonase paced back and forth just behind the bars. Kale tried to free his hands, but he lacked the strength to pull against the fibrous bands that held him. His face was hurting on one side, but the pain was dulled. They must have drugged me, he thought. Kale couldn’t concentrate enough to utilize his kinesis. He was absolutely defenseless.
☼
Emil nodded to his father as Grod handed his son the fried meat snacks in a basket, called metin. His father was posing as a vendor and making his way through the crowd as he covertly planted the charges they had carried with them to Demigoth. Grod needed enough to make a good diversion so that Emil could get into the guarded arena and release the king.
Emil watched his best friend strapped to a post inside the arena. He wondered if this was the sort of entertainment the Vorn usually craved. Kale looked bad. Emil could see that his face appeared swollen on at least one side and the flesh tone was mottled with bruising. He didn’t look like he even had the strength to hold up his head.
At the far end of the arena, a leonai was clawing against the bars which kept it from the bound prey being offered. Nearly a dozen of the beasts waited with excitement to tear Kale to pieces before the assembled crowd. The Leonase were stealthy predators in their natural environment and could be found in the grassland areas on several planets including Demigoth and Draconis. They sported short dark gray coats and wooly light gray manes on the males only. It looked like a mixture of sexes waiting to feast upon Emil’s friend.
There were guards posted all around the entrances to the arena area itself; mostly Horva from what Emil could see. They definitely were not the feral type of brute Horva that his father had talked about being produced by the Vorn clone facilities on Castai. These appeared tame enough in their manner, but tough looking nonetheless. His father had been able to rally the Horva of the first generation on Castai to rebel against their Vorn masters—Emil wondered if these Horva were ready for such an uprising to gain their own freedom.
Lucin stepped to a microphone and addressed the thousands of spectators present for the Barudii king’s execution and said, “People of the great city of Gaj—though I am new to your city and your world, you have welcomed me with open arms and thousands of your people have already embraced my plans for the future. I hope to help you rebuild the great empire your clan once enjoyed and the dominion you once held over the other habitable planets of this system.”
Cheers spread across the stadium as the people reveled in the hope of spreading out and conquering as they had in the past before the Barudii sphere weapon came. He continued, saying, “As a show of my power and as a good faith offering to you as allies in this war, I have brought you the king of your mortal enemies, the Barudii. This clan was once believed to be wiped out, but this has not been the case. They survive still and have been gathering a great army with which to attack your planet. Even now, this man’s army may be approaching Demigoth with orders to carry out a brutal invasion and kill your children.”
Emil listened to the Mithrial-man’s lies to the Vorn—the crowd was eating it up. They wanted to hate Kale and the Barudii—they wanted revenge and nothing else was going to satisfy them. Lucin played their emotions like a finely tuned instrument. They were playing with the Devil and didn’t even realize it. This is going to make it very difficult to bring our army against Lucin, thought Emil, he’s preparing them for an invasion that isn’t meant to be against them at all. We’ll never gain them as allies now. They’ll automatically smell deception with anything we try to tell them.
Emil’s com-link beeped. “Yes, Father?”
“Head down to the arena,” said Grod though the link, “I’m setting off the charges in five seconds.”
“Affirmative.”
Emil got up from his seat and moved quickly down the aisle toward the arena floor. It was shielded by a transparent dome with access points guarded by Horva clones. No Problem. Emil was counting the seconds as he made his way to the ground level amid the cheering spectators and Lucin’s tirade booming over them. He turned right on the ground level walking along the edge of the arena floor area just outside of the dome. Emil had his eye on two guards ahead of him at one of the access ports. He wasn’t wearing any weapons. The charges
his father had gotten into the arena were a special compound that was organic and able to be triggered by a specific frequency that he could produce with his com-link. The guards had checked over both of them on the way in and had not paid any attention to the recall devices they wore on their wrists.
Many spectators were passing back and forth before the guard at the access point as Emil approached. When he got within twenty feet of them, the first charge went off in the stands among the cheering spectators. A wave of panic quickly passed through the stadium. Emil rushed the guards as they turned toward the sound of the explosion. As the other charges fired, six in all, Emil took down both of the Horva guards with lightning fast hand to hand combinations. He grabbed one of the guard’s pass keys and swiped the card through the reader at the door. The door unlocked.
Lucin was interrupted by several explosions occurring all over the stadium among the rows of spectator seating. It’s a rescue attempt—Lucin slapped the release button to the cages of the leonase.
Emil ran through the security door onto the arena floor. Kale was twenty yards ahead of him and Emil broke into a full sprint. Out of the corner of his eye, Emil noticed the leonase had been released from their cages and they were heading straight for Kale. I knew I should have grabbed that guard’s weapon!
The leonase had forty yards to close the distance between themselves and their prey. They panted happily as saliva moved into their hungry mouths—they had been deprived of food for two days to be sure they were ready for a feeding frenzy.
