by Greg Dragon
“Please let me have a room near the top of the building facing the square where our Emperor will be,” Marian said to the clerk.
He smiled at her and punched in some details, then stopped to look down at her. “It will be 300 credits for the night, Sha’an. Will it be you inside of the room or should we prepare accommodations for your companions?” he said, looking them over with some frustration.
“Oh, only me, thank you, sir,” she said quickly, but she reached forward and touched his hand and then widened her eyes and tilted her head slightly. The clerk took the hint immediately and triggered the security alert. A trooper walked over with a gun in his hand and regarded them curiously before looking at the clerk.
“Valon, please escort these two gentlemen out of the lobby; I believe they’re trespassing,” the clerk said.
“Oh, no! Please don’t hurt them, they were merely trying to help!” Marian exclaimed as the trooper grabbed the men beneath their arms and walked them out of the building. She could barely hide the grin that crossed her face at thwarting their attempt to play her for the fool. She was convincing as a member of Tyhera’s elite, and they had underestimated her.
“Those two would have taken you up to your room, robbed you, and then made sure you couldn’t talk about it,” the man said.
“Well, that is both frightening and concerning,” Marian replied. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“It is my pleasure, Sha’an,” the clerk said with a smile, and she slid him the credits plus an extra 50, which he snatched up quickly with a look of appreciation across his face. As she made to leave, he held up a finger, and then reached below the desk and pulled out two towels with the hotel’s insignia embroidered on them. As she made to thank him he put a finger to his lips and winked at her to let her know that it was a gift.
Marian took the golden towels and sniffed them, and the spicy scent of Tyheran roses combined with something else on the minty side sent her head swimming in pools of nostalgia. With a smile and a flourish, she crossed the lobby and then ran up the stairs to her new room. The hotel was only five stories high, so she got there quickly. She locked the door, removed her sandals, and took a bath.
The style of the room was an exquisite throwback to a time before technology. The bath used actual water instead of cleaning mist, and there were towels all around it so that she could settle in without feeling the cold porcelain of the bowl. She balanced the hot and cold temperature to a satisfactory warmth, poured in the soap, and then lowered her body into it and closed her eyes to relax.
When she had bathed and laid on the bed for an eternity, trying to calm the nerves that came with the anticipation, Marian napped for the better part of an hour. When she woke up, she washed her face and then expanded the two packing cubes Blu had given her. The cubes produced a variety of weapons and clothing along with a holo transmitter.
She found a lime green dress with long sleeves and a low back, and she slipped it on, along with tall brown boots made for combat but still fashionable. She took her sheath from off the bed, strapped this to her upper thigh where it would be accessible, and clipped the pouch of crystals next to it.
When she was finished with her preparations, she tied up her hair and then touched her nano-comm and sat on the bed.
“Raf,” she whispered as soon as the static cleared.
She could hear the whooshing sound and then a familiar voice, deep yet soothing. “My beautiful hatch kitten,” Rafian said into her ear and she closed her eyes and smiled, trying to envision him riding away from some mischief with the Fels.
“Where are you, love? What’s your status?” she asked him.
There was a moment of silence and the whooshing stopped and then Rafian was back, his voice like someone that was running while talking. “I am … one second, babe.” There was the sound of an explosion and laser fire, then laughter and she could hear Blu the Deijen’s voice, loud and excited. Rafian then said, “Let’s just say I am with old friends, catching up.”
“Good to hear. Are you still on Tyhera, then?”
“Yeah, near Korlath city. We just destroyed a Felitian outpost, one of the important ones. Blu says that it will keep their radios silent about the events on Talula. Have you heard anything?”
“No,” Marian said, “I haven’t had a chance to call Illi since my arrival here.”
“Well Illi is a warmonger, so this shouldn’t surprise you. They moved on the settlement this very morning and are in the middle of a firefight to get the rebels out,” he said.
Marian clapped her hands suddenly with excitement. She hopped to her feet and walked to the window. Outside, there was a drone of trumpets as a parade started, and the troopers were beginning to rope people off from the large open square where Palus would speak. “Everyone is doing their part, and it’s almost time for mine,” Marian said. “Raf, once Felitious falls, it is going to be absolute anarchy everywhere. Does Blu know? Are you ready? Are the rebels prepared?”
“They will know when it happens; only you and I are in on that,” Rafian said.
“You don’t trust them, Raf?” she asked with surprise.
“Don’t worry about our friends. I will get them to safety. You just Phaser up and get through your mission. Listen. You may only get one chance at this,” Rafian said and she could hear his breathing pick up as another explosion went off. “I have to go, but call me when it’s done. Do not tell anyone what you’re about to do, no matter how trustworthy. Palus Felitious is everywhere, but we are outsiders. This is your kill to make, Marian. Drive it home. Drive that cruta home!”
~ * ~
The massive cruiser hovered above the square in order to allow the crowd to dissipate. It resembled a large cricket, if the cricket was without legs and its wings stayed folded at the sides.
Marian trembled visibly as the anger and anticipation grew within her. She stood amongst a cheering crowd of hundreds looking up at the ship. It was the arrival of Palus Felitious, the so-called “Galactic Ruler of Luca,” and she could not keep her anxiety in check, as it threatened to reveal her true intent.
Using her training to calm herself, Marian thought of the chaos that would consume the city once she had taken her knife and driven it into his heart. The cruel image brought a smile to her face and forced her to relax. She began cheering like the women around her, blending in as best she could, like a good citizen of Tyhera.
The cruiser settled down gently, the tiny legs of the cricket touching the ground and supporting its massive body as the procession near the palace began to play the ceremonial battle song of the Felitians. Marian smirked at how safe everyone was feeling: they had thought that the scortchet bomb would wipe out all of the rebels, but they had not counted on a Phaser like herself blinking out of the galaxy only to return to kill their king when his guard was down. She grew more enthusiastic with her cheers; why not celebrate the revenge that was about to happen and the removal of the snake that had killed everyone she loved?
The bridge descended from the ship and a host of Felitian guards marched out in uniformed rows, their black armor shiny and their helmets decorative with bright red tassels protruding from the top. They looked like inky androids with blood gushing from their heads. In any other situation, Marian would have marveled at how pristine and awesome they looked as they poured out of the ship to create a human hallway for their king to walk safely through.
Marian ran at them screaming, pushing the crowd out of her way as she played the part of the intoxicated fan. There were others that did the same, overcome by the joy of seeing “the galaxy’s savior” coming home from another glorious victory. The armored troopers that blocked the crowd from the ship would not let them through and while the one who stopped Marian was not violent, he nudged her back hard enough to let her know not to try it again.
Palus walked down the ramp through his guards with a strong, confident stride. His cloak flowed to the ground in its crimson glory, his golden armor shining brightly underneath.
On his shoulders were decorative pauldrons that held his family crest. It was a crow attempting to swallow a sun and despite her misgivings, Marian had to admit that the armor was beautiful.
I should skin him and bring his pretty shell back home for our trophy case, she thought as she continued to act excited, wanting him to see her amongst those thousands of people. Palus was too busy playing the part of a god to his people to notice another worshipper amongst the throng. He kept his chiseled chin high, its sharp spike of a goatee jutting out in defiance and his tanned, flawless face looking at his palace and the moon that hovered peacefully beyond it.
“You all honor your king,” he said proudly, and the crowd erupted in agreement.
Marian slipped a crystal into her palm as the guards made to build him a path through the crowd. She bent down and tossed it towards the area where she knew their march would lead. She stood up quickly, hoping no one had seen her, then dropped another one at her feet and slipped the carf knife into her palm. Marika had convinced her that the knife’s alien blade could puncture any metal, and she hoped it was true, as she only had one shot at killing him.
The guards began to march and Marian eyed the crystal, hoping it wouldn’t be stepped on or kicked. She cleared her thoughts, silenced the crowd in her mind, and concentrated.
To get this close and miss her chance would be worse than death to Marian. Would they see the crystal, would someone kick it out the way? Each stomp of that oily black procession of death only managed to be a decibel lower than the pounding of her heart. Be calm girl, let fate do it’s work, she thought to herself as she eyed the crystal intently. She could see his head bopping at the rear of his guard, and she could see that the crystal was being kicked around by their marching.
“Maker, be kind,” she whispered intently and bared her teeth as she watched them go. She held her breath; he was almost there, and the crowd was pushing her into the troopers that had already warned her to watch herself. Her breathing stopped and her eyes closed briefly, and she began to whisper to herself.
“Be calm, Rhee, become the knife, become the blade that puts an end to this man.”
As Palus neared the location of the gem, she activated the portal and stepped through the bright tear to emerge in front of him, her blade finding itself buried to the hilt inside his stomach. It had slipped through the armor as easily as paper and though she did it out of instinct, she did not hesitate to admire her handiwork.
Suddenly her hands were moving at blinding speed, stabbing away at the neck and face of Palus as fast as she could. Years of training as a fencer came through with the blurred movement of her hands. Phaser conditioning, time killing Geralos in the field … it was all instinct, and it was unlike anything they had ever seen in Tyhera or the other eleven planets.
By the time the guards had recovered from the stun of the light to realize that their king was on the ground, twitching in a pool of blood, Marian was back where she had started. The bloody knife was back in its sheath, hidden below the dress, and a fresh crystal was in her hand which she threw into the air. She jumped up towards it and was gone in the blink of an eye.
The chaos that ensued after the assassination of Palus was nothing that could be easily described. The Crimson Guard, no longer poised and secure in their judgment, took to the crowd, killing anyone that had on the green and white colors that Marian wore. They massacred people, and the ones that tried to flee trampled one another in a stampede. There were tears, screams and a feeling of foreboding as the reality of what had happened settled in.
While all of this was taking place, Marian VCA emerged from a portal that appeared inside her hotel room and jumped on the bed, screaming happily and rolling around with maniacal laughter.
She triggered her nano-comm and squealed with happiness when Rafian’s voice came on. “How did he die?” Rafian asked.
“Surprised, shocked, humbled, as my blade rendered his pretty armor useless and his masses of guards were unable to keep him safe. I want to believe that I saw regret in his eyes, but I stabbed him no less than thirty times and he’s deader than dead,” she said.
Rafian repeated her words as if to a crowd, and in the background there was an eruption of cheers and applause. Tears began to roll down her face and she wiped them away, but then there came the trembling as her heavy heart grew heavier. She needed him there; if not him then someone else to hug. Palus Felitious was gone, and it had been done publicly and violently. If that didn’t inspire the sleeping masses to overthrow their local masters, nothing would.
“You know, you could have joined Marika’s order back in the day, Rhee,” Rafian said. “But listen, you need to get out of there. We are waiting for you in Genova. Meet me at the old Aygis temple outside of Cally. Do you remember it?”
“How could I forget, Raf? It was once our home,” she said.
“You’re right, the memories of the past right before we jumped to Anstractor are still foggy for me. We have to let things boil for about a week so we may as well get schtill-faced. What do you say?”
“They will be tearing the planet apart looking for a brown woman in a white and green dress and a tiny red woman in all black,” Marian said as she rose. She risked a glance outside her window at the hell breaking loose. “They won’t find schtill. Once the week is up, we can rendezvous with the resistance leaders. With Palus dead and Talula reclaimed, they will be back plotting again, probably wondering who did the assassination. We can catch up with them and give them the necessary direction to reclaim their planets.”
“I anticipate it being another month or so before we can safely jump home, Rhee, but I am proud of you. I will be by your side until you are ready, and if you need more time you need only to ask it,” Rafian said.
Marian’s knees buckled but she hoped that he hadn’t noticed. His words hit her like a bolt of lightning. It was more than his words; it was what was behind them. Here was Rafian, obsessed with his quest to destroy the Geralos, but putting his quest to the side in order to support her in any way she wished. She hadn’t thought this possible back when she left him, but here he was, giving up everything for her.
“You’re the best,” she managed to say, glad that her voice didn’t crack. And to think I was ready to divorce you, she thought, relieved. “I will get everything packed and get out of the city. See you at the temple, and thanks for the crystals. Without them, no, without you, my beloved planet would never be rid of that lunatic tyrant.”
Memory 21
After packing her belongings and shrinking them into cubes, Marian waited for night to come so that the hotel would be a forgotten structure against the violet sky. When it was dark and the streetlights came on to illuminate the roads, she slid the glass of her window up and looked out into the city. The only figures moving below the hotel were troopers running about. It seemed as if the citizens had been ordered to stay inside of their homes by the way the place seemed empty.
She turned and looked up at the sky where the cruisers hovered, shining spotlights, and then she looked off in the distance at the palace, which would normally be the brightest building in all of Veece. The city stood still, a dark, motionless shadow of itself, and a part of her felt remorse for the citizens who were mere innocents in the war.
Turning out her lights and walking to the window, Marian slung the backpack on and checked her 3B suit. She plaited her hair into a single braid so that she could move with relative ease. She threw a leg out and pulled herself up using the suctions on the 3B’s gloves and boots. It didn’t take long for her to gain the rooftop, but when she did, she looked up and saw there was a trooper looking down at her with disbelief.
Reaching down to slide out her carf knife, Marian stuck him in the chest, killing him almost instantly. She tried to push at him to keep him from falling, but he screamed and fell past her down to the ground. The loud thump brought more troopers who ran and flashed lights up at her position. Marian had barely climbed up as laser fire shredded the stone where she on
ce was. She got to her feet, sprinted across the roof’s edge, then jumped on to the next.
The domed rooftops of Veece were not easy to grip, and as soon as Marian landed she began to slide off. If it weren’t for the suctions on her gloves she would have fallen, but she used them to climb the black dome of the city’s temple and ran, slid, and jumped to another while the cruisers began to converge on her location.
Shots were all around and Marian decided that the street would be safer. She slid down a pipe and took to the road, running below the eaves and avoiding the lights. Soon there were new vessels in the air, firing shots recklessly down on the city. Fires broke out and the Felitian cruisers turned their attention on these new invaders. Dogfights broke out above the vulnerable city. Screams were everywhere and Marian sprinted like she’d never sprinted before to get out of Veece.
Buildings started to crumble around her from misfired missiles, but she paid no attention to them as she scampered up a ramp that took her onto the walls surrounding the market. She ran along the wall and jumped as a section of it exploded. The pieces of debris tore into her side and she felt the pressure, but the alien fabric of the 3B suit protected her.
She caught the edge of a window and climbed another structure to the top. Then a missile hit an area a few feet to her right, and the building collapsed, taking her with it.
Troopers and civilians took to the streets, firing up at the attackers. Some of these invaders, who Marian saw were Daltak, had swung down into the city itself and were firing on not only the troopers but the citizens themselves. A dark thought took over her and she wouldn’t let herself believe it. The Daltaks she saw wore the same uniform as Illi’s men, and it was very likely they were a unit sent from the moon to take advantage of Palus’s death.
More missiles exploded and Marian got to her feet to run again. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes to slow the smoke that seemed to be everywhere. She left the ruins of the apartment homes to bolt across the square. Another missile flew near her but she picked up speed, pushing past anyone who stood in her way.
