Fire on the Frontline

by Trevor Wyatt

  I motion for my team members go past me and not wait. I hold the man down with more than the usual strength. I punch him on the face to subdue him some more before I snap his neck. I drag his body into the corner of one of the five tips on this side of the complex, where his body won’t be found for a long time.

  By the time I’m done hiding his body, firefights begin all across the grounds. At first, it starts in the complex before continuing in the security building. Screams and panicked yells escape from the complex.

  I break into a run towards the security building. Ahead I see a litter of bodies strewn about the main entry way. So much for stealth. The guys are already inside, but I know they don’t stand a chance. Still running, I suck in a deep breath and blink twice, activating my network of nanites. I feel a surge in my legs, but I restrain.

  I pull up a heat scan of the building and identify a forward room in the last floor, where a lot of people are aggregating. I also detect a lot of signatures in the room—the armory, I conclude.

  “Here we go,” I mutter, then engage full speed.

  It’s like I’m shoved from behind. My speed peaks up, allowing me to cover the distance in seconds. A few yards to the building, I leap—more like shoot—into the air. I blast up to the third floor and crash through the window into the room. I land on my feet and one hand. Thirty men, my nanites show, all of whom are currently in shock at what has just happened.

  I lift off into the air, rolling three times and letting loose blast after blast of my weapon. When I land on the floor again, the men are grabbing weapons from the racks on the walls and trying to fight back, but there are only twenty left. I run to the nearest cluster, then fall to my knees and slide through into their midst.

  I slam my ankle into the back of one’s neck, killing him instantly, while I send my fist into another’s chest, cracking through and puncturing his heart. I pull out my bloody fingers and flick them at the eyes of the nearest soldier, who screams and goes for his eyes. I grab him and use his body as a shield, while I spray the remaining soldiers on my side of the armory with blaster fire. They all fall dead.

  There are five reaming on the opposite side of the armory. I pull out a grenade from the one I’m holding in a tight fist and lob it over to the five. Before it lands, and while they’re still tracing its trajectory, I pull up my rifle and fire.

  It explodes over their heads disintegrating them.

  I snap the neck of the one I’m holding. He falls to the ground, dead.

  Thirty dead.

  I hear a sound behind me and immediately swivel on my heels, bringing up my gun to shoot. The man raises his hand in surrender.

  I exhale softly, cursing.

  “I could have shot you,” I say to the man, who’s on my team.

  “I just got word from team leader,” he says. “Terran Patrol is coming. They’ll enter the system shortly. We don’t have time to steal the data. We need to leave.”

  I nod.

  I blink twice to deactivate my nanites and following the man back outside. We meet up with the team leader’s team on the grounds.

  “How did they know we’re here?” I ask.

  The man shrugs. He keeps silent. I look at the other men. They were able to get some equipment out, but it’s far less than what we expected.

  We make it back to the ship and lift off in time. We are shooting out of the atmosphere when, at the same time, three Armada heavy cruisers drop out of FTL space. Before they can begin firing, we engage our FTL drive and slip into the safety of interstellar space.

  No One

  We pop back into normal space twenty minutes later at the outer edge of a neighboring system in Tyreesian space, where a Tyreesian war ship is waiting. The large vessel is shaped like a bullet with wings. One end houses the control center, while the other end houses the engines, the thrusters, and the FTL and sub light drives.

  As we make our approach to the thirteenth deck of the behemoth of a ship where we are to be received into shuttle deck number ten, I wonder why the Tyreesians make such powerful vessels. They are so cunningly twisted that they can probably win a fight against three Mariner class cruisers (the most powerful arsenal in the Terran Armada) with a frigate. Yes, they’re that smart.

  “Tyreesian vessel, this is the away team,” the team leader says in the co-pilot’s seat beside me, interrupting my train of thought. “We are approaching.”

  “Proceed with approach,” replies the Tyreesian in charge of the comms.

  I take one good look at the vessel again and think, so why build such massive ships?

  I realize a fundamental problem the Terrans have faced since our first contact with an intelligent species. We’ve always been overpowered and overwhelmed. First, it was the Sonali, whose ships were so large we couldn’t even comprehend how such things could be capable of traveling at a speed faster than light. I mean, those guys’ ships ran for as long as five hundred yards, which at the time was a technological wonder.

  At the start of the Earth-Sonali war, it took about three to five ships to destroy a Sonali cruiser. And about ten to twenty to bring down a dreadnought (thank God they only built a few of those fuckers). Sure, there were a few exceptions, but more often than not the Sonali were too much for anyone to handle. They were a big leap ahead when it comes to upgrades on equipment and ships.

  Terrans were dying all across the galaxy, from Sarelia II to New Sydney. I led the team tasked with obtaining Sonali technology to be studied, reversed engineers, and applied to our ship design process with expediency.

  Once, I recruited a space pirate to help me destroy a Sonali cruiser that had laid siege to a planet. The space pirate succeeded in getting a bomb aboard the ship, which led to its destruction. After sending the pirate off on his way, my crew swept in to salvage all we could. There were many more missions like that, and all the while corporations suspiciously seemed to become very productive and very profitable.

  The space pirate brings a smile to my face. Jeremy and I had a deal and I need to find him. It’s been too long since he held me.

  Of course, my contributions during the war went unnoticed by the greater Terran Union. All I got was a commendation, secretly awarded by the Council of Admirals at Operations Command. After the award was handed over to me, it was then taken back and kept in a vault classified above top secret.

  Many people see Captain Jeryl Montgomery as the one who ended the war. They don’t know that if I hadn’t done all I did behind the scenes, Captain Jeryl Montgomery would long since have perished and the Terran Union would be under Sonali rule. Earth would probably have been glassed. And there would be no Galactic Council.

  Then came the Omarian Gambit the Tyreesians had played during the formation of the Galactic Council. When the ship appeared out of its hiding place behind the sun of that Nova Corporation colony, Jeryl Montgomery, who was then a Vice Admiral and was commanding The Seeker alongside Ashley Gavin, the Captain of the ship that time, had to fire a proton bomb into the sun to cause a mini thermonuclear explosion that incinerated the ship. That’s when the Galactic Council was started.

  Of course, they paid him by demoting him from Vice Admiral back to Captain. Before I left, I even got whiff of another ploy that was brewing to take him down for good. Those fuckers back at Armada Command seem to wallow in their own stupidity.

  I heave a sigh. It feels good to be outside the Armada. No oversight. Nothing to worry about. No reports to file. No one to suck up to. I hated doing all those things—but it was a necessary part of my job.

  Well, not anymore. I’m free.

  I guide the ship through the shielded open entryway into the wide bay of the shuttle deck. We land safely and I power down the ship.

  “We’re in trouble,” the team leader says, pulling off his mask. “We’re so in trouble.”

  I shrug.

  “We’re the ones running this op, sir,” I say. “Yeah, we may not have gotten everything out, but this is our show. The Tyreesians are only help
ing.”

  “Do you seriously believe that?” He asks.

  No, I don’t. But I don’t say it.

  “These are Tyreesians we’re dealing with,” he says. “Their backup plans have back up plans of their own.”

  And he walks out.

  I almost admire the Tyreesians. I mean, I can be crafty sometimes. I can be cunning. In fact, being crafty and cunning is part of a normal day in being a spy. However, there’s a limit to how crafty and cunning one might be before it becomes a chronic psychological problem. It becomes an obsession.

  The Tyreesians aren’t just past the limit, they are light years in excess. I wonder why they haven’t all gone mad because of this. Maybe it has something to do with their larger brain size than ours. Maybe they have higher brain power. That would explain how they’re able to build such great ships and the matter transport technology.

  I follow the team leader out of the ship into the shuttle bay. Our men are milling around the ship, their guns slung on their backs. I count. There are about nine of us.

  A few engineers enter the ship to check out the transport technology that was installed recently, while others go about the ship, performing checks.

  The transport needs two platforms. One for sending. Another for receiving.

  The shuttle bay is really large, like a small corvette may fit into this place. There are stacks of equipment on both sides of the bay, while ahead is a raised platform, where the exit and entrance into the bay is, and a ramp that leads up to the platform.

  The entry way opens and a couple of Tyreesians walk in. They are all holding assault rifles, which makes me stiffen. I feel the urge to go for my gun, but I bite down on it. The last person to enter isn’t crating any rifle. And he’s dressed in white—immaculate white that glares under the harsh white overhead light.

  “You blew it!” he roars as he makes his way down.

  The team leader and I make our way through the retreating men until we are standing between them and the ranting Tyreesian.

  He’s short before us, at only four feet tall. His silky skin glints as he gesticulates in anger. They might be small, but Tyreesians are thick and have a sturdy build, hence they are averagely powerful. Tyreesians have slits for eyes and ears, and a third eye on their forehead that is perpetually closed.

  I heard that the third eye opens only at the point of death. The Tyreesians are a little guarded about that matter, so very little is known about it. It’s supposed to give them sight into the immaterial realm, to see thoughts, feelings, or to possibly peer into the future.

  “Why did you blow up your chance?” he yells again, his gaze shifting from me to the team leader. “We put so much into this and you humans go and spoil it. The Terran Union is going to develop FTL 6 technology and it will make our matter transport look like a child’s toy! The balance of power in the galaxy will shift ever in your species’ favor, human!”

  He calls humans like he’s calling ‘vermin’. I almost recoil at the voluminous amount of hatred that he spouts.

  I look ahead. The rifle-totting Tyreesians on the platform are standing in a line, as if in a firing squad. I wonder if this is it.

  I look over my right shoulder to a man that’s hanging on the edge of the milling terrorists. He meets my gaze. We don’t speak or make any motion, our eyes only connect, yet volumes are communicated.

  I glance back at the ranting Tyreesian.

  “Look, Commander, it wasn’t our fault.”

  I’m forceful in my words, doing my best to create and channel anger into them.

  “What do you mean?” he blasts back. “Half of your men are gone. You did not even get the equipment we were hoping for. You were almost caught by the damn Armada, yet you had all the time. You had the element of surprise. You had more men than you needed. You had our superior weapons and our transport technology.”

  He waits for me to explain, but I remain quiet. How can I explain, when the evidence against me is overwhelming?

  He’s about to continue his tirade, when I begin to think of something.

  “Look, we didn’t plan for the Armada to show up,” someone says from behind. It’s the man I was looking at earlier. He leaves his position at the edge and comes to my side.

  “And who are you?” the Tyreesian commander asks.

  “I’m Zhang, Commander,” he replies. “I went with the team. Anyways, the alarm went off so soon I think the ship triggered something while it was landing that alerted the Terran Armada. By the time we were just starting to take up the equipment, Armada heavy cruisers dropped into the system unannounced.”

  I jump in, “Right, the good news is that we have caused StarTech so much loss with what we took. They’ll have to reassess the cost of running that colony now, and I think they’ll pull out when they realize the cost.”

  The Tyreesian seems pacified. “You know that StarTech is working on this world as a subcontractor to the Terran Armada on mining rare metals for the FTL 6 drive. I hope for your sakes you are right and the corporation pulls out. If it does not, you are the ones who will suffer.” he says.

  Without another word, he turns and leaves the shuttle bay, his squad following him out.

  No One

  “Well, that was intense,” I say with a smile. My face and chest are both balmy and it isn’t because of the thick layers of cloth I’m wearing. It’s because we may have come too close to fighting with our Tyreesian friends.

  I would have had to engage my nanites openly—which I’m not ready for these guys to know about. They’d prefer me as a lab guinea pig than as an asset they can use on the field.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Zhang says, his hands on his hip and panting loudly.

  The team leader doesn’t turn away from the open entry way for a while. I glance at him.

  “Boss,” I say, “is everything all right?”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “Boss?” Zhang says.

  I hope he doesn’t order that we take the ship. You may think that only someone that has gone bananas would give such foolish orders. Well, that’s our team leader. I have listened to him give more useless orders than the one I suspect he wants to give.

  Another part of his character that knows no bound aside from his brutality is his anger. The guy can hold a grudge like his life depended on it.

  I step into his front, pulling his eye-sight. In my periphery, I can see Zhang tense. I have to keep this team together and in the Tyreesians’ good favor, otherwise my coming here would be in vain. All those lives lost would be in vain.

  “Boss, we still got work to do here,” I say. “We can’t go making trouble with the Tyreesians.”

  There is a jerk that heralds the FTL drives coming online. The shuttle bay door slides down and clamps shut. Then the vessel vibrates and we enter into FTL space.

  “We need to remain calm,” I say. I almost lay a calming palm on his shoulder, but I stop in midair when his gaze turns brutish.

  I take a step back, though I don’t fall into a defensive stance because I know that’s just going to get him all riled up.

  “You don’t have to fucking explain to me all that,” the man says. “I know perfectly well. But these guys need to be taught that the agenda that’s important right now is our agenda, nothing else.”

  Oh, it may seem as though they are pushing our agenda, but the Tyreesian agenda is what’s being pushed. I don’t say this, but I know it for a fact. When dealing with a Tyreesian, you just have to make do with what you get. Work with them and hope that their own surreptitious agenda doesn’t get in the way of yours.

  “Yes, boss,” I say. “Now isn’t the time. Maybe when we rejoin our brothers and we’re more than eleven tired people?”

  He nods. “You’re right.”

  He turns to address the others. Zhang comes to join me behind the team leader, but I motion for him to remain where he is. By coming to my aid and answering the Tyreesian commander, it already looks suspicious. I don’t want it to be too ob
vious that I have developed some sort of connection with him.

  “We lost good people today,” he says to the men, his expression forlorn. “But this is for the greater good. This is for our cause. And where we lost one, the unholy Union will lose one hundred times more.”

  The men mumble their agreements. Some remain quiet. Frankly, I don’t think they’re interested in any pep talk at the moment. They just want to rest up and maybe get some sleep. They aren’t in the mood to be talked up. But trust the team leader to be inappropriate and insensitive to the obvious plight of his people.

  “The Tyreesians may not see this as a victory,” he continues, “but I tell you, we are not here for the Tyreesians.”

  I look around. The engineers around aren’t paying us any heed.

  “They are here for us,” the team leader cries on. “And I say we were victorious. Our brothers did not die in vain. Yet, we will avenge them with the fury of a hellish beast.”

  He pumps his fist into the air.

  I look at him, aghast. What the fuck? Really? Hellish beast?

  I throw a questioning glance at Zhang. He shrugs. The men don’t respond like they’ve actually been inspired. They mumble and some just nod.

  The man puts his hand down and says, “Alright. Get some rest. I’ll let you know when we are assembling.”

  The men disperse out of the shuttle bay quickly.

  Zhang comes to my side and whispers, “Was he shooting for funny?”

  I chuckle, which draws the team leader’s attention to me. I wipe the smile off my face. The man looks from me to Zhang and back to me.

  “Isn’t he too short for you?” The team leader asks.

  At first I don’t understand what he means. Then when I look at the lustful way he looks at me, his eyes devouring my slender body and ample chest, it dawns on me. I’ve never been one to shy away from my…physical and sensual attributes. If anything, I use them to my advantage every single time it presents itself to be used in such a way.