by Greg Dragon
Still, one of the more brazen women did not like the fact that she had to leave. To get back at him she had trained her daughter to fight, and when she enlisted she had come with a message that was only for the Minister to read. The poor girl had stood in his office fidgeting as he opened the note, which was an overt threat of exposure if Ari didn’t personally look after his daughter.
He took the threat seriously and took Lasae under his wing, personally training her in the covert arts of the Crak-Ti. When she became a woman, he named her as his second-in-command, and this was accepted by the Crak-Ti Corps. Lasae loved Ari, even though she didn’t know that he was her father, and Ari in turn loved her as a daughter. One night he had slipped out and cut her mother’s throat. He had never loved the woman and couldn’t live with the fact that she’d gotten one over on him.
Lasae was told that a human Phaser had killed her mother, and Ari took the opportunity to build up her hate for the Vestalian race. So when the mission came up to raid the base on Vestalia, Lasae was the first to volunteer, despite the objections from her father for her safety. Now, as he stood there, he thought of their long years together. She had his eyes, his teeth, and his milky green skin color. His large eyes throbbed and ejected mist, which made it hard for him to see. He leaned over crying, his body convulsing, and he hated himself for allowing her to go on that mission.
He had plenty of illegitimate children and none by Saya, so Lasae was his one and only heir. He was going to tell her the truth about her lineage, but that was something he was saving for his own retirement. A fury rose up in him beyond anything that he had felt before, and he focused his rage on the Phaser leader, Rafian VCA. He had looked into the man and knew enough about him to know that he had a similar power to the Geralos to invade minds, and had come into his position by traveling to his home planet of Geral and slaughtering a village of innocents.
Rafian VCA was the cruelest of humans, and he had come into a large army of religious zealots that could do amazing, magical things. He looked down at the crystal in his palm, and then threw it in the bowl of the podium with a curse of disgust. A column of light exploded from the podium and he found himself suddenly overtaken by a feeling of weightlessness. His mind couldn’t focus and he seemed to be leaving his body. Fear took over as he remembered his own mortality, and he focused on Geral and how their power was slipping.
He thought of Lasae, and how he wished that he could take her home to see his gardens, made up of thousands of exotic, off-world plants and maintained around the clock by a team of Cel-tocs. He could see her smiling face and hoped that she would be waiting in the afterworld. Then the light consumed him and he was standing in his garden with Saya and the Cel-tocs staring at him in surprise.
“Husband?” Saya asked as she looked him over, and he removed his helmet to see if it was real. “How did you appear there like that? I thought that you were offworld … I am so confused as to—”
She scrambled from the garden to gain the stairs, and she screamed out, “PHASER!” as she fled. Ari didn’t bother to stop her as he checked his surroundings and then checked his limbs to be sure that he was truly there. When he realized what had happened he began to laugh, a deep, impressive laugh that made him shake all over. Saya came out again with a large gun pointed at him but he continued to laugh until his eyes began to mist.
“Saya, my dear, I’ve just come from Virulia.” He held his stomach, as if that could slow his laughing, then held up a hand to motion for her to stop. “I came home using the magic that the Phasers use against us! It was with the crystal, the same one I showed you. Come, I will need the one you wear around your neck. I will replace it, but with it we can turn the tides and retake Vestalia from them.”
Saya stopped and reached up to touch her necklace. He had given it to her as an anniversary gift a few months back and she had grown to cherish it above all else. “This thing allows you to teleport?” she asked him with disbelief, and his smile and misty face was all she needed to realize that it was true.
* * *
“You lost your way, son of Anstractor,” a voice hummed inside of Rafian’s head. He understood the words but decided that it wasn’t a voice. It felt as if his thoughts were being controlled by someone else, and he could do nothing but witness whatever it was that the being was trying to show him.
The world was dark and he could see nothing, so he lifted a hand to touch his face and found that he could feel his nose, eyes, and mouth. Everything was in place, but when he spoke no voice came out, and when he made to take a step, he realized there was nothing to step on.
“You have forgotten what they have taken from you, young Rafian!” the thought echoed into his head, producing a migraine that forced his hands up to touch his temples. It was the Makers, he surmised, the Neeraki Sentients that had visited him when he first took over the jumpers.
They had come into his life to give him a charge: he was to protect the crystals, and he was to destroy the Geralos, which they called a “genetic mistake.” He had done this, protecting the crystal’s secrets and amassing an army of specialists to destroy the Geralos. But now they were saying that he’d lost his way and it confused him immensely. He moved his lips to speak and found that whatever had stopped him before was gone.
“How have I lost my way, masters?” he asked. “Have I not started a war that will eventually wipe out all life on Geral? Have I not liberated cities on Vestalia and moved in military powers that will eventually retake the planet for humanity? Have I not kept the crystals to be a secret known to Phasers and Phasers alone? How have I lost my way? I am the same man that entered your ship and took on the honor of becoming your voice and hand here in Anstractor.”
There was silence, and his headache subsided. Then the darkness passed and he was floating in space. He flailed a bit in panic, wondering why he wasn’t dead, but when he saw the shimmering light that enveloped his body he knew they had wrapped him in a substance that would let him survive deep space.
“Look around you, tiny insect. Look at the beautiful planets of Anstractor. This is the charge you were given, to protect this system, and eliminate the rogue planet,” the thoughts barked, seeming to be frustrated with him.
“I just don’t understand. What have I done wrong? Everything that has led up to this day has been in line with what you’ve asked of me,” Rafian said.
“Has it really? Do you really plan to eradicate the entire race of Geralos? Or is this a lie you tell us, when in truth you plan to eliminate only the ones you deem hostile and allow the rest to live?”
Rafian was dumbstruck but he knew that the accusation was not far from the truth. One of the risks that he had taken with the powers that the crystals gave him was to meet his mind with that of a Geralos commander. Through the eyes of his enemy he had learned that the lizards weren’t all bad, and were quite sentient, and this had softened his heart for them. He had seen baby Geralos, filled with ambition and good intentions; mothers and fathers; students of literature, arts, and science. It was hard for him to admit that he felt something for them but he had begun to understand the Geralos, and this had made him alter his plan for their genocide.
“You lost your way, Rafian, but we will remind you,” the voice echoed, moving into a sinister laugh as Rafian’s eyes went blind and the world as he knew it changed.
Before him he saw his hero of old, Helga “Hellgate” ATE. She was kissing Cilas MEC good luck before hopping into a nighthawk aircraft, and then she was lifting off from a base of some sort. He saw her leading her fleet, tearing apart the buildings on the moon of Meruda. Then he saw her ship engulfed in flames, and the beautiful white hair that was on her head catching fire as it burned up to her scalp and melted the skin from her bones.
The grizzly scene froze as his eyes followed the laser fire that had hit her, and he saw that it had come from one of her own soldiers. The Geralos were masters of mind control, and one of the youngest girls inside of Hellgate’s squad had become compromised.<
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The scene switched and he saw the Geralos that controlled the girl sitting in a row with several others inside of their temple. All fifty Geralos was playing puppeteer to someone in the Alliance, and all fifty looked ridiculous with their fingers jammed inside their mouths, which was what they did to start the invasion of a mind.
Next Rafian was taken back to his youth, where he was digging inside of a garbage can, looking for anything edible—but not too rotten—to still the pain inside his belly from the hunger. Time seemed to rewind, showing him on board a transport ship. He was in the arms of a beautiful, dead woman, being pulled away while a number of other people wept and covered their mouths. This scene rewound, and the beautiful woman was running for her life. She was very pregnant, and the ones chasing her were Geralos.
Rafian made to protest but was muted again as the scene changed to him onboard a psyche ship looking madder than a snake with a back itch. He shoved open a door and saw Camille on a bed with wires everywhere. The tough woman was crying, her torture too much for her to maintain her composure. Again the cause was the Geralos, but this scene had only been a year ago so Rafian remembered it quite vividly.
The Makers took him through a sordid history of atrocities by the Geralos, and showed him a touching scene where a child defended one of them from her murdering father. The Geralos feigned gratitude, but bit into her head and sucked at her brain only minutes after killing her father.
When it was all finished his true vision returned and he was back floating above Vestalia. He could see the other planets and the blazing sun, and he could make out Alliance battleships blasting away at their Geralos counterparts.
“Do you remember now, Rafian? Do you remember what they are and what you must do?” the thought pulsed, and Rafian closed his eyes and nodded.
“No mercy, I know. I get it. No mercy for the Geralos. I will wipe them out and terraform their planet for the Alliance,” he said. The Makers grew quiet and as Rafian drifted through space, looking at the clear picture of Anstractor laid out in front of him like a holographic image, he focused his eyes on Vestalia. He remembered the explosion and what his goal was before appearing here. “What about us?” he asked suddenly. “What about the Phasers? When the Geralos are destroyed, and the galaxy saved from their terror, what will become of us? Will you take away the crystals, and will you destroy us in order to keep the secrets?”
A sharp pain pulsed through his head and he couldn’t help but feel that it was done to punish him somehow. He regretted the question, but the thought of his friends going the way of the Geralos did not sit well with him, no matter how much he pushed it to the side.
The thoughts that were like voices pushed through his head again and this time they were impatient and harsh. “If it is sight that you’re asking for, Rafian VCA, you are a seeker; you do not need us to see. We have stated our concern, and you have given us your word. Remember your promise, and earn the privilege that we have given you.”
A light emerged from the back of Rafian’s vision and pushed it self painfully to the forefront where he could see nothing but white. It stood like this for minutes, and without the ability to move or speak, he felt trapped inside of his own body. He focused his mind on the Geralos and let the panic pass. There was no point in letting his mind go along with his body, so he kept it steady and made mental plans for the future.
After a long time had passed and Rafian’s patience was at its end, he found that the white was dissipating and he was standing in front of the looming black crystal that was inside of his Phaser agency back on Zallus. Was I standing here this entire time? he wondered, frightened at the implications of his mind if the Neeraki Sentients had not been there and that it had been his subconscious instead, scolding him about the Geralos.
He could hear nothing inside of the agency halls, and though a part of him wanted to open the door, walk outside, and find his comrades, he just stood where he was, staring at the crystal. Without thinking better of it he walked forward and placed his hands on the cold surface of the black, translucent gem. A light appeared in the core of the crystal, seeming to react with his touch. He kept his hands where they were, and as he did this, he felt his body falling forward, into the crystal and into nothingness.
In this nothingness was a myriad of colors, flying about like rainbow-tinted fireflies, each on their own mission that had nothing to do with him. He fell through this muted whiteness and then froze. In front of him was a collection of dust. The dust seemed to be held together by some sort of magnetic, or gravitational pull, making it look like a distorted orb, though he could look in and see different shaped dust particles: some big, some small, some on fire. This latter observation made him peer even closer, and as he studied it he slowly began to realize that this wasn’t dust at all; this was a tiny replica of the galaxy of Anstractor.
There were many galaxies floating in front of him. He recognized Luca with its numerous suns and twelve planets. There were several others, some comprised of just one planet and one sun. Rafian was fascinated by all of what he was seeing and wished that they were labeled. He wanted to learn all the names of the galaxies, but as he looked up from the one he was observing and took in the entire space, there seemed to be an endless collection of them, impossible for him to know them all.
He watched their movements as they went along. They all seemed to spiral around one another like an endless vortex, pushing on into infinity, breeding life, death, and whatever came along with it. Good people like Aurora SYN, beautiful people like his wife Marian, evil people like the Geralos, and heroes like Yuth Varience and Hellgate to push back against them.
Life seemed less important to Rafian as he saw this, and it drove home the insignificance of humanity in the grand scheme of things. So much life, so much beauty, yet they were forced to learn and know war. The art of death took precedence over everything in their world, and they didn’t even make up 1% of life in the universe.
“Surprised?” a voice intoned, but this time it didn’t come from telepathy. “As Phasers your responsibilities must extend past the Geralos once they have been destroyed, Supreme Leader. The crystals belong to Anstractor but the power of the crystals belong to the universe. Like Luca and Anstractor, there must be a force to keep things moving along in the way they always have.”
It was as he feared. No end would come to his Phasers and their charge. This meant that he and the Aces would go on living for years; a few hundred years, perhaps, or even longer. They would be required to jump to different galaxies. It seemed absurd, but now they would be in charge of policing the universe. The voice didn’t say that he had to comply but he knew deep down that it was what he was chosen for.
“The Geralos are a mere speed bump on this highway of fate,” he said out loud before losing consciousness and the connection to his masters.
07 | The First Cut
“COMMANDER, the Geralos destroyer, Faizon, and the battleship, Huythen, have just jumped from their locations,” a curly-haired brunette announced to her commander as she spun around in her chair to face him. The uniforms of the battleship Rendron were fitted, long-sleeved jackets, with berets and helmets, all in a dark-maroon color. The rest of the uniform consisted of black pants, shoes, and gloves, and like every other officer on the bridge, Phimanila Dawn looked flawless in her uniform.
The captain of the Rendron was an old, hardened veteran of the galactic war whose name was better known than the invincible ship he captained. Cilas “Rend” MEC had been killing Geralos since his teenage years, when he was friends with Helga “Hellgate” ATE. Now he was on the eve of humanity’s greatest moment as they placed the lizards under siege and took the fight back to them.
“Thank you, Miss Dawn,” Rend replied gruffly. He nodded to his executive officer, who raised a shiny black microphone to her lips. “To battle stations, everyone!” the officer shouted, her voice sounding oddly soothing despite her beyond serious tone.
The ship took on a spirit of movement as t
he soldier scrambled. Infantry men and women jumped into the seats of gun batteries, and the fighter pilots took to racing one another to the dock to climb inside of their sleek, silver ships.
Rend removed his maroon jacket and replaced it with a black one, then took his seat, facing the main display screen of the bridge. When he was seated and calmly sipping the coffee that his assistant had brought him, he looked over his arm at his navigator, waiting to see what she would say.
“It’s Huythen, Commander, on our starboard side. It just appeared at five hundred hops!” she shouted.
“Okay, Phimanila,” he said calmly,” bring us alongside that bastard, and let’s bring ‘er down.”
Nodding to the tall, raven-haired statue of an officer who held the microphone up in her hands, Phimanila touched a button and whispered something to the engineers.
“RENDRON SHIELDS ARE FULL AND WEAPONS ARE ARMED!” a shrill voice screamed over the loudspeakers. Rend looked up at Constance, his executive officer, and gave her a confident smile. She tried to return the gesture as best she could. Her expression forced the old man to laugh, as her face took on the mask of someone who had smelled something foul.
“As you know Connie, Huythen is one of the Geralos’ big boys. This will be a grand day if we can crack her defenses and send her running to deep space with her tail tucked between her legs,” he said to her in a voice so soft that only she could hear it above the noise.
“Let’s crack her then, Captain,” Constance said mechanically and Rend could tell that she was frightened. He couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t stared down death over a hundred times like he had, and with Geralos ships jumping in to save the planet she probably felt like a fish out of water in a room full of cats.
“Trust your captain, young Connie. This isn’t my first dance, let alone my fiftieth. I know lizard like I know my own—” He froze, smiling, realizing that if he finished the statement he would be defying his own rule of professionalism on the ship. “Just pay attention, Major,” he said before gulping down the last of his coffee.
