by Greg Dragon
When Rafian broke into the yacht it had set off a number of silent alarms and now the security was intensified to the point where theft was no longer an option. He was stranded, so he went back into the city to brood over his bad luck and bought a room in one of the smaller hotels.
Jinay had come over when he first rented the room and had thrown his money back at him when he tried to pay her. “Don’t be insulting,” she spat back at him, and he began to worry that she was growing attached. But his concern for Zallus outweighed everything else, and he spent most of his time plotting an escape and thinking about the changes he would need to make as soon as he was back on Vestalia.
The days on Traxis were long and hot, and though he felt like staying in his room where the fans and ice would keep him cool, he forced himself to sit outside a tiny cafe adjacent to the hotel. Here he would sip on the sweet local wine and punch notes into a data pad. Unbeknownst to the local people, however, he was also observing their daily activity.
The place had a strange feeling of being surreal. The galaxy was tearing itself apart to remove the Geralos, yet here they stood in a millionaire’s paradise, sipping on flavored drinks and renting love from beautiful people. He wondered what Marian would think about the place and decided that she would like it. The fashion and politics were similar to Tyhera, and she would feel right at home in the heat.
He was in a confused state of mind that he was too familiar with, and it was akin to a deep, soul-crushing loneliness. Marian dominated his mind and it made him think of everything he had gone through with her. She was an amazing partner who had stuck with him throughout everything.
If she had stayed back on Tyhera she would have had the power of a queen by now, with the protection to maintain that position until old age. But she had run into him, and one confusing fight mixed with an attraction that they both couldn’t explain had led them to marriage. Now she was here in his fractured galaxy, risking her life for a people she did not know and a cause that had no bearing on her race. She had given up everything, and here he was, far away from her, where he couldn’t protect her if the Geralos decided to press again.
He looked across the sunny square at a collection of old men, who were at their own table playing some sort of board game. Old men of all species seemed to resort to doing the same things to pass the time. Friendly competition at just about anything. The money was not the point of their gambling; it was mostly a way to pass the time merrily.
In his own company, Rafian found himself tortured with guilt most of the time. He would find escape in drink and meditation—if he was in a place that he considered safe—or in the throes of battle, where brooding was the last thing your mind would do. Without booze or combat there was escape in the pleasures of a beautiful and willing friend, a habit that had caused a rift between him and Marian.
The rift was mended, sewn together with tender loving care, and spanned by a bridge of trust that he had assured her would never be broken. But now as he sat brooding with the memories of Jinay from the night before, he feared that Marian would find out.
Rafian stood up and dropped several coins on the table before looking over at the cafe owner to make sure that he saw. He then pressed on across the square, nodding at the old men as he went. Fresh limbs and renewed vigor drove him forward as he stopped by a well to fill up a personal water reservoir, and he paid a vendor a handful of coins for several of his meat buns.
He purchased a cutlass, which he strapped to his back, a pistol—just in case the flying cats came back for a second round—and combat boots, which could stand up to just about any sort of terrain. Once he had enough supplies to keep him going for a couple of days, he slipped out of the city, through the gardens and into the desert where he had fought the flying cats and almost lost his life.
The sun was beaming down like a merciless bully, toying with its defenseless victim, but Rafian merely pulled up the hood of his cloak and kept his head low. His mind went to Vallen and how he mistrusted the Phaser agency. Rafian found it typical of the big man. Val was one of the greatest fighters he had ever known, but he didn’t go into anything on anyone’s word alone.
He hoped that the time Val spent with his lover, Marika, and the days of living around Phasers in Zallus would soften him up to their cause. The cloners afforded Phasers a lifespan that could be ten times that of a normal soldier, and he couldn’t imagine life without his only friend.
It was midday by the time he reached the ship graveyard. His boots had held together well, and the water had kept him moving easily as he made it across the great expanse of sand. The reason for his return to the place was to find the starship that he neglected when he first set out. The ship was a fixture on the horizon of Copl, sticking vertically up out of the soft sand where it could be seen for many miles.
Rafian thought that it looked like a Geralos model, and this made him feel confident that there would be parts to salvage. Unlike the Alliance vessels, the Geralos used materials that were native to Geral. They had machinery which was supported by an organic growth that outsiders thought was algae.
Rafian had probed the Geralos mind and a lot of their understanding had been passed on to him involuntarily. This ‘algae’ was what powered the machinery; in fact, it was a factory-developed substance that could be syphoned off for energy.
As he neared the looming hull of the up-ended monolith, he was even more convinced that it was Geralos. It took him another two hours to reach it and when he got close enough, he searched for a way to get inside.
There was a convenient hatch that sat above the sand and he slipped inside and froze. Spread across the entire interior was a patchwork of makeshift tents, a number of fans, and a fence where several of the cat creatures hung, skinned and ready for cooking and consumption. On the far side near what would have been another level of the ship was a congregation of people seated around one sole figure who gestured as he spoke.
Rafian wondered if anyone had heard or seen him enter, but all eyes were on the speaker, who had his back turned to him. He slipped behind one of the mechanical structures that stood on the wall next to him and began walking in the shadows towards an area away from the camp. I can’t believe people live in here, he thought.
Twenty minutes later and he was in a dark area of the ship where a mountain of sand and debris were piled high against the wall. He crawled up the sandy slope on his belly, trying to make as little noise as possible even though his body was fatigued and he really wanted to stop and eat something. When he reached the apex there was a flat lip of metal, so he lay on his back and looked up into the endless blackness of the ship. He wondered if it was the bow or the stern that he stared at and decided that it did not matter.
He fell asleep for a time but a noise from below woke him up and he inched to the edge to look down. Light from the holes all throughout the damaged hull spilled in like tiny spotlights. Below him were several men, Traxian men, and they had a corpse tied to a slab of stone, methodically removing his organs. Rafian watched with curiosity as the butcher handed the parts to a woman, who was dutifully cutting them up into bits before placing them into bowls.
Cannibals, Rafian thought, and he wondered if it was by choice or necessity that they would resort to eating one another. The village of Copl was an oasis, and its inhabitants sold their bodies to outsiders in order to live within the walls of that paradise. Male and female prostitutes were the best paid and their clothes reflected this fact. Others sold goods and services, and the rest acted as temporary servants to any that would pay them.
It didn’t surprise Rafian that the harsh reality of the planet was that people would need to live the way this group was living now, and that women like Jinay were not the norm. He had seen harsh realities his entire life, and having survived the ghettos of Genese, he understood scavenging and, to a degree … cannibalism.
But the hanging cats were evidence that they had food. The religious gathering and this display of butchering and preparing another p
erson made him think that this was a cult that chose to live apart. This meant that they were dangerous fanatics and he had been lucky to steer away from the ship when he first arrived.
As he inched back away from the edge something stood out to him. The cannibals had power to heat their food and light their tents—since they weren’t using fire—and the thing that they were using for a grill was a Geralos power cube. Someone either knew how to do this—which hinted at Alliance military training—or the desperate squatters had somehow figured it out.
His body began to fight back against the abuse that it had suffered since the time he left the village. Deep pain ran the length of his legs, and it felt as if the bones in his body had cracks in them. Rafian stood still, letting it work itself through, and he kept his eyes on the disgusting ritual, trying to figure out how he could get the power cube away from them.
After a time he pulled himself back down the hill near the bulkhead and slipped behind one of the metal plates. He was inside the ship’s outer hull, where damage from what could have been a trace laser had caused a split several feet above his head that led to the outside. Rafian slipped further into where the floor opened more and removed his supplies, then pulled off the boots to allow his feet to breathe.
He lay back thinking for quite some time and when he sat up his legs didn’t want to cooperate. Despite their objections he pulled them in so that his soles could touch and went into the meditation practice of the Mera-Ku. In this position he would stay for a long time until his mind was at rest and his body could fall into a state of self-repair.
* * *
When Rafian opened his eyes it was late. There was a harmonic chanting in the distance and he smelled burning flesh. His legs felt strong and his body rejuvenated, but hunger pangs struck him and he reached into his pack to grab one of the meat buns that he had brought along. He devoured it quickly and then another, then he drank some more water before packing it all up.
He recovered his boots and strapped them on, then climbed from out of his hiding place to crawl across the top of the outcropping to see what was going on. Directly below him on the slope of the sandy hill was a man in a suit and mask, waving his hands and whispering words in a language Rafian recognized but couldn’t remember from where.
He dared not move an inch as he stood watching the man, but below him he could see that the people, thirty or so Traxians, were eating their own meat buns—stuffed with another Traxian’s vitals—and nodding at the man with the whispering voice.
The sermon went on for thirty minutes as Rafian watched, and then a young woman was brought up to the speaker, her arms trapped by two, large Traxian men. Rafian watched them curiously but the woman surprised him, as she turned out to be human. She had been beaten up—the bruises on her pale face revealed this—and her legs buckled with every step as if she could barely walk.
Her frightened eyes stared intently at the masked man, and the crowd’s chants rose in volume to the point where they were almost shouting. Rafian felt the air leave his lungs when he realized what was going on. The man was masked because he was not a man; he was an alien that could not deal with the atmosphere.
Why didn’t I pick up on this, Rafian thought as he watched the fear reflected on the woman’s face. Why was I so slow on picking up on this?
He drew his pistol and in two quick motions, put holes in the foreheads of the Traxians that held the woman up. They fell backwards from the impact, taking her with them, and he put a third shot behind the knee of the masked man and then slid down the sand to grab him with an arm around his throat. The man was strong, and thrashed about, but Rafian held him and pointed the gun at the crowd, daring them to try something foolish.
He pulled the man up the hill to the apex where he would be able to do what he wanted. He swept his good leg, which planted him on the ground, then ripped off his mask to see. Staring up at him with hate-filled eyes was an old Geralos priest, the recognition of his captor beginning to take over his facial features.
“Thype,” Rafian whispered, now that his worst fear had proven to be a reality. He pulled out his cutlass and cut into the Geralos’ throat, then lifted the severed head while screaming out in fury at what the Traxians had been doing to his people.
Anger became his everything and he looked down to see that they were climbing the hill to avenge their master. He glanced at the heat meter on the side of the pistol, and when he saw that it was cool, he began firing into them, sparing none from his wrath. Shot after shot hit the scrambling Traxians with deadly accuracy, and he descended the hill firing into them.
When the pistol was too hot to fire anymore, Rafian drew the cutlass and chased the remainder down out of the vicinity. Fifteen died and three were wounded, but the rest took off into the desert, willing to risk its unpredictable exposure over Rafian, the angel of death.
The human woman hobbled up to him, her eyes wide with confusion as she tried to see if she knew who he was. But Rafian was too drunk on rage to notice, and it was not enough to chase the cult off into the sands. They had given refuge to a Geralos, and even worse than that, they had been feeding him humans. Only death could purge them of this sin, and he was willing to be its agent.
In the city there had been a number of visitors that had gone missing over the years, but many had assumed criminals were to blame. Rafian wondered if the cult was an outcast arm of the Copl, or if the citizens, too, were worshippers of the Geralos. He speculated on the chances that there was a system in place where a few humans were kidnapped and delivered every year. He wondered if Jinay was aware of this and had saved his life by inviting him into the brothel.
Rafian caught up with two more runners and cut them down in the red light of the sunset. There was a group several yards in front of him running like the wind, and he phased to an area in front of them and spun a bloody dervish of death within their midst. Only one Traxian managed to escape the slaughter and it was only because he was still a child. Rafian’s heart would not let him kill the boy in cold blood, so instead he told him, “Run and tell your brothers and sisters. Tell them that friends of the lizards will die by my hand.”
By the time he made it back to the ship it was night, and he found the woman inside with a human man whose arm had been chopped off and cauterized. They were near the power supply that provided warmth, and they were both crying as she held him.
Rafian walked up and dropped the cutlass, which was so red with the blood of the Traxians that the couple gasped when they saw it. Their eyes found his, which had calmed down to take on a look of reflection. He put a finger to his lips and knelt beside them, then he closed his eyes to probe the area with his senses to see if any smells or sounds would alert him.
When nothing happened he opened his eyes and then reached into his pack to offer them a meat bun and water. They took it quickly and wolfed it down and then the woman pointed to her mouth as if to ask if she could speak.
“Yeah, yeah, it's good now,” Rafian mumbled as he sat back and drew his legs in.
“You’re Alliance, right?” the woman said, her voice deeper than he expected it to be.
Rafian nodded. “Why are you here, what was all of this?”
“This was supposed to be us on vacation to celebrate our anniversary,” she replied and Rafian glanced at the man, who reminded him of Frank. He looked comfortable resting in his wife’s arms but he could tell that the maiming had been recent and that he was still dealing with a lot of pain and trauma. “Tim and I are engineers on Aqnaqak. We came here on honeymoon, after saving up for over five years. We got married and then…” She began to weep and her voice fell to a rushed whisper that he could barely understand.
“You’re soldiers? How were they able to capture you to bring you all the way out here in the desert?”
The man, Tim, spoke up as he consoled his wife by stroking her long, black hair. “Vessica and I went out into that garden around the city. The lizard used a las-sword to take off my arm and before we knew it, we
were here. Man, if you hadn’t happened along…”
Rafian perked up at the mention of a las-sword and made a mental note to find it before leaving the ship. “Do you have the gift? Are you a seeker?” he asked Vessica and then reached out and took her hand.
“I-I don’t think so,” Vessica said, her muscular arm flexing as soon as he made contact.
“Do you two have a ship? Can you make contact with Aqnaqak? We need to get you two off of this rock.”
“Yeah, we have a ship, a little skiff that we took down here from the orbiting hub, Julius I,” Tim said, still staring at Rafian intently.
“Do I know you, Tim?” Rafian asked, having grown tired of the man’s intense stare.
“No, sir, but I know who you are.” He turned his face to look at his wife. “Vessica, babe, we’re going to be okay,” he said.
13 | Drinks & Memories
VAL TRACKER walked the halls of the Phaser agency looking at the alien artifacts that lined the walls and the various plaques that reflected an order that had been in existence for hundreds of years. He was impressed at what Rafian and Tayden had managed to do in the short time that they had taken over, and his tour was winning him over on the idea of joining.
He was glad he had decided to tour the place. It brought peace to a mind that was burning with rage. He had received a message from one of his lieutenants that very morning, informing him that the majority of his marine unit had been killed in action, shot down by the Geralos as they made their descent onto Geral.
Something within the big man reminded him that they needed him. All of those young men and women that served the Alliance were in need of the Vestalian Vin’yn and what was he doing? Floating in a tank to heal the wounds he had received while chasing a cyborg Geralos into a sewer. Phaser business had caused him to be separated from the unit that he had built and commanded for over five years.
