Her dad leaned in and whispered into her ear, “Are you sure she’ll be all right?”
Kay pulled on the collar of her shirt to reveal a barely imperceptible scar. “See that?”
“Yeah.”
“That was a Kit’Ra that cut straight through my collar bone when I squared off against two Kil’Jah Assassins. If I can survive that with barely a scar, mom will be just fine. Trust me.”
“Okay,” he said. “I do.”
“Let’s find a place to stay for tonight.”
They climbed the stairwell of the building near the spot Kay fought the Reaper. She kicked in a door to an apartment, found it to be empty and moved in. They raided the pantry for anything to eat, filled their stomachs, and went to bed.
As her parents lay down, Kay checked her mom’s wound.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Fine,” her mom answered. “I’m a bit of pain, but nothing I can’t handle.”
“Good,” Kay said. “Let me check it.”
It seemed fine, she seemed fine. Kay field-dressed the wound properly with supplies from the apartment, and said her goodnights.
Her brothers curled up on the floor amongst some blankets and pillows at the foot their parents’ bed and they all fell asleep quickly. Kay returned to the living room where she could watch the door. She had barricaded it with a desk from study and was sure that no undead or Reapers were in the hallway. Despite that, she stayed awake. Her heart broke for her family, more specifically her brothers. They were still young; something like this was going to scar them emotionally for life—and she knew all about emotional scars. Those cut deeper than any sword or knife ever could. She would never—never—be able to erase the images that were burned into her brain.
Once morning came, she got up off the couch and stretched her legs. She walked out to the balcony that overlooked the alley to survey the area. The city still burned. It looked almost the same as it did the day Dah, Puar, Brix, and herself went to the RLD to meet with Ken’Neth Kreer to procure weapons for a rescue attempt, when Khai got himself captured. She had only recently recovered from the wounds she sustained at the hands of Warthol. But, as always, she was well cared for, and was mended to perfection.
Now, she was on her own. In some ways, a lot of ways, she liked that better. It was like being an Agent again. And, though her job entailed cold-blooded murder in the name of her people, she was oddly—and frighteningly—comforted by it, though she swore she’d never again fall into her battle frenzy where everything else around her disappeared and all that existed was her and her enemies.
Never again.
As her family filtered into the living room, they found Kay awake and alert.
“Eat up and let’s move,” she said. “We only have a little ways left. If we run, we can make it.”
They did as they were told. As her mom ate, she checked the scratches again. Oddly, they seemed almost worse than the night before. “How are you feeling, mom?”
“A little stiff,” she answered. “The pain is far worse today than it was last night.”
Her mom was pale with dark spots under her eyes. “You don’t look so good.”
“Didn’t sleep well,” she answered.
“Well,” Kay responded. “Let’s clean it up again and redress it. That’ll get you home where I can use my kit to really fix you up.”
She redressed the wound and fashioned a sling. Once that was done, it was time to go. They made their way down to the ground floor, and Kay scouted ahead to check for contacts. When the coast was clear, she signaled for them come out. They walked about two hundred yards when the Reapers started coming out of the woodwork.
“Run!” she whispered.
They ran.
Kay stayed about twenty feet behind them, far enough back to cover their sixes, but close enough that she could close the gap if they were ambushed from the side or the front. They could see their apartment complex.
They ran.
They passed the corner store where she used to go to meet a boy named Mur’Lyyn Muur under the guise of picking up last-minute food for dinner. Though it was only a few weeks ago, it seemed like another life ago. They passed the hardware store.
They ran.
They were a hundred yards away from the entrance when Kay picked up speed and passed her family to reconnoiter the building. By the time they reached the building, Kay already knew that going in through the front door was going to be bad idea, as there were roaming dead raiding their favorite restaurant on the ground level of their building. She quietly redirected them to the alley where they took the fire escape up to the roof. From there, they took the roof access to the top floor where their apartment was and let themselves in.
Once there, Kay barricaded the door and ran for the balcony.
“Where are you going?” her dad asked.
“To the hardware store,” she answered.
“What for?” he asked.
“There will be teams looking for survivors,” she said. “I’m going to make it easy for them to find us.”
She utilized the fire escape again and made it down to the ground. She quickly dispatched a group of undead and made her way quickly and quietly to the hardware store. The window was already smashed in and the place was practically picked clean. However, the material for which she was looking was there in troves. Apparently, during the apocalypse, paint was not in high demand. She took the brightest shade of red she could find, two paint brushes and left thirty credits on the counter for the owner—if he returned.
She made it back to the roof and repelled down about thirty feet. A half hour later, “Survivors Inside. Please Help” was painted over the glass of the side of the building facing the park that was across the street.
She returned to their apartment and sat down on the couch.
“Are we noticeable?” he dad asked.
“Yes,” Kay said. “I doubt anyone will miss it.”
“What about others who may be looking to loot?” her mom asked.
“I’m not too worried,” Kay responded. “For starters, there are a lot of apartments in this building. So unless they go door to door looking, they won’t find us. Secondly, I feel really bad for anyone coming here looking for trouble.”
“What about the Reapers?” Jay asked.
“We’ll just have to keep our fingers cross that they don’t find us,” Kay said with a shrug.
“How long will we be here?” her mom asked.
“I have no idea,” Kay said honestly. “All we can do is wait and hope they send help.”
The third installment in the exciting Seryys Chronicles, we present Steel Alliance:
The fragile peace between the Seryysans and the Vyysarri remains tenuous as Khai, Sibrex, Dah and Puar find themselves stranded within the remnants of the long-dead society known as the Founders—while being hunted by an enemy that easily annihilates the Seryys Navy’s Sixth Fleet with only a handful of ships; an enemy that vastly outguns both the Seryysans and Vyysarri. These F’Rosians enemies will stop at nothing to obliterate and dominate the people of Seryys.
Meanwhile, things on Seryys have gone from bad to worse. With the evacuation of Seryys City, the Reapers have sent the entire planet into disarray and panic. On the heels of Seryys’ current crisis, the Reapers act as the harbinger of a plague of epic proportions. This plague defies both reality and logic and pushes Prime Minister Pual’Kin Puar to hire a loose cannon to help with the situation using dubious tactics, tactics that go horribly, terrifyingly wrong.
With the F’Rosian Fleet on its way to Seryys, Prime Minister Puar is forced to ask for help from Prefect Chuumdar. Worst of all, Puar realizes that if he can’t get the Reapers and the plague under control, there may be nothing left to protect from the F’Rosians.
Author Biography:
Raised in the beautiful mountain town of Breckenridge, Colorado, Joe now lives with his beautiful California girl, and bride, Bonnie, in Northern Colorado. In 2006, h
e graduated from Adams State University (a small university in Alamosa, Colorado) with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition. By day, He’s a mild-mannered (yeah, right!) banker and by night, a writer, a musician, a composer, an RPG gamer, a mean video game player and a masked vigilante (not really, but he does own several Superman shirts). He loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy, still reads comic books, has an impressive Star Wars book collection, an unmatched knowledge of Star Wars trivia, has been watching Star Trek since he was in diapers, loves going to the park to read with my wife, HATES sparkly vampires, LOVES Superman, and volunteers every year at StarFest, a Sci-Fi Convention in Denver, Colorado.
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