“’Bout sums it up,” Captain Dah said, wryly.
“Well, I think we need to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later,” Khai said.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Captain Dah said.
Chapter Four
“You didn’t say nothin’ about Khai’Xander Khail leading the counterattack,” a dark-skinned man growled through a clenched jaw that was wired shut from when he crashed face-first into the fire escape of the adjacent building. Due to the damage Khai inflicted on his arm, his underground doctor had to amputate it at the elbow. Six metal pins, four metal plates and eight hours of reconstructive surgery repaired the damage to his leg, and it would still be another week before he was able to walk on it without a crutch. “We’re gonna need better guns and more people to deal with him. He’s a fucking legend.”
A tall, lanky man sat in a chair not facing the gangbanger leader. “What am I supposed to do about that?” he asked.
“You can arrest him or something. Right? I mean, fuck! You’re the Minister of Planetary Affairs.”
“You want a favor, Lyyn’Del Leer?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“You were supposed to destroy the Ti’tan’lium processing plant, and you failed. Just for that, I should have you killed. But I’m willing to grant that favor and let you live. I’ve already supplied you with military-grade weapons and even paid some of the men in your gang to stick around despite your apparent lack of competence. Now get out of my sight.”
“Whatever, man. Just keep the weapons coming. We’ll get to the plant. You just hold to your end of the bargain and keep the police guessing. And when this is all over, I expect my payment. “
“You have to pull your head from your ass, first.”
“I assure you, Prime Minister. Things are not as bad as they seem.”
“Really?” Prime Minister Puar asked. “Because my little brother, who’s been fighting these riots for over three weeks, seems to be telling me otherwise. The slums are all but deserted and people are leaving the city by hundreds—maybe even thousands. The only reason my brother’s team is doing as well as they are has everything to do with Former Colonel Khail joining the police force to help with the riots.”
“Colonel Khail is a loose cannon!” Trall hissed. “You know he suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress? I’m half tempted to have him arrested for reckless endangerment!”
“Khail,” Puar chuckled. “First he finds the Ti’tan’lium and now he’s fending off riot after riot. You must be mad; he’s saved this city—this planet—and several other planets under the Seryys flag, more times than I care to admit. Hell, I’ve fought with the man. You interfere with that and I’ll have you arrested.”
“Of course, Prime Minister,” Trall said, with a less-than-cordial bow.
Khai was in his element. Not only had he remembered to take his pills every day, he hadn’t had a flashback in over three weeks. The wind blowing on his face as the chopper swooped low to drop him and his team off at another riot comforted him. He and his team were once again dropping into the Corporate Sector to rout another gang of unruly misfits with fully automatic weapons. There were ten riots raging at that exact moment, but the city risked losing the most if the Corporate Sector fell into chaos. So, despite Minister Trall’s orders sending Khai’s team to the north tip of Lower Seryys to protect it, Captain Dah and Khai both disobeyed direct orders and both agreed that the Corporate Sector was their target.
They were able to rout the riot in a matter of hours; it was at least six times bigger than the first riot they fought in the Corporate Sector almost four weeks earlier. This time Captain Byyner had the chopper provide air support and mow down rioters with every pass. It was all going according to plan until the chopper was taken down by a handheld surface-to-air missile that clipped the right the wing and rotor. The chopper went spinning out of control and crashed in a fire ball into the side of an abandoned building. The pilot barely had time to eject before the thing went down.
The man who fired the rocket was the same guy that Khai had messed up weeks earlier. He was now sporting power armor, designed to both protect and enhance the wearer.
“Shit!” Koon said.
“No sweat,” Khai said. “Cap’!”
“Yeah?” Captain Dah yelled back, still firing his weapon at the surging masses that seemed to flood into the street as if a dam had broken. They were waiting to spring the trap! Fuck! How could I have been so stupid! It was too easy!”
“Can I borrow Puar for a few moments?”
“What’s up?” Puar asked. Khai pointed at the gangbanger in the blue-gray power armor that covered all but his face, which was protected by a bullet-proof, clear metal sheet. His cocky grin was visible from under the visor. The Seryys Combat Bionic Exo-Armor, or BEA, was a revolutionary military development and the initial answer to the Vyysarris’ overwhelming strength and speed, but it was later banned because of its unpredictable properties. The way the suit worked, was that it used sensor probes in the form of microscopic needles that penetrated the nerve endings at key points in the body and transmitted electrical currents from the brain to all the moving parts of the suit. Essentially, it read the wearer’s mind and acted accordingly; if the wearer wanted to move his arm, he would simply try to move it and the sensors would detect the current, moving the arm of the suit. The problem was the effects of the probes on the body were detrimental. Eventually, the nerve ends would stop receiving currents from the brain and permanent paralysis would set in. “Well, now that’s not something you can just pick up at the store.”
“Can you hit it from here?”
“Who ya talkin’ too?”
“Well, do it!”
Puar took careful aim and launched a grenade. Thump!
The grenade hit the suit dead center on the chest and the explosion sent the suited man sailing through the wall of the adjacent building.
“Nice, shot!” Khai hooted. “Your brother must have taught you a thing or two.”
“Nah,” Puar said, waving his hand. “I taught myself everything I know.”
“Your humbleness floors me,” Khai said wryly.
“Hey,” Puar said with a haughty grin. “Modest is the hottest!”
“Are you two done?” Captain Dah asked. “’Cause if you are, I could really use some help here!”
They were surrounded, standing in a circle laying down fire into the massing crowds. None of them had weapons more sophisticated than a lead pipe or knife. But they were advancing without fear or hesitation, like the very whips of their masters were on them. They fell by the hundreds, but more would step up to take their place.
“Shit!” Naad yelled.
“What’s wrong, Naad?” Dah dared to ask.
“I’m running dry!”
“Shit!” Dah replied.
“Exactly!” Naad replied to his captain’s reply.
“Okay,” Dah said, pulling a machete from its sheath, mounted to the back of his armor. “Take my gun and the rest of my ammo. Make’em count!”
“Where the hell are you going?” Khai asked.
“It’s time to get messy!” the captain yelled as he charged the crowd swinging left and right, hacking arms and legs. It was only then that he realized what was happening. “Ah, fuck!”
“What now?” Khai asked.
“I’m such an idiot. I should’ve guessed this from the moment we got here!”
“What?” Naad asked, still firing.
“It’s a damned Psych-Pro!”
“Great!” Khai scoffed. “We need to find the user!”
“You think it was metal man?” Puar asked.
“It would take an enormous amount of concentration to control both the BEA and the Psych-Pro.”
“Or some really trippy drugs!” Puar added.
“Good point. I need to find that guy and shut him down!” Khai yelled over the gun fire.
“By yourself?” Dah asked.
“Yeah,” Khai said almost casually. “Wouldn’t b
e the first time, probably won’t be the last. You guys have everything under control here?”
“Go!” Captain Dah nearly screamed.
Khai ran off in the direction of the building where the grey-armored, drugged-up gangbanger leader flew. The enormous hole in the wall of the abandoned building was big enough that he thought for sure that the building should have crumbled in on itself. In the center, Khai could hear the servos of the armor working as Khai’s target emerged.
“Well, well, well. You come for round two?”
“And three and four and maybe even five,” Khai said, popping his neck. “I was going easy on you last time.”
“Well, don’t get soft on me now! Bring it!”
Khai took a step forward, removing the giant knife from his boot. “Tell me. How are you able to control the Psych-Pro and the BEA at the same time?”
“It’s called Whither Crystal, the only way to fly! Now, you can’t possibly tell me that you’re gonna go toe-to-toe with me and with only that knife.”
“Well, you’re bullet proof. Bringing a gun to a fistfight didn’t make much sense, so I brought a knife.”
“Let’s dance!”
Lyyn’Del Leer lunged forward, the suit augmenting his abilities. Khai acted without thinking, he took two big steps forward and slid feet first under the attacking man. The armored man tucked and rolled to his feet. By the time he got to his feet, Khai was on him. He knew from his training that the weak points on the powered suit were the joints. From behind, Khai jabbed his knife into the flexible material of the shoulder of the armor.
A slight yelp issued from the wearer, but when Khai pulled the knife out, there was no blood.
Damn! Khai thought ruefully as the metallic elbow whipped around and caught him on the nose knocking him back. The suited maniac pressed the attack hard and fast, using the augmentation of the suit’s abilities to their fullest extent. A gauntleted hand wrapped around Khai’s throat.
“Getting too old for this shit!” he growled, trying to remove the fingers from his throat.
“You got that right!” the dark-skinned man said from behind the visor. “Let me put this old dog down!” He squeezed harder. Khai thought that his eyes might literally pop out of his head when the guy bore down on him.
“Khai, where the hell are you? We’re getting overwhelmed over here!” Dah’s voice came over the com.
“Little… busy…” he barely choked out. “Almost… done…”
“What the?” Lyyn’Del almost laughed. “I don’t think you really know what’s about to happen here.”
“I... beg to… differ,” Khai whispered. Khai, still having his knife in his hand, buried it to the hilt into the joint where the leg met the body bellow the hip. This time a cry of equal parts surprise, pain and anger issued from the suit of armor and Khai was dropped immediately. As he fell back, he had the presence of mind to twist the knife as it pulled out to do the maximum amount of damage.
Blood gushed from the knife wound and the armor-suited man dropped to one knee.
The suit had the ability to mend wounds such as that one to keep the wearer from bleeding to death. It wasn’t able to repair the internal damage, but it was the idea that if the suit at least got the bleeding stopped, the wearer wouldn’t bleed to death while trying to get out of the suit.
Before the armored man was able to get up, Khai pressed his own attack and ran at his enemy. He leapt forward and connected with a solid flying sidekick that made the armor topple end over end and come to a rest on its back. Khai jumped on him and jabbed the knife into the separation between the two chest pieces that came together when the suit was put on. He twisted the knife and spread the sections of armor far enough to get his fingers in there. Planting a booted foot on the man’s chest, he jerked back as hard as he could. Using his superior strength, he pried the suit open with his bare hands to reveal the wearer’s body.
The man tried feverishly to get up, but with his leg unable to support any weight at all, that was impossible. Instead, Khai unleashed a flurry of bludgeoning punches to the man’s midsection, breaking ribs and rupturing several organs. He didn’t stop until the man spewed dark, red blood all over the inside of the visor. Khai got up and grabbed a piece of crete left over from the building crumbling and smashed it over the visor several times until it broke open like the shell of a Rush Mussel.
With the man’s face exposed now, Khai gave him one bone-crushing blow to the face and it was all over. The man was dead and the suit went limp.
Khai straightened up with a grunt and grimace.
“I don’t know—and I don’t care—how you did it, Khai, but you did it!” Captain Dah’s overjoyed voice came over the com.
“Just another day, Cap’. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He sluggishly walked out to the street and saw what appeared to be thousands of dead bodies and an equal amount of disoriented, bewildered people coming off the spell of the Psych-Pro.
The Seryys Combat Psychic Projector worked as a radio transmitter that projected thoughts into the minds of intended victims to gain their total submission by interfering with the frontal lobe of the brain, which was the reasoning center, making them more susceptible to suggestions and commands. It was yet another banned device designed by the Seryys Combat Research and Development Center, or the SCR&DC, which had long-term side effects brought on by extended periods of use. The worst case scenario was being lobotomized by the device.
After all the civilians were rounded up and sent to local hospitals for injuries and checkups to make sure the Psych-Pro didn’t do any permanent damage, lighting streaked across the sky and struck a building, crumbling it to the ground with only one salvo.
“What the f-” Puar’s reaction as was cut short as another salvo lanced through the sky and crumbled another building.
“Captain Byyner, what the hell is going on?” Khai shouted into his throat mike.
“Don’t know, Khai. Looks like the shield isn’t working. The SC com came alive only minutes ago. Garbled reports of several ships jumping into the system and punching through the Defense Fleet and—wait, I’m getting something else.” Khai’s stomach knotted up waiting for whatever Byyner was going to say. “One ship has punched through and is heading for the city. It’s not slowing down. Oh the Founders! It’s on a collision course!”
That was when Khai and the others could feel the rumble of a ship breaking through the atmosphere. Khai immediately ran for the nearest building, and like a jungle spider, climbed up the emergency ladder on the side. On the roof he could get a clear view of the ship coming in. Several dog fighters swooped in to try shooting it down. They scored several hits on the large ship, but nothing was slowing that thing down. Finally, a volley of concussion missiles connected with the hull of the ship and it listed as a series of explosions cascaded down the starboard side.
The ground of the whole city shook when the ship crashed.
“Now I’m getting a general distress coming from the RLD. It’s ablaze.”
The fighters swung around and started attacking other ships that were now in airspace above Seryys City. Khai got out his electrobinoculars and realized they had broken during his fight with the armored maniac.
“Koon,” Khai said into his throat mike. “Look up, to your two o’clock at thirty degrees and tell me what you see.”
A few seconds later, Koon reported back. “They’re drop ships, Khai. Four of ‘em.”
“Where are they headed?”
“Right for us.”
“Right for us or right for the Corporate Sector?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Damn! We gotta move—now! They’re headed for the shield generator!”
“How do you know that?”
“Call it a gut instinct.”
Khai clambered down the ladder and regrouped with the others. Without saying a word, they ran as fast as their legs could carry them. Khai and Captain Dah were having the least amount of troubl
e, having been raised on Gorn Planet. The others, however, were huffing and puffing as they ran.
“Come on, ladies. Move your asses!” Dah shouted. “We still have several more miles to run and no help is coming for us.”
“Hey!” Puar snapped. “You carry forty pounds of Detonite on your back and see how well you do!”
“Shit!” Khai laughed. “A standard rations and munitions pack was easily sixty pounds. Stop running your mouth and run your legs some more!”
The drop ships soared overhead and rumbled by. Puar, in a desperate attempt, shot one grenade at the tail drop ship and connected. The ship rolled over on its topside and dived down into the pavement of the street several miles ahead.
“Dammit, Puar!” Dah shouted. “You had better hope those Vyysarri are dead, or we’re gonna have to kill them first and that’s only gonna slow us down even more.”
“Yeah,” Puar said. “But at least then, I can catch my breath.”
“Amateurs,” Khai growled.
“What the hell is happening?” Prime Minster Puar demanded from Trall.
“I don’t know, sir.” Trall checked his micro-comp. “The shield had a lapse in power for only a brief moment, long enough for those ships to get through.”
“Get me the Minister of Planetary Defense on the com—now!” Puar growled.
An elderly-looking man, maybe a hundred and five years old, wearing a blue jumpsuit and hardhat, answered the com. “Yes, Prime Minister?”
“You’re not the Minister! Where is he?”
“He’s fighting off the intruders, sir.”
“Maybe you can tell us, then, what the hell happened.”
“I can’t, sir.”
“Why not?” Puar slammed his hand down on the desk, promoting the water in his glass to jump out and pool up around the bottom.
“We don’t know what happened. The power went down for three minutes and thirty seconds.”
“On the shield?”
“No, sir. The whole facility grid. It’s like somebody-” the transmission was lost.
“Dammit, Trall. What the hell is happening?” Puar asked, swiveling in his chair to face him.
The Seryys Chronicles: Death Wish Page 5
