by Kyle Mata
Thousands of spacers roared and cheered within the fleet. The ship’s hull seemed to vibrate with the enthusiasm. Unknown to Majex, trillions of humans across the galaxy cheered, applauded, and, most importantly, found a new sense of hope.
Things eventually died down and Majex temporarily relinquished command to his first officer. He headed back to his personal quarters. He was exhausted and hadn’t slept in days. He knew that he was getting old and acknowledged that eventually his body would get the sleep it needed whether he was a part of the decision-making process or not.
There was a knock on the door. Majex spent his entire career assuring everyone—superiors and subordinates alike—that if they ever needed him, he would be there. He went to the door and opened it after making sure his shirt was at least tucked in. Captain Thomas Winchester stood at the door. The young Captain looked just as tired as Majex felt. His sharp hazel eyes seemed a bit lighter than usual with worry.
“Thomas, come in, my boy.” Majex stepped back from the door, ushering Thomas inside. Thomas walked by with large strides and his hands behind his back, his strong features slumped in apprehension.
“Sir, my team has gone MIA.”
“You’re referring to the Shadowri, the Mason, and the Coalitionist, I assume.” Majex said with a frown.
“Yes, sir. I’d like to go look for them.”
“Thomas, while I understand you’re troubled by this unfortunate event, many Nyrotsi have lost friends and family over the past few days, the Rae…”
“No, sir, it’s not like that… May I sit?” Thomas gestured toward a small table with four chairs, a sign of immense luxury aboard a ship of the fleet.
“By all means,” Majex said, as he pulled out a chair himself and sat across from the troubled man.
“While I’ve never subscribed to the philosophy of fate, or destiny, or any idea that my life is predetermined, I have seen plenty of things in my life that have made me abandon the hope that coincidence is a common force. I know that I was not thrown together with that lot purely by chance. We are all going to play a major role in upcoming events, if not somehow bring about victory for humanity ourselves. The Rae even confirmed my musings on Vurumon. Sir, they called out Daena, by name. They seemed to want to stop her above everyone else. Maybe they fear her, maybe they worship her, I don’t have the foggiest notion. But if it’s either, self-fulfilling prophecy or not, I need to find her. I need to find all of them.”
Thomas looked at Majex. He took a breath to gather his passionate thoughts. The older man looked back at Thomas; he seemed tired yet still attentive, but the Admiral did not appear convinced.
“Lieutenant Joanna Nova is more than capable of captaining the Cloak of Atlas. She knows the crew and the ship’s capabilities like the back of her hand. I’d like to assemble a special task force to track down my compatriots. I promise you, sir, I’m of more use getting my team back together and fighting the Rae than I am aboard a bridge—at least right now.”
Majex was silent for a small while. He chewed over the information Thomas had told him and tried to look at it with an unbiased point of view. In doing so, he knew he should tell the man to mourn the losses like everyone else and head back to his ship. But Aidmen Majex was not an unbiased man, he could not toss the filter of years of experience down the drain and ignore everything he knew. He could not look into the eyes of Thomas Winchester and call him a liar, because he knew Thomas believed in what he was saying. He would not have come here if he hadn’t. Whether Thomas’s team was alive or not was irrelevant. What was relevant was the fact this great man, and budding Nyrotsi leader, was accomplishing whatever he put his mind to, that much Majex had seen for himself. If Thomas believed his team would bring about victory for humanity, then it very well could—not because destiny foresaw it, but because Thomas and the others would make it happen. With this in mind, Majex could not stick Captain Winchester back aboard the carrier in good conscience, knowing Thomas’s heart would not be there. “Very well, Thomas. You have my approval to assemble your task force. I’ll see to it that funding is handled, but you must acquire your search team yourself. I’ll have my first officer draw up orders for ‘Task Force Green Phantom.’ You can begin your hunt immediately.”
“Thank you, sir. I know you won’t regret it.”
“I trust that I will not,” Majex said. Thomas offered a crisp salute which the Admiral returned, Thomas turned to leave. “And, Thomas.” Majex called after him, and Thomas turned back. “Don’t take too many of my good Nyrotsi. I do have a war to fight after all,” Majex said with a smile. Thomas just gave a quick serious nod and headed toward the hangar bay.
In his head, he was ticking through a list of Academy friends, Nightfang operators, and various other individuals he knew and had heard of that would make for the best team. He needed jack-of-all-trades types that could wear many hats and be proficient in all of them simultaneously.
He made it to the hangar bay and was so lost in his thoughts that it took several moments for him to realize the peregrine dropship he flew in from the Cloak of Atlas was gone. He looked back at the two guards who stood at the door.
“Where’s my ship?” Thomas asked, more confused than anything else. The guards snapped to the position of attention before they addressed the Captain.
“Sir, the co-pilot was told to return to the Cloak of Atlas, your ship…”
The guard was interrupted by the sudden entrance of a new Nyrotsi dropship. The ship whipped around in a flashy entrance, indicating the pilot was quite comfortable with the craft. Thomas was unable to identify what make it was, meaning it was very new or incredibly classified. It looked like the peregrine but with more weapon attachments, larger engines and a stealth RRM skin coating.
The ship touched down and the ramp lowered. A woman with short black hair in a black jumpsuit with Lieutenant insignia walked down the boarding ramp; Thomas recognized her confident gait immediately.
“Teia? Teia Marx?”
“Captain Thomas Winchester. They just give captain to anyone these days, don’t they?” Teia said with a smile. She offered him a salute, which he quickly returned, then pulled her into a hug.
Teia Marx was his flying partner at the Academy and first co-pilot during the Outer Belt War. After the war she was whisked off to Clandestine Ops and he hadn’t seen her since. “I’ve been very suddenly reassigned to a Task Force Green Phantom. I’ve never seen orders with a higher priority; I was pulled up into orbit from the middle of a sortie. I assume you’ve got quite the story to tell, Tommy.” Thomas internally flinched when she called him Tommy. His name was Thomas, and no one ever called him by any other variation of the name, save Teia, which he had forgotten.
“I’ll explain on the way. What kind of ship is this anyway?” Thomas asked as they walked up the boarding ramp. Once they reached the top, Teia pushed a large yellow button and the ramp closed quickly behind them. They walked through the passenger/cargo bay toward the tandem cockpit.
“Sparrowhawk dropship, still a prototype. I’ve been field testing it in the gunship configuration. Where are we headed?”
“Start the engines up. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” Teia rolled her eyes but listened and climbed into the lower forward pilot seat.
The powerful hum of the engines could be heard through the thick bulkhead. Thomas climbed into the upper rear pilot seat, realizing that Teia would move the ship whether he was seated or not. He considered the odds of Marx showing up when she did, as he was considering her for his task force less than an hour before. But he knew Majex knew her as well as he knew him, so their pairing was no coincidence.
“Green Phantom, eh?” Teia said as she carried out her pre-flight checklist. “You pick the name?”
“No, Admiral Majex did.” Thomas replied. He hadn’t really considered the meaning of the name until Teia pointed it out. Green phantoms were mythical figures in Nyrotsi culture, symbols of good fortune. If something particularly good happened to you, such a
s getting hired for a new job, accepted to a reach universollege or just stumbling upon some raumgeld on the ground, it was said that you had a green phantom on your shoulder. Alternatively, if you had bad luck, like tripping up the stairs or botching a speech, you had a red phantom on your shoulder. It was fun rhetoric for children growing up; the symbols both being phantoms taught children that everyone can be good or bad. Thomas now found it intriguing that Majex named the task force after a childish mythical figure.
Admiral Majex watched from his personal quarters as the prototype dropship slipped quietly into a warp-jump, toward a destination only the two passengers on board were privy to. He said a quiet prayer and wished them luck. At the same moment, Nightfang dropships, flanked by freshly armed fighters and bombers, rushed down to Fortshione to continue the fight planetside. Majex sat on his bed and felt a heavy weight on his shoulders as he prepared for a hard battle and a long war.
PROLOGUE
The bright light finally subsided after what felt like a few seconds and a few hours, both at the same time. Daena opened her eyes and could only see the matte black chest piece of Karr’s armor as he held her in a tight protective grasp. Karr loosened his grip and she stepped back. They were alive, and they were still on Scorpion.
“Did we just warp-jump… on a planet?” Daena asked.
“I do not know,” Karr began to walk toward the Red Drake, and Daena followed.
“You’ve come up with a plan, I hope?”
“Get the Puma, Recon the Rae encampment, find a ship, steal it, and get to orbit.” Karr said.
“How is it you always have some sort of plan?” Karr simply shrugged in response. He was always taught that a decent plan now was better than a great plan later. And any plan was better than no plan, no matter how loose and fluid that plan was.
The sands before them began to kick up, like a small sandstorm. Daena needed to shield her eyes. As quickly as it had begun, it stopped. Karr quickly put on his helmet, drew his rifle, and aimed it at the vast desert before him, confusing Daena. A small gold ship appeared in front of them, utilizing the same cloak technology as the shuttle they hijacked on Vurumon. A side door opened, and a Rae stepped out. Unlike every other Rae they had encountered, which had the heads of old Earth animals, this Rae wore a large golden helmet, built from seemingly the same material as the rest of their armor. Karr drew his katana and in response the Rae threw up their hands and called “Wait, wait!” The voice was heavily augmented by the helmet. Karr ignored the plea and continued to charge forward. Had the figure before him been a human, he may have hesitated, but experience was quickly teaching him that the Rae were clever and blood thirsty, a dangerous combination.
Daena, on the other hand, felt something was genuinely different about this Rae. “Karr, wait.” Daena said. Karr was confused by her request, but he halted his katana mid-swing, mere centimeters away from the alien. The dull silver glow of the Tirium powered blade reflected off the gold armor. The Rae cautiously reached up toward the helmet, in order to not give the Shadowri reason to cleave off their head.
“Perhaps she really is the Harbinger,” It said. The helmet hissed, and the Rae tugged it off. Daena’s jaw dropped. Karr was unsure how to handle the trickery before him. The Rae, which stood as tall as him, did not have the head of an animal, but the head of a human woman. And her face was so similar to Daena Staal; she looked as though she could be her own mother.
“Please, get in the ship. The jump is much more pleasant on board. I’ll explain everything on the way,” The Rae woman said, ushering them on board. Daena and Karr exchanged confused glances. Then the planet began to rumble and shake violently. Daena nodded and wordlessly stepped past the Rae and into the shuttle. Karr disagreed but followed her anyway; however, he did not sheath his blade—wishing once more that he hadn’t lost his knife.
The shuttle vanished from sight once the door closed behind them.
