by Justin Bell
In the center of Lake Trevas, the small building served as a power station. It harnessed the water within the lake and used it to drive generators buried deep within the island that the building sat upon. These generators ground away, supplying emergency power to back up services in the city proper using an automated system to ensure smooth operations. The computerized power sub-systems needed no Athelonian intervention unless there was an emergency, so the Space Fleet had designated the location as an appropriate meeting place.
Redax stood on the bow of the lead boat as it sliced a clean trench through the smooth water, picking up and coughing out white wake. Each boat moved in near silence as they approached the island and no motion drew their eyes or created distraction. They had a singular focus.
Iridium Squadron did most of their work behind the sticks of star fighters, but before they could even break atmosphere, they had to work together as a highly skilled team of operatives on the ground. They managed both with ability and precision.
The night vision goggles lowered from his eyes, Redax squinted at the island which drew closer as the boats surged forward, their engines roaring low in the cool, dark night. He glanced back, seeing the narrow shapes of the other three boats flanking him.
"South side," he whispered. Clamped to the side of his face was a sleek, black communications device, hooking around his ear and snaking down his jawbone like a metal worm. It was only two words, but the four boats converged and tilted in unison, guiding towards the closest edge of the small swath of land in the middle of the water. On the island the building still stood in cloaked darkness.
"They should be here already," Redax whispered. "Be ready for anything."
"I thought they were on our side," replied Drewsk. His fingers clamped tight around the steering console of the second boat in the group. A sleek, metallic plasma weapon stood at an angle on the wall at his feet and his eyes darted towards it, mentally calculating how much time he'd have to retrieve it if needed.
"The Bragdon are on no one's side but their own," Redax replied with a graveled grunt.
"So why are we putting so much trust in them?" a third voice echoed in Redax's communications system. Hector Gildrich had never been comfortable working alongside the Bragdon commandos, and Redax agreed with those sentiments to a point, but desperate times, as they say, desperate measures.
The times didn't get more desperate than they were now.
Conflict between Athelon and Reblox had escalated. Interstellar warfare now raged freely for anyone who might be paying attention, and if they didn't start acting more strategically the entirety of Yarda Quadrant could destabilize to the point of catastrophe. If that wasn't bad enough, Athelon intelligence was indicating that a new weapons satellite was in development, perched in neutral territory. A weapons satellite with long range armaments capable of pelting the surface of Athelon from space.
That was something that could not happen. That was something that Redax Northstar would trade his life to prevent. Even if it meant doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do, like working with the Bragdons.
Up ahead the shoreline drew up on the four boats, water lapping at its dirt covered ridge. Redax's boat was the first to hit shore, thumping low and scraping along the sand, and Redax charged forward, leaping from the bow before the watercraft even fully halted.
He landed in the dirt with a crouch, being joined within seconds by other members of Iridium Squadron, all coming up on his flank. Each man wore a black uniform with thick quilted vests, layered in pouches. Skin-tight metal woven armor clung tight to their frames, plasma weapons clamped in their numerous clenched fists. The night surrounding them was dark and silent, a black tomb pricked with a scattering of starlight, the noise of the nearby city as dim as their lights.
"Be careful," Redax said. "They are supposedly on our side, but I do not trust them."
"You are as intelligent as you are ignorant, Athelonian."
The voice was thick and hard, a crack in broken stone. Redax lifted his head, squinting against the moonlight and could only see six pairs of snapping yellow eyes peering back at them from the darkness.
"Perhaps this is an ambush," the voice said, and Redax shifted his weight slightly, focusing on the pair of eyes in the center. "Even as we speak you are surrounded."
"Then surround us," Redax spat. "Send a hundred of your lizard thugs after us. We are men of honor and we spit upon your sneak thief ways, Bragdon."
The voice chuckled. "Spit upon it... yet you ask us for help. Beg for our assistance."
"That was not my choice," Redax replied. "But I follow orders like anyone else."
Around him, figures shifted in the shadows, slight movements of dark shapes against the slightly less dark backdrop of night. Redax twisted and lifted his weapon, firing twice. Plasma speared from his barrel and plowed into the shadow to his left, splashing light against the group of four Bragdon warriors. The center figure screamed and thrashed backwards, sending his four teammates scattering. Gray-skinned lizard creatures, the nocturnal Bragdons were sleek, agile, and stealthy creatures, but when confronted headlong, they did not always respond well.
"What are you doing?" demanded the lead voice. "We will execute you where you stand!"
A rattling of metal and clicking of engaged firing mechanisms echoed, with bright beams of light flashing on under a dozen barrels. Light bathed upon the Bragdon commandos, criss-crossing them in narrow white beams. The lead Bragdon snapped his head back, hissing as Iridium Squadron emerged from the darkness around them and pinned them in, plasma weapons raised and pointing.
"You underestimate us, reptile," Redax snarled. "We have learned your ways of stealth and secret."
"Then perhaps you do not need us at all?"
Redax chewed on this. If given a choice, no, he would not need them. He'd shoot them all in their gray, scaled faces and be on his way. But it was not his choice. They did need them, like it or not, and needed their unique skill sets above and beyond traditional stealth.
"Lower your weapons," Redax muttered to the armored soldiers surrounding the commandos, then he turned his eyes on the lead Bragdon himself. "We do need you. Our plan requires certain skills that we do not have."
The Bragdon smirked and nodded. "I thought so."
"Don't push your luck," Redax replied. "If given a choice, I would shoot you and dump you in the lake like the scale covered water breathers you are."
Mouth curling into a sneer, the Bragdon took a long step forward, coming eye to eye with Redax Northstar. "Watch your mouth, Athelonian," he said. "No one speaks to Gragson that way. Not even you."
"Noted," Redax replied. "Now, can we get to work?"
CHAPTER THREE
Mixed within the scattering of asteroids, at first glance the large, uneven orb seemed completely ordinary. Its surface, ragged and peppered with pock mocks as the other chunks of space stone were appeared innocuous.
The changes were subtle, a movement that required careful analysis, and who would really spend their time diligently monitoring this deep corner of neutral space just outside the Reblox perimeter? Far enough away from Athelon to pose no real threat. Just a random, isolated asteroid belt.
Except this one rock wasn't random. It wasn't an asteroid. There wasn't anything natural about it. If anyone bothered to take a close look, they would see that it wasn't so much a chunk of rock as it was a tightly assembled cluster of metallic plates, bolted into a roughly spherical shape with embedded thrusters designed to adjust throttle to keep pace with the other asteroids around it. As it lilted slightly to the left, a small puff of blue flame ignited near the rear, correcting its spin and propelling it forward.
In the shadow of the large, metallic structure, a swift snap of light split the darkened sky, ejecting a narrow, triangular shape. It squeezed through the split in space-time like a splinter being removed from a shallow cut. In less than a second the white slice closed up, leaving the loose splinter floating there, moving purposefully forward i
n the silence of space. With a right tilt, the triangular shape, a Bragdon starfighter if someone had looked closely enough, picked up its pace, matching the speed of the spherical object, falling into its path of motion, but remaining carefully concealed beneath its shadow. The spacecraft was small compared to the larger sphere, but not tiny and as it moved closer to the strange satellite, the pilot could see the series of small structures sculpted onto its surface.
Boxy buildings were bolted down directly to the surface of the artificial asteroid, extending the rounded shape of the structure itself, a quartet of makeshift barracks and research stations built in the same blocky way as the asteroid. Wedged into the superstructure of the floating satellite was a series of rounded generators, bubbling up like boils on the metal hide of the falsified space rock, encasing a large, rounded radar dish. These shapes seemed to fester and crawl up the smooth skin of the shaft of the dish, resembling a malformed, misshapen mountain.
Gragson squinted at this shape from the pilot's seat of the Bragdon starfighter, easing off the throttle and bringing the ship closer to the surface of the artificial floating rock.
"That must be it," he hissed. "That's the pulse emitter. The weapon."
Behind him another Bragdon pushed through the door between the narrow cargo hold and the cockpit. His broad shoulders barely squeezed between the two walls, and his dark eyes narrowed, glaring out of the front window towards the metal structure ahead.
Gragson looked back at him. "What do you see, Nurtog?"
Nurtog shook his head. While Gragson was the ace pilot and gunner of the group, Nurtog was the grizzled leader, a hard and tough commando who had been through dozens of these campaigns during the long and exhausting war between Athelon and Reblox. A long and exhausting war that always trapped them in the middle. While the two larger planets could complain of the protracted battles, the fact was their civilizations had lost a fraction of the inhabitants that Bragdon had, only nobody knew the harsh truth. The Bragdon were a weapon, plain and simple. A weapon controlled by the two super powers, pointed, fired and forgotten.
"Set down there," Nurtog growled, extending a thick finger towards a tight clutch of smaller structures. "Those look like power cells." He stepped even closer, wedging himself into the tight space next to Gragson.
"If you look here," he continued, "you'll see shield generators. They're powering the entire defensive structure of this station. We drop those, the station will be exposed."
"Is that your directive?" Gragson asked, easing the control stick left and taking the ship down closer to the surface.
"Indeed. The controls for the shields will be inside the factory itself. We need to get in and shut the system down."
"Understood."
Gragson pressed forward, and the starfighter accelerated, igniting thrust through space. The ship thrashed slightly as it pushed through the artificial atmosphere generated around the structure, designed to keep breathable air within the perimeter of this station. Designed as an interstellar attack craft, the starfighter could absorb atmospheric disturbance, though if it got hammered with too much, it risked significant damage or even destruction. They had little choice, however, as they tried to keep their place in the shadow of the structure's surveillance window.
Moments later the thrashing stopped, and the ship settled, gliding down into the lower atmosphere where dark blue transitioned to black and the stars specked the sky. Gragson pulled back on the yoke, easing the ship into a slow horizontal, then engaged the bottom thrusters, cutting propulsion. Down closer to the structure's surface, the punch of thrust was audible, each small push echoing against the ridges and metallic panels surrounding them.
"No readings on thermals," a voice remarked from deep within the ship.
"Affirmative, Jugar," replied Gragson, his fingers steady on the controls, bringing the ship down at an even pace.
At the opening to the cockpit, Claghrek looked out past the two Bragdon cramped in there, and glanced over their almost-touching shoulders.
"Time to load up?" he asked.
Nurtog nodded. "Load up. Give the order."
Claghrek nodded and pushed himself away from the opening, fading back into the rear of the ship. Shadows draped across the smooth, angular surface, darkening the armored plates and Gragson brought the ship down in a lazy leftward lilt, engaging the landing skids, and making one last push towards the space station's surface. The skids buckled as they hit, the ship dipping lightly, then compensating, with a few last bursts of spent fuel and thruster fire ensuring it remained upright and engaged.
Waiting for a moment, Gragson dialed back the engines, and surrounding the ship the ambient noise faded into a low, calming hum, then silenced entirely.
"Hold!" shouted Nurtog. "Give them a few moments to respond. If they do not, we proceed."
Inside the ship the Bragdons remained still. A team of eight total, all expertly trained commandos, all fully prepared for just this type of mission. The type of mission that Athelon had spent a generation using them for.
After several moments of silence, Nurtog pushed his massive, gray-scaled frame from his spot in the cockpit, nodded at Gragson, and forced his way through the narrow entrance back into the hold.
"It's time," he hissed.
In the darkness of the hold, weapons clattered as fists snatched them, feet stomped and zippers swept over armored tunics. The telltale rubber of uniforms being pulled on over tough, leather, reptile skin.
Outside, a hiss signaled the slow opening of the rear cargo door, and it clanged lightly against the metal surface of the ground. Nurtog stepped off the ship first, his feet gliding over the smooth surface.
"Metal ground. What is this place?" asked Claghrek as he followed close on Nurtog's heels.
"Reblox made," Gragson said from behind Claghrek. "The space rock is not real. It's one large weapon."
Claghrek glanced back over his shoulder. "I read the report, too, young one. Do not talk down to me."
"Both of you shut your lips," Nurtog growled. "We owe Athelon nothing, but if Reblox could use this weapon against them, nothing would stop them from using it against us. This mission is for the future of our homeland."
"As you command," replied Claghrek, nodding.
"All of you know why we're here. And what we're here to do."
Nurtog stepped towards the group, standing in front of them, shoulders wide, fists clenched. With a deep intake of breath, he closed his eyes and his muscles tensed, pulling tight underneath the gray leather skin that adorned their arms. His face remained the same oval at first, thin bumps walking the bridge of his nose and up onto his forehead, twin slitted nostrils and eyes narrow.
Just beneath the layer of skin, musculature shifted, like rats crawling under a blanket. Nurtog rammed his teeth together, jaw clenching and his arms spasmed, skin splitting and musculature expanding like an inflated balloon. Even as the fibers loosened, then intertwined again, twisting like slick shoelaces, the skin was knotting itself back around it. At the same time, narrow quills of animal hair burst from opening pores in Nurtog's new flesh.
The whole act took only seconds. A few scant, painful seconds, but as the leader of the Bragdon commando team recovered, he brought himself up into a tall, full stance, and he was now hair covered and broad chested. On top of his shifting form, the rubberized uniform had expanded alongside his musculature, and he stood before his team, no longer a Bragdon, but a Reblon security officer.
Each Reblon was a large beast covered in hair, black, gray, and silver, and each clan wore their hair slightly different. In this low light, Nurtog looked white and gray, a tall and wide beast, with a unique intelligence concealed within his bright eyes.
"Bragdons standing before me," Nurtog said, his voice a low growl to match his new appearance. "We chose you for this mission because you are adept at the shifting process our race has mostly forgotten. Infiltration is why we're here. Infiltration and destruction."
The other seven Bragdons h
issed and nodded satisfaction, surrounding him. Each one of them repeated the process that their leader had undergone and within a moment, a squad of eight Reblons stood in the darkened shadows of the nearby buildings.
"The most direct route is through the Eastern perimeter. We start there and work our way inside, then drop the shields and notify Iridium. In and out."
"By your lead," Gragson said, and the others replied. In their group they swept up the scattered weapons and prepared for attack.
###
"Tighten your patrol formation, beasts!" shouted Primax as he rounded the rear corner. He was a large Reblon, the largest one on the station, and as in many cases, the larger ones were typically the ones in charge.
