THE TRUTH
A short story set in the universe of The Seryys Chronicles
Copyright © 2014 by Joseph Nicholson
Edited by Chelsea Pullano
ISBN-13: 978-1623750787
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First Edition
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Disclaimer and Spoilers!
If you have not read Death Wish, you shouldn't read this story first! There are many spoilers if you do, so go read Death Wish (then come back):
"The Seryysans and the Vyysarri have been at war for centuries and there is no end to the war in sight. The Vyysarri, nomadic savage warriors, are relentless in their efforts to wipe out the Seryysans once for all, while the Seryysans, civilized denizens, scramble to defend themselves by whatever means necessary.
When Khai’Xander Khail, a retired war veteran and hero of the Seryysan People, discovers a government plot to raze the megalopolis Seryys City, to for a large deposit of a precious metal beneath its sprawling streets, he is ultimately forced into an adventure that takes him deep within Vyysarri Space.
While there, he meets an aged Vyysarri with a message to deliver: an even deeper, darker secret that will shake Khai to his very core and threaten to unravel everything in which he believes.
The question: What is Operation: Bright Star?”
In the event you have already read the above, please read on:
The Truth
Prefect Sumptaruul had summoned Sibrex to his office extremely early that morning—which was most irregular for the world leader, who was a very by-the-book person. Normally, he shouldn’t have even been in the office, so whatever it was, it was urgent.
Sibrex had served the Vyysarri Navy loyally for four decades and had been rewarded for his unwavering service with multiple promotions, including that of Supreme Commander. He commanded an entire fleet of the Vyysarri Navy, which consisted of fifty ships. By sheer virtue of the fact that he was still alive, he was an efficient and cunning tactician. The Seryysan dogs were a ferocious bunch that fought tooth and nail in almost every encounter. If one could survive long enough to make even the rank of commander, they were doing something very, very right.
For the nth time, he straightened his uniform as he paced back and forth in the waiting area. His white hair was pulled back and braided in the traditional style. His red eyes darted back and forth, assessing everything in the area, out of pure habit from years of military training. His hearty and bulky frame caused the floor creak under his weight. His albino skin was a few shades whiter than usual under the harsh lights above. They were UV free; his skin could not handle direct UV light, since his ancestors had lived on a planet that orbited a dying sun.
One day, before he was born, the Seryysans used a deadly weapon on his people. The weapon reverted their sun to a younger stage of life, which emitted higher levels of UV light and made his home planet uninhabitable to his people. His people scattered into the solar winds of the galaxy, finding other places to dwell, most of which were drifting colonies, much like the one they currently inhabited. Colony One was the capital of the Vyysarri People. It was always on the move, which made it very difficult to find, unlike Seryys, which was a planet that orbited a sun and was, for all intents and purposes, stationary.
Sibrex had just returned from a mission to the one of the outlying outposts at the edge of Seryys’ Space, bordering their own territory. The outpost was lightly guarded with a small contingent of ships and soldiers. In fact, when they invaded, they realized that it was a startup colony consisting mostly of scientists and engineers. They were easy pickings for highly trained Vyysarri Warriors. The Seryysans put up quite a fight both in space and on the ground, but the Vyysarri had superior numbers at roughly ten to one.
The Vyysarri jumped into the system using they Eve’Zon Drives and took the Seryysans completely by surprise. Their intelligence was spot on, right down to the number of ships and ground forces. Their spy ships were able to scan the area without interference, and the colony was utterly destroyed. Sibrex led both the aerial and ground assaults personally.
Their fleet plowed through the laughable defense fleet with little effort, and made it to orbit in less than half an hour. From there, they bombarded the moon and made the main portion of the Seryy colony a crater in the earth. The Seryysans had dug in deep and gone underground where the Fang-Class ships’ cannons couldn’t reach them. Sibrex was undeterred; he had a feeling that they would hole up and fight until the last man was dead. He was fine with that. After all, it was the Seryysan dogs that started the war and drove the Vyysarri from their home.
On the ground, Sbirex led his troop down into the bowels of the ruined facility, after quickly dealing out mercy kills to all those who had survived the surface bombardment. At first, progress went quickly; there were practically no pockets of resistance for the first four or five sublevels. It made sense, of course. There was always the possibility that their cannons might have made it down that far, but it was unlikely. Their commander was smart; there was no sense in sacrificing lives needlessly when numbers counted. He was surprised by the number of sublevels this facility had. They must have been there longer than his intelligence had indicated. It was no matter, though. They had superior numbers, better training, and they were Vyysarri!
As they began clearing level five, Sibrex halted his raiding party of fifty men. Their ability to see well in low-light situations picked up on the ambush that was waiting for them immediately. There was a network of tripwires in the corridor coming off of the stairwell, which meant that something was waiting for them beyond. Running on instinct, Sibrex pulled out a stun grenade and his men readied themselves. He switched the grenade onto a five second fuse and rolled it under the tripwires. The grenade rolled into the room beyond the corridor, and Sibrex was satisfied to hear a man cry out “Grenade!”
The grenade went off, thudding in their chests and sending several Seryysans to the floor, crying out as their eardrums burst. The paper-thin antipersonnel mines stuck to the walls went off harmlessly, leaving the way clear for Sibrex and his troops. They barged into what appeared to be a subterranean hangar. The place was huge, and there were dozens upon dozens of places to play hide and seek. They quickly dispatched the Seryysans writhing on the floor clutching the sides of their heads. The blood coming from their ears seeped through their fingers.
A handful of Warriors made moves to feed on their enemies when Sibrex stopped them. “No!” he shouted. “We feed when our job is done, not a minute sooner. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” they all shouted and snapped to attention.
They moved deeper into the hangar, clearing each area one at a time. Suddenly, from a catwalk above, the next ambush came. The real ambush, Sibrex mused. It was an ingenious plan, albeit a cold-blooded one, sacrificing a part of your contingent to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. It had worked, however. Sibrex and his men were taken by surprise. After five of his warriors fell to the floor dead, the rest registered that they were under attack. They spread out to find cover wherever they could, but the Seryysan running the show had picked the perfect spot to spring the trap as the nearest cover was over thirty yards away.
As they ran, Sibrex watched more of his warriors fall to Seryysan bullets, firing as they ran. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an access ladder that led up to a catwalk above the one where the soldiers were holed up. With a well-placed shot, Sibrex hit the light bank above them. The flash of light and raining glass caused the Seryysan soldiers to wince and cover their eyes. In that moment, Sibrex ran for the ladder with all the speed he could muster. He hit the ladder in mid jump, roughly ten feet up.
By the time the Seryysans had recovered from the dazzling in their eyes, Sibrex was half way up the ladder to the higher catwalk. He didn’t like sacrificing his men, but using them as bait was the only way to win this battle. Sibrex was a ghost. He silently and quickly moved along the upper catwalk until he was directly above the twenty-two soldiers. A quick survey of the battlefield indicated—to his relief—that a majority of his warriors had made it to cover of some kind, but there were still about twenty Vyysarri bodies strewn about the floor.
The Seryysans were firing wildly at anything that moved. They were so intent on their fish in this particular barrel that they hadn’t the faintest idea that their lives were about to end in a very bloody, very violent way. The drop from Sibrex’s catwalk to the lower one was about twenty feet. Without hesitation, he dropped down on the soldiers’ leftmost side, right next to the soldier on the end. It took a few seconds for him to register what had just happened.
One minute the soldier was raining death on the Vyysarri below, and the next he was staring the Vyysarri commander in his red eyes. The Seryysan took a breath to shout something to his commander when Sibrex struck him across the face, stunning him and spinning him a hundred and eighty degrees to face his comrades. He then grabbed the man by the hair, tilted his head, and sunk his fangs deep into the man’s neck. The venom in his saliva worked quickly, and paralyzed the man as he gurgled for help.
The others took notice and turned their guns on their captured brother in arms. They hesitated for an instant, but that was all Sibrex needed. With one hand holding the Seryysan by the neck and the other holding his gun, he started mercilessly gunning down the soldiers. With their attention on Sibrex, they missed the rest of the Vyysarri moving up. Once the Vyysarri opened fire, it was all over. The soldiers dropped like flies; some fell from the catwalk to floor below. In the end, Sibrex lost twenty-two of his fifty warriors in the exchange. The man he bit still stood as rigid as a board, as Sibrex’s venom coursed through his veins. The look of wild terror in his eyes made Sibrexs’ jowls tingle as he bled the Seryysan dry.
When he was done, he wiped the blood from his mouth and looked around for other enemies. The hangar was as quiet as a tomb; he could hear his warriors breathing, hear the pained moans of the injured, and hear the beating of his own heart. As his blood lust diminished, his head cleared. He realized that they still needed to bring down the building. He jumped over the railing and landed below, amongst his warriors. They were feeding, as the fighting was over.
“It is time to bring this facility down,” Sibrex said, almost ceremonially.
His warriors got to work placing charges at key points in the hangar. As Sibrex looked around, he saw ships, machinery, equipment—not to mention a fully-functional hangar—and said, “Stop.”
“Sir?” one of his warriors asked, a quizzical look on his face.
“I am ordering a change of plans,” he said. “We can salvage this facility and have a foothold in Seryys Space.”
“But our orders—”
“I am aware of our orders!” Sibrex snapped at the young, insubordinate warrior. “I also have operational command over this mission and I am changing our orders. I will accept full responsibility from High Command.”
“As you wish,” the young warrior said with a bow.
“Contact my ship. Have them send the engineers to start rebuilding and removing this filth at my feet and call for my shuttle.”
“It will be done.”
Sibrex left the hangar via the large, hidden door at the far end. His shuttle picked him up there and took him up to his ship, the Fang-Class Dreadnaught Dominator. A small group of off-duty warriors was there to greet him in full dress regalia. They bowed as he descended the ramp of his shuttle, and he bowed back with respect and honor. That was rare. Most commanders simply blasted past their bowing warriors without a second glance. That was not how Sibrex did things. He believed that showing his crew respect demanded respect, that respect was respect reflected. Because of that, his crew was one of the finest in the Navy, and his fleet of ships had never lost an engagement against the hated Seryysans.
He strode to the lift that would take him to the bridge. His crew would nod cordially to him as he passed by them. He ordered them not to stop what they were doing just to bow to him; that was not an efficient use of time. If his crew continuously bowed every time he walked by, things on his ship would take twice as long to complete. And it showed. Other ships were not nearly as efficient as his, because their commanders insisted upon being honored at every encounter, no matter how brief. His crew also loved him. People requested transfers to his fleet simply for the good working environment. But he also demanded the best, and he got it. One had to be nearly an expert in their respective field to even be considered for his fleet.
The price for his extreme success was nothing more than common courtesy to his crew. He was chastised by his peers for being “too soft” on his crew, but scorned for having the best combat record by a large margin than those same peers. He also moved up far faster than his peers, and surpassed them almost as quickly.
He reached the bridge of his ship and dropped his bulk into the seat at the center. The view screen displayed the moon upon which the outpost was built. It lazily spun in space around a larger planet that was uninhabitable not because it had no atmosphere, but because it was six times bigger than Vyysar and eight times bigger than Seryys. That kind of gravitational pull would squish one’s organs in their bodies within minutes. It would be equivalent to continuously pulling six g’s in a dogfighter. The Seryysan and Vyysarri bodies simply couldn’t handle that kind of stress, even with battle suits.
His great grandfather grew up on Vyysar, as did his ancestors. Due to thousands of years of evolution, his people’s muscles grew with tighter-woven fibers, allowing them to support their bodies on a planet that has a higher gravitational pull than most planets. That’s what made them such dangerous warriors. They were stronger, tougher, and faster than the common the Seryysan. But, the Seryysans had an answer to that. After driving the Vyysarri from their home, they colonized Vyysar and made it into a military training facility to force their soldiers to be stronger by dropping them on a planet several times bigger than Seryys. It was great insult to the Vyysarri people, turning their former home into an instrument for their destruction.
But, despite all that, the Vyysarri people were strong and continued to prosper and thrive. They had the Seryysans on the defensive by constantly performing hit-and-run attacks on the planet if Seryys herself. The Seryysans were victims of their own success, Sibrex mused. They quite handedly removed the Vyysarri from Vyysar. But leaving the planet and settling on drifting colonies m
ade them nomadic and, more importantly, elusive. With a large majority—ninety-nine percent—of their population able to move at will, tracking them down was nearly impossible. The Seryysans had no such advantage. They would remained in one place for all eternity, until the Seryys’ Sun went nova—which would never happen, because the same technology that reverted Vyysar’s sun to a younger state and forced them to scatter would do the same for the Seryys’ Sun, and it would provide life-giving energy forever.
Sitting on the bridge of his flagship, Sibrex wondered if the war would ever be over. Like a sport fighter with a Ti’tan’lium-clad heart, the Seryysans would not stay down. They’d get knocked down, but get up every time and continue to fight. They had resolve; Sibrex had to give them that. He often wondered how many Seryysan women and children died under his command during one of the many assault he led on Seryys and her sister planets. One battle—if one could call it that—weighed heavily on his mind, and had for years since it happened.
About ten years earlier, when he was a fresh commander—his first command of an entire fleet—under the command of Supreme Commander Syybim—a particularly ruthless commander, they made what he considered a cowardly attack on a colony within the Seryys System. It was a non-military target for vacationing Seryysans. The planet was mostly covered in a temperate zone, with moderate year-round temperatures and beautiful backcountry that brought people by the tens of thousands each year. They blasted through the pitiful planetary defenses and bombarded the resorts from orbit. There was no invasion, no capturing, just unrestricted, unprovoked death from above. Though he was just following orders, his revulsion nearly ended his career. He spoke out publicly against the attack afterward, saying it was a cowardly attack on a civilian population that was completely without honor and that lacked any tactical value. He was nearly stripped of his rank and expelled from the officers’ circle. It was his involvement as a leading scientist who helped develop the Hammer Cannon—a ship containing a weapon of mass destruction that created seismic instability in the impact zone—and his exemplary service record up until that point that saved him from humiliation and a blacklisting that would have put him and his family out on the streets, unable to do anything other than beg for scraps from passersby.
The Truth (The Seryys Chronicles) Page 1
