by Greg Dragon
But Rafian was already gone. Orion watched the dark figure of his partner edging closer to the camp, and with much frustration, he lay flat and uncapped his rifle for what was to come.
The camp consisted of a metal tent and a portable four-post cell with chromian posts and laser crossbars that held the prisoners. There was a conductor tower next to the cell that gave Rafian enough cover to get in close to the thugs without being detected.
“How about we bring out Cinny again for some fun?” Rafian heard a voice say, and then, in concert, the other four thugs replied in agreement. Next, the whimpering of a young boy caught his ear, and he managed to peep around the conductor to see what was transpiring. It seemed the slavers were about to have a bit of “fun” with a young farm boy and had opened one of the laser bars to bring him out. Holding his rifle by the barrel, Rafian swung a deadly arch overhead into the closest of the thugs, shattering his head into a bloody eruption. As he went down instantly from the impact, Rafian was on the rest like a beast unleashed. Laser fire ripped into the other men from Orion’s sniper’s nest, and all except one of the thugs fell—the Ranalos who had gone in for the boy.
“Orion, secure the farmers!” Rafian yelled as he headed after the slaver through the dense Tyheran swamps. He was gone before Orion could reply and was hot on the trail of his mark as the Ranalos thug ran for his life. The two raced for a long time and Rafian was getting tired, but the Ranalos seemed to have endless energy as he fled. Dropping to one knee, Rafian laid down suppression fire at the thug and managed to nick his leg with one of the shots. Screaming in agony, the thug went down and began to crawl away. He was desperately afraid of his pursuer and began thrashing about in the murky water as he crawled.
Tired and annoyed, Rafian unsheathed his knife and slowly pursued the desperate, wounded Ranalos. When he finally caught up with him, he knelt over the fallen thug and pushed his head down into the mud, his hand entangled in his tentacle mane. He held the knife so that his victim could see it. He then took time to reflect on his life since his arrival in Talula and the emptiness he felt after losing Riyah. Lifting the Ranalos face from the murk to make sure he could see, Rafian spoke to him in earnest, steeling himself to do what he must to complete his mission.
“How does it feel being mounted, rapist? You don’t like it very much, do you? Do you think that I am going to be merciful? Answer me! Unfortunately for you, the man I will be tomorrow is not the one who will be seeing you off tonight. You see, the man who speaks to you now is a tired, twisted, and angry man who has had the only thing he cared about torn from him. So within this cruel knife lies my retribution, and you are a symbol of everything that has made me suffer up until today.”
The Ranalos’s screams could be heard for miles.
As Rafian tortured and killed the last of the slavers, Orion did not worry about waiting for him. He, Orion, would be a freedom fighter after that day, and he was on the side of the psychopath who seemed to favor fighting up close. The only doubts in the sniper’s mind were about Rafian, as he wondered whether the screams were his or the Ranalos. He quickly put it out of his head, though. Either way, it did not leave him with good feelings.
Memory 16 | Tempered in Fire
The rain came down in sheets as Rafian VCA sat at his usual table in the saloon. His favorite dancer, Dawna, was not in tonight, and due to the early hour, neither were his friends Orion and Corgan. Looking about at the saloon’s patrons, he tried hard not to let his thoughts roam on the past. He badly needed a distraction, and it took all his nerves to avoid approaching the vine-peddling smuggler named Vinny. Drugs had become a welcome distraction from his problems, but having to buy them from a shady and cocky individual such as Vinny was just unbearable. So Rafian let his mind drift from that form of escape. He missed Dawna. She was always good conversation. The other girls were either looking for a rich pilot to whisk them away or pleasuring themselves in mind games with grunts like him. Most saloon girls weren’t worth the trouble, he thought. Dawna had been an exception.
With much effort, Rafian reflected on his resistance career to keep his mind occupied. He had earned the respect of some of the top freedom fighters since he freed the slaves that fateful day of his arrival. Just recently, the freedom fighter leadership had sent him a letter of appreciation for his obsessive thwarting of the Felitians, through the various missions and rescue operations he had led in the months following his recruitment. In the months that passed, he and Corgan raided the capital of Veece, Apun, to rescue fellow freedom fighters, and then there was his hugely successful solo effort that destroyed multiple Felitian satellite camps. It was freedom fighters like him who kept Cally invisible to the Felitians. He had every right to be proud, but it was never enough to take away the melancholy mood that haunted his every moment.
As he reflected on all of this, he heard a familiar voice. “Hello, warrior!”
Rafian smiled without even looking up because he knew the honey-sweet voice to be that of Dawna.
“Dawna! I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh, really?” she teased him as she began her dance routine in front of his chair.
“Well, it’s either you or the war. I think I’d rather think about you,” Rafian said, smiling at her.
Dawna was a tall, blond amazon of a woman. She was the first dancer he had met, and they had become quick friends. Since the death of Riyah, the thought of intimacy with anyone else would reopen old scars for Rafian, so he saw Dawna as a friend and nothing more—at least this is what he had convinced himself of. Dawna was also a fellow resistance soldier. He was surprised by this revelation one night when he attended one of Corgan’s raid meetings, and there was Dawna decked out in full armor, semiautomatic gun inside her belt, and war paint smeared all over her face. He had never looked at her quite the same ever since. This indeed was the people’s rebellion, and the way she hid her identity during her daily work hours was something that Rafian admired.
Orion, ever the enigma, came in after another hour, looking cleaner than normal. He was wearing a purple smock and carried a spice pipe horn instead of his rifle, and he joined the band onstage to begin droning on his instrument. Looking on, Rafian smiled in spite of himself. War or no war, everyone had a special something about them, and he loved how they were able to turn it off to enjoy their lives beyond the fighting.
Rafian got up and walked outside quietly, shaking hands with his Daltak friend Makk on the way out. With ill intent to keep his mind clear, Rafian headed towards the rear of the saloon and injected a shot of the vine that he had bought from Dawna’s friend Losa. The brand was called Mystic Ginger, and it burnt him when he injected it, causing him to worry that he was using a bad product. These days, it seemed as if Rafian was always on the vine. He felt he had to use it as a crutch for the depression he suffered consistently. Rhiya haunted his mind nonstop, and he had never forgiven himself for dragging her into his mess and causing her to die in the skies above her home planet. The vine was an escape from it all. That sensation of fire was now in his brain, and he felt less like the perpetuator of Rhiya’s death and more like a god of war.
Sitting down with his back to the saloon wall, Rafian withdrew the needle slowly and relaxed. He was feeling calm, and the grin would not leave his face. This was a side effect of the drug and one of the reasons he hid when he took it. Vine heads were not looked upon favorably, and for Rafian VCA to be seen grinning like a fool would cause him to lose every ounce of respect that the rebels had for him.
He reflected on that first night he tried vine. It was several months after he had made his first confirmed Felitian kill. He had gone into the city of Veece by himself, armed with only a rifle and a goal. The goal was to test his skills at assassination. He was engaged by two officers within the city after they recognized his resistance fatigues, and it led to a long chase into an abandoned building near the palace. It was in that building that he shot one Felitian officer in the head and boldly chased the other into the street
s to execute him. It was a foolish act, and he spent the remainder of the day hiding within the enemy city. Luckily, such a small incident did not alert the Felitian Special Forces, but it was enough to increase the security in Veece and bring about monthly raids on the city of Cally. When he made it back to town, Rafian was excited, celebrating with friends in his small home. It was then that he decided to try the ginger. It was liquid adrenaline and enough to hold the demons within his mind at bay. He didn’t become addicted, but he knew to use it during the times he couldn’t get Riyah out of his head.
After the lengthy reflection on that proud moment, Rafian passed out on the ground. It was the oh-so-familiar crash from injecting illegal vines. For two hours he lay brain-dead and fried from the vine injection, and then he awoke vomiting all over himself—he had taken this a bit too far. Embarrassed and now sober, Rafian took the back route home to clean up. Once he had showered and changed his clothing, he returned to the festivities at the saloon as if nothing had occurred for the three hours he was gone.
It was dawn, and the band was still in full swing. The Primian and human women were spinning onstage in a sort of dervish brought on by the melody of the horns. The place was packed and Rafian’s favorite seat was taken, forcing him to stand as he clapped along to a freedom fighter song led by Orion.
“Hey, Rafian!” a familiar voice yelled, and he smiled at his good friend Saiko, a fellow freedom fighter with a spotty background just like his own. According to his story, Saiko was the victim of a mind-wash and was at one time a hired gun for the Felitians. He was commissioned to kill an important figure they wanted removed. As a result of the payment for his services, he was made filthy rich. But his mind was also wiped, and his memories of the event were removed along with any recollection of family, friends, and skills.
Rafian wondered sometimes if he too had once been a great bounty hunter like Saiko, wiped of his Memory to protect a client. Saiko’s story had always interested Rafian—being that he too suffered from a similar affliction. So they struggled together to remember a past now gone and had become close friends for sharing this struggle. As a test of what they had once known, they would train together and then spar outside the saloon to test new skills learned from sparring or from the battlefield. It was an activity they both enjoyed.
“What’s up, Sai? How’s the training?”
Saiko nodded and replied, “Good, man. I’m getting it back little by little every day.”
They found a place on the stairs to watch the girls while knocking back a few beers and sharing battle stories. The night was in full swing, and Rafian could count over fifty freedom fighters in attendance, including himself and Saiko. This was always a bad omen because Felitian’s spies had breached the small town. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than an alarm went off to warn of an incoming attack.
Rafian tossed his mug down and pulled a five-foot-long sword from a sheath on his back. It was time to thwart another raid, but the town had gotten used to it. Doctors readied their medi-kits, and the saloon crowd filed out the front, weapons drawn. The sounds of gunshots and explosions could be heard from over the central bridge in Cally, and the sky was flashing red as the Felitian ships rained deadly fire down on the saloon entrance, killing a few unlucky souls who came out at the wrong time.
Looking on, Rafian could see his Deijen friend Barri amid the fray, ducking and dodging gunfire while tossing detonator after detonator at the Fels. The fight was intense and it made Rafian’s blood boil, so he started up the bridge in full stride swinging a bloody arc at any Fel who dared cross his path. Running into two Felitians, Rafian slid left, then right, allowing his blade to cut a horizontal V path in front of him. Dodging the deadly slash, one of the Fels ignited a rocket-pack and flew backwards while covering Rafian with dangerous flames. Raf dived over the edge of the bridge to douse the flames in the water below. He barely made it, and then he swam to the bank to take the hill and rejoin the fight. He was wet and scarred from the scorching, but he was not slowed, as his anger carried him forward. Swinging the blade like a scythe, he managed to bring one assailant down before taking a gunshot to the arm. Dropping the blade, Rafian rolled towards his shooter and knocked him down with a sweeping attack. He then mounted the Daltak marksman and choked him to death with his bare hands before recovering his blade and rushing back into the fray.
The small band of fighters were getting desperate. Never before had there been this many Felitians in Cally. Rafian continued his berserker run amid the Fels until he was floored by a martial arts practitioner who happened to be a Ranalos. The Felitian commenced to stomp on Rafian’s chest with blow after blow until a gunshot to the head dropped him. Rafian felt the giant arms of Barri pulling him into a nearby building, and he silently thanked the giant for saving his life.
Cally had become a battlefield, and Rafian knew things were going badly when not only Barri, but Vinny, Orion, and Corgan were wheeled in to be looked at by the doctors in their makeshift clinic. His own wounds were too great for him to be allowed back into the battle, but Rafian couldn’t allow himself to watch as his friends were patched up and released back into the hell outside. Impatiently, he got up from the bed and with sword aloft joined them in regrouping.
“Look, it’s the one from before!” he heard the rocket-wearing Fel announce, and then, suddenly, all eyes were on him.
Rafian did not hesitate to rush the Felitian who had burnt him. Two freedom fighter shots had split his armor in two, leaving the Fel vulnerable in multiple places. Felitians wore plasteel armor. It was a flexible material that reflected kinetic weapons and could be destroyed only with laser technology. The Felitian had felt invincible against Rafian’s attack, but the rebels of Cally were bringing the rain, and he had managed to get shot a few times. Ignoring imminent death, Rafian slid himself to the left of the rocket man and buried the blade deep into his stomach between the cracked armor. The Felitian screamed like a stuck Bara pig as Rafian did a crescent kick into an axe kick to land him face first into the water.
All attacks turned on him, and his pants caught fire, so he dove once again to avoid the lasers. Again the water saved him, but he became disoriented and unaware of his surroundings. An enslaved Deijen picked up the broken body of Rafian and lifted him up as he was jeered and mocked by the now-winning Felitians. Looking around as the life escaped his body, Rafian realized that he was alone. His comrades either were dead, strewn about like rag dolls, or had fled the warzone to live to fight another day.
On the ground, about ten Fels were left to do with him what they wished. Slamming him to the ground, the Deijen roared as they handed him a flamethrower. Desperately, Rafian pulled out the last of his Mystic Ginger supply and jammed the needle into his hip. As new life erupted in his eyes and with renewed effort, he recovered the blade, grinning, and dropped into a pose before the Felitians.
The leader, impressed, motioned to the Deijen to stop. “I want this rebel tortured, blinded, and broken—”
Rafian took the Deijen’s arm off while running towards the saloon. He barely made it to the doors. A low-flying X-11 Zenu had appeared and scattered the Felitians as it landed resistance reinforcements from Hammerhead, Jaloos—the other moon that orbited Tyhera. Cally had once again been held, and the shouts of celebration were almost deafening as Rafian, the indomitable fighter, smiled from between his charred lips in recognition of his survival.
Memory 17 | Master Lucci
Blu the Deijen was an incredible doctor. His techniques were unparalleled by any within the city, and with the help of fellow physicians, he patched up every single freedom fighter who had fallen in the fray that fateful day. The Deijen race was from a swamp planet like Geral, but where the lizards were rough and smaller in stature, the Deijen were more like humans. While their features were flat and plain, they were intelligent and resilient beings who stood as giants. The average Deijen was over seven feet tall, and their muscular bodies were equally intimidating. From what Rafian had learned,
the largely human-run Felitian Empire had joined forces with the Ranalos and conquered Deijo just as they did Tyhera. So it was no surprise to anyone that most of the Deijens were hard-core members of the freedom fighter resistance.
While Rafian lay in his hospital bed awaiting treatment, he thought of the martial arts masters who could simply will away their wounds to make themselves heal. He had witnessed it once when a couple of masters were in a duel, and the loser—who should have died—simply meditated before getting up to collect his things and leave. He thought about how easily he had gotten disarmed with the sword by a better martial artist when the Fels raided Cally. It had made him feel inadequate, and he knew he needed to train in order to compete.
“If only I could just meditate these burns and bruises away…” he thought. He had begun the training to become a Mera Ku monk when he learned that they were weapon masters. He, however, still needed the advanced lessons where this magical meditation skill would be studied. The raid by the Fels had come when he was new to the Mera Ku way of the sword—a drastically different style from his innate fighting skills. Though he foolishly ran into the battle with it, he was proud for doing as well as he had done under deadly fire. He smiled as his friend Blu came over to him to dress his wounds and check his status.
“You fought like a demon out there, Rafian,” he said, smiling.
“Thanks, Blu, but that was all vine and wine that you saw out there.…I hope to be that great sober one day,” Rafian replied—not to seem cocky (though it came off that way), but to let his friend know that he was still in training.
Chuckling, Blu started treatment on the wounded rebel. Rafian had always impressed the doc since coming from out of nowhere to command the position he held with their resistance. He himself had taken out three Fels that day. Everyone had done his or her part, but they knew this would not keep up for long. The Felitian Empire was getting too curious about Cally and its citizens, and before long, they would bring their Special Forces Dreadnaughts to completely wipe them out.
