Toriko hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Actually, yes. There’s a close friend of mine, a professor from my university. . . His name is Francis Xabier. I’m trying to find out some information about him.”
Eyani hesitated, then said, “I can see what I can find and let you know. In the meantime, be sure to let Mencari know about your search. We’ve briefed him about what we know, and how our systems work. He may have some insights for you.”
“Okay if I keep searching the knowledgebase?”
“It’s completely open to you.” Eyani smiled with her violet eyes. “But if you would, please keep Naijen away from access.”
Laughing at the very thought, Toriko nodded enthusiastically, “No problem there. Besides, unless it’s something that can be used to kill, I don’t really think he’s interested. Thank you again, Eyani.”
“See you later, Terconian Toriko Purg!” Bob chirped happily.
The amber circle around Eyani collapsed, and Bob’s avatar obliterated into tiny pixels, each dot shooting in a different direction before disappearing all together.
She looked back at her digital creation. “Mini-Toriko, I’m going to keep the connection open so you can continue searching. I have some other work to do in the meantime. Let me know right away if you find any reference to the professor.”
“You can count on me! You made me, after all, and you’re so brilliant! But remember, anything worthwhile takes time!”
Giggling, Toriko returned to working inside the access panel. She tackled creating the needed interfaces to hook up their system with the other components Rhysus brought back.
Maybe by the time the others woke up, she’d have a lead on the professor.
Anything worthwhile takes time. Her mom used to tell her that. But, how much time did the professor have? Was it already too late?
Pushing the worry away, she took a deep breath, picked up the next component and attacked the installation.
* * * * *
“Rhysus!”
A scream from the same nightmarish dream pulled him from his slumber. His lungs burned and his head pounded. Sometimes he wondered if it would ever stop. He knew better than to try to go back to sleep. He’d just have the same dream again. With a heavy sigh, his eyes wandered around the room.
Osuto, Ujaku, and Naijen were sleeping in their respective corners of the room. He guessed that Seigie and Allia were fast asleep.
Toriko? He had an inkling that she was likely still up and working. Despite the sleep, inspiration on what to say to her about the professor still eluded him.
His weary hands rubbed his temples. Everything was still so crazy. So much had happened, and so much more needed to be done yet. When Osuto told him there were others like him out there, with abilities that were like his, he didn’t actually think he’d find one, much less the group of them. In contrast, the Nukari seemed to be everywhere, making them far too easy to find. As scary a fact as it was, at least they had been able to make progress understanding this new enemy. The encounters were valuable, as they gained key information with each one. So long as they continued to survive them. He had to admit the odds were stacked against them, given their small numbers, considering the close calls they’d already had.
Now, there was Eden. He never would have guessed Eyani, the enigmatic beauty with the lavender scales, was actually an agent working for a large-scale resistance organization, and that the slightly obsequious Bob was the AI for an entire space station? That group certainly seemed well organized and informed. He still wasn’t comfortable with them knowing so much about him, while he knew so little about them. Regardless, he had high hopes for what they’d bring to the fight.
Stranger still, that Toriko’s Professor FX was actually an Eden agent. After not finding a single lead on him, they end up encountering him on the last mission. In his mind, he saw the professor slowly falling with a fresh blast wound through his back. He still needed to tell Toriko. Somehow.
Regardless, his goal was still the same: assemble a functioning team of D’mok Warriors as fast as possible and find the Nukari and a way to stop them.
Functioning? He smiled at the thought of Seigie, Toriko, Allia, and Ichini. And Naijen. What mattered was that the effort was underway. Despite all their challenges, the group was finding ways to get things done. And not falling apart from their many differences.
What concerned him was just how much further he had to go to create a team that could really make a difference in this conflict. The Nukari were everywhere. Their operations were well underway on a massive scale. He felt like the boy in an old Earth tale he had once read or heard somewhere, sticking his finger in a dike. Could a little action like that be enough to save everything?
Or was his team just a sore thumb, a flea-sized annoyance to the Nukari that they could easily eradicate if they felt any real threat to their massive infiltration of so many worlds?
At least he wasn’t alone anymore. In fact, it wasn’t just that, he felt like he had a new, albeit slightly dysfunctional, family.
Epilogue
“Sir,” a soldier in a black uniform said nervously. “Here’s the requested mission report, sir,” he said, setting it carefully down on the desk and backing away.
With gritted teeth, the grizzled general stared at it. Of all the great Nukari minds, how did he end up with such incompetents under him?
First a team of scout droids was destroyed, setting back their plans on Auen. Then a key mine is nearly lost due to rebel terrorists. And now the operation to secure technology from Tericn and that hostile research station was bungled.
“Dismissed,” he said harshly. The underling skittered nervously away.
He stared at the Nukari emblem decorating the memory stick on his desk. Among the bits and bytes stored was a copy of the report he had already read once before. Was he really to believe one man just happened to appear as involved in all of these incidents? How would his inept subordinates react if they thought one person was behind all their failures? And what should he make about the latest claim that this person could shoot energy from his hands?
The ability to project energy? That sounded familiar. Is this what Kajlit’ga has been babbling about all this time, he wondered.
He groaned, as he entertained the thought of her over-developed sense of self-importance and delusional “significant contribution” to their cause. Every time he saw her, he tried not to roll his eyes at the endless chatter about her super creatures, inherited from a derelict genetics project.
Fine then, time to see what her “miracle creatures” could actually do.
“COM Kajlit,” he said to the air. A computer bleeped in response, followed by a pleasant tone while he waited.
The line clicked open.
“Yes, General?” she said with a reverent curiosity.
“Come to my quarters. It’s time we put your team in action.”
Prologue
Light from a hundred suns washed over a man on his knees, gently working the earth. He adjusted the sweat-soaked sun garb that blocked the destructive yet life-giving rays. A sensation drew his lizard-like eyes to the honeycombed panels of the greenhouse. From the star-filled space beyond, a haunting female voice drifted into his mind.
Kah-Tae’un …
He hesitated, indignant, then returned to his labor of love.
A stronger, male voice joined her calls.
Kah-Tae’un …
The dirt was hard and unforgiving. He would change that, just as he had done with the dry and dead soil in the rest of the greenhouse. After another day of endless toil, his knees were rubbed raw and screamed for relief. Yet nothing could deter him.
Claw-like hands ripped at the ground, leaving deep gouges in the hard-baked surface. Dirt packed deeper under his nails, sending shooting pains through his arms. The intense sensation was like a drug; his teeth gnashed in pleasure. Forcing life into the abandoned garden intoxicated him.
Kah-Tae’un, the female beckoned again.
All he wanted was to be left alone. A cool stabbing pulsed through his temples. The more he resisted this, the worse it became. He grunted and flinched as the pain grew.
Channeling the unpleasantness into his work, he clawed deeper, at last piercing into a womb of fertile soil. His gnarled fingers touched a hidden treasure, releasing a wave of exhilaration. Carefully, aware how precious this moment was, he uncovered a pink, fleshy root. Protected by the land’s crusty scab it had thrived in hiding, just like him.
Kah-Tae’un …
The woman again. Still crouched, he distracted himself by looking across the sea of greenery that sprouted with new life. Here he had found home, surrounded by the only things he cherished in the universe. These plants were his companions—his children. The greenhouse was a perfect refuge, one that brought him a peace and tranquility that otherwise escaped him.
Extracting the luscious root, he cradled it with gentleness. The dusty dirt across his face became a muddy streak when his hand stopped a river of sweat rushing down.
The male voice chided.
Kah-Tae’un … we have all eternity to wait.
Like a wet dog, he shook his head, flinging a shower of salty water across the ground.
The female sighed. Soon you will listen to us.
Very soon … we can tell, the male said, his tone smug.
The man adjusted a crick in his neck, set down the root with care, then dug for more.
The woman said, We know you well.
A gentle warmth filled his gut as the male voice spoke again. Be aware … feel …
The sensation grew into discomfort. He adjusted his lower draping but found no relief.
Water.
A dry tongue ran across parched lips. That must be it, a simple case of dehydration at play.
Poor Kah-Tae’un, the female said.
He dismisses the very thing he was created to feel, the male voice scoffed.
Are you so desperate, my love? said the female.
His heart began to beat in a strange rhythm; his breaths became labored. He pushed to his feet and sought refuge in his shack at the far end of the greenhouse. An entire canister of icy sedation flooded down his throat. The shade also provided a merciful reprieve to his sun-leathered skin.
Seek their destruction, the male voice ordered. You can run no farther from them than you could from us.
Kah-Tae’un … dearest Kah-Tae’un, the female voice pleaded. Stop this madness.
The man fanned his draping. Tightness entered his muscular chest. Each breath drew with increasing effort. His guts twisted farther as the male and female voices tormented him.
You could not have forgotten … even after all the time that’s passed, the male voice chided.
Your body has not … even if your mind pretends, the woman added.
Think …
Feel …
Remember …
“Enough!” the beast-man shouted into the empty air.
The female rejoiced. He acknowledges us!
As we knew he would, the male voice agreed.
Kind, Kah-Tae’un, the female said.
He cried out, defiant, “Katen! I am … Katen!”
His words boomed in the empty shack.
We know who you are, Kah-Tae’un, the female’s voice echoed unforgiving in his mind.
Our brother, the male voice said.
Our friend, said the female.
Our leader …
Our lover …
A powerful nausea swelled from the twisting in his gut.
Did you think you were absolved? the male voice chided.
You cannot undo the past, my love, the female voice said.
The man screamed, digging his clawed digits into his skull until the skin broke. He pondered driving them farther inside, to rip the voices from his own mind.
End this denial, the male voice said, angry now. Let your instincts reach out.
Give yourself to it, the female voice encouraged. Let it consume you again.
The mere thought racked Katen’s body with tremors. But there was nowhere else to go. Eluding the master’s hand could only be done for so long. This refuge, living in the greenhouse of the Nomad ship, only prolonged the inevitable. He spat, and muttered a curse in a final act of defiance.
So be it then, Katen thought.
In surrender, he closed his eyes. The twisted sensation within his gut wrenched one last time before washing into a peaceful bliss. The fatigue of his body faded and his primal senses took over. The very starship around him disappeared as his perceptions reached beyond the confines of his physical body, drifting out into space.
Two shadowy forms kept pace as his gifted senses streaked through the cosmos. They never left his side, even now telegraphing with his essence across the universe; they shared in his experience, bonded like parasites. He would never be free of them.
A collection of muddy-blue auras moving through an ancient nebula drew his attention. The Humanoid beasts traveled bodily in space, surrounded by their protective glows. He felt an instinctive kinship with them.
More work of the masters, he thought.
But not what you were made to find.
Acquiescing to the male voice, Katen refocused, allowing his awareness of the beasts to fade.
Sensing deeper into the coldness of space, silver shimmers called to him.
Curious, the male voice said.
The closer he metaphysically drew, the clearer it became these were different from his kin. They were not beasts, and they traveled in ships at unnatural speeds. Yet, his senses told him these Humanoids shared his abilities.
They too are not what you seek, the female voice said.
They are not the ones that call to you, the male voice added. Reach out to them.
Once more Katen focused. The silver shimmers became ghostly as his awareness reached further, driven to its limits.
A faint sound, the purest, most lovely tone he had ever heard, rang from far away. He strained, searching for it. As he honed in on the source, it broke into a heavenly chorus. Beautiful chords ebbed and flowed, filling him with elation.
There, the male voice said, pleased.
Then he saw it. Seven golden auras danced in the distance, the source of the tone.
Finally, sighed the female.
The outline of alien figures floated against the darkness of space. As his senses closed in, he perceived a space station housed within a great asteroid. A gentle coolness wafted from their glimmers.
A sinister sneer crossed leathered lips.
“D’mar …” he said.
D’mar! the female voice echoed.
D’maaaaaar, the male voice said, satisfied.
The very word exhilarated Katen.
Remember your promise, brother, the male voice said.
The children of D’mar have awakened, added the female.
Katen opened his eyes. A tingling filled his belly as his cosmic senses collapsed back within his physical shell. With slow steps, he walked toward the glass panes that separated his greenhouse from the deathly cold of space. Leaving the shack’s protective barrier, the repressive sun no longer fazed him.
Hands pressed against the thick glass, he stared with unholy anticipation into space.
He uttered in a raspy, sinister tone, “D’mar …”
CHAPTER 1:
Conflict of Heart
“We have an escalation,” Bob warned, skittering up to Eyani Wayrena.
Eyani huffed at the beetle-like droid, which had diverted her already fragmented attention from the latest crisis. Sometimes she’d kill for one uninterrupted moment to finish something. She thought back to the innocent girl who arrived, wide-eyed, in the spacedock of the renowned Be’Inaxi Trading Post. It seemed like lifetimes ago. She never imagined being recruited into Eden, its covert xeno-intelligence organization, much less being among the elite that led it.
“Show me,” she said, and followed the bug-bot as it scurried to a row
of displays. Monitors flickered to life, and filled with reports and streaming data.
“Reports claim multiple attacks,” Bob said with urgency.
Blurry snapshots of bipedal creatures peppered the monitors. Eyani’s deep-purple eyes scoured the images. There was such variation in size and shape. Some were thin, almost birdlike, complete with beaks, others bulky and furred, still others leathery and snouted. Each brandished large, menacing weapons.
“Creatures in each attack?” she asked in disbelief.
“Affirmative.”
“Footage?” she said, reviewing the details.
“Already searching,” Bob chirped with preprogrammed cheer.
She glanced down, marveling at the bug-bot. Its understated form belied its importance. While skittering about, Bob also served as the central artificial intelligence for the entire station. Its beetle form was nothing more than a shell used to interact with patrons and data collection. Beyond that, Bob also ran all the station’s systems while processing intelligence data streaming from around the quadrant. Without him, it would be near impossible to coordinate their army of agents and process the volume of information generated. To think that one child prodigy, a Terconian catgirl named Jika Lindu, had brought Bob into existence.
Returning to a study of the reports, a pattern became apparent to Eyani. “These make it look like they’re all happening in the same general region of space. Also, there’s never anything taken, or demands made. They just rampage through and destroy.”
“New footage found,” Bob said as he patched it through on another display next to her.
A tightness crossed her chest as she scrutinized the display. A sudden pain in her hand drew attention to her nervous habit. She’d already scratched off a few lavender scales, and was now ripping into raw and agitated skin.
“Additional footage from other locations coming in,” Bob said.
“Cross-reference them.”
“Already in progress.”
D'mok Revival: The Nukari Invasion Anthology Page 32
