“They were in the delegation chambers when the invaders arrived,” the Vorcambreum said.
“Meeting without the two of us invited . . .” Ienthei snorted.
Odelea heard another skyscraper fall and shatter, the vibrations making the building they were in sway slightly. Odelea returned to the window and nervously looked on as the once pristine city continued to fall into the hands of the enemy forces, while the two council members bickered with their escort.
A fireball streaked across the skies, leaving black smoke in its wake. She hoped it was one of the invader ships, but knew it was probably another transport shot down. Meanwhile, strange objects that looked like sacks of flesh fell from the skies into the city streets. She wasn’t able to see what happened next as debris and other buildings obscured her view.
Curiosity made Odelea utilize her neural implants, HNI as the humans call it. A projection appeared over her eyes featuring a news page that was programmed to feed her all the latest news from the Radiance knowledge network, and the human internet. The last news feed that had been posted reported that the Radiance navy was struggling to hold back a fleet of invading ships that had appeared from a storm cloud within the system.
No new reports had been made since then, and her HNI was having a difficult time pulling news articles from human news sources. The quantum entanglement communication (QEC) relay beacon was no doubt damaged, or destroyed, during the attack.
“Tell your superiors I want better protection,” Odelea heard Iey’liwea bark.
“We don’t have anyone left to spare!” The Vorcambreum ranger said. “The remainder of our forces are in the streets fighting. With that said, can you please come with us? It’s not safe to remain here.”
“Fine!” Iey’liwea threw her hands in the air in frustration. “But you are going to add Odelea to your list of people to protect.”
“But—”
“Two members of the council are in front of you, boy,” Ienthei said, placing his body in front of the three. “We are giving you new orders; escort the three of us to safety.”
The Vorcambreum nodded. “Understood, Councilman.”
“Odelea!” Ienthei beckoned for her to leave the window. “We’re leaving.”
Odelea didn’t move as the slow destruction of the city continued to unfold with undesirable results. She wondered how much of the destruction would bleed out to the rest of the world, the homeworld of her and Ienthei’s species. “This is . . .” she stopped midway. The emotions in her heart prevented her from mustering the words to finish.
“I know,” Ienthei said. “It’s hard to imagine the Empire finally made it to our home and broke the ceasefire agreement.”
“This is what the humans call karma,” Odelea said.
“I’m not familiar with human terms,” Ienthei said.
Odelea faced him. “It was nearly one hundred years ago today when the Empire invaded Earth. It was made possible because of our actions.”
There were other factors at play during that moment in history, such as the cult of the Celestial Order. The order was able to rise to power because of Radiance’s way of running their government. If Radiance had never existed, Earth would have avoided the Imperial invasion and the two billion human lives it took.
Once again, Odelea felt a firm hand yank onto her glittered painted scale shoulders, this time it was Ienthei. It was time to go, time to make their exit from Iey’liwea’s place, hopefully someplace safe. She cringed at the thought of the many families still stuck inside their suites, not getting a military escort. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. If those families went outside, they’d become practice targets for the invaders’ infantry forces in the streets. If they stayed, then the high-rise building might tip over like the last few she had seen.
The three rangers double-checked the elevator as its door slid open, then gave the all clear for Odelea, Iey’liwea, and Ienthei to enter with them.
“That’s why you rolled your age back, right?” Ienthei asked Odelea once the elevator began to descend.
“Hmm?”
“You’ve been an old crone for decades until last week, Odelea.”
“I was this youthful when I first made contact with the human race,” said Odelea. “I used gene therapy to rollback my age to celebrate that moment in history.”
“What moment in history?” Ienthei said drily. “The first official contact with the human race? Or how they were nearly wiped out by the Empire?”
“Both . . .” Odelea said with her face tilted to the floor. “I wanted to show the Gods I have not forgotten what happened; I wanted them to forgive the wrongs we did during that age.”
The elevator doors swung open and the rangers took point, leading the three through the lobby and out into the streets, littered with glass, dead bodies, and the toxic smell of electrical fires burning.
Looking at the devastation, Iey’liwea snickered. “Clearly, the Gods have not taken notice of your offering.”
“As I said, this is karma,” Odelea said. “This is our punishment. All-out invasion of Aervounis by the Empire, just like Earth a century ago.”
The rangers pushed on into the streets, guiding the trio on a lengthy trip to a secure nearby bunker, where they were promised better protection, supplies, and reliable communication equipment since none of their HNIs were able to connect to any, unlike their military counterpart. The downside of civilian-grade implants.
The Vorcambreum stopped and lifted his fist up, signaling to everyone behind him to stop and take cover. An overturned train, derailed from the tracks above, gave Odelea and the two council reps the cover they needed, while the three rangers silently moved forward with their rifles, seeking targets.
Something wasn’t right.
Earlier, Odelea had heard eight rifles blazing from this general area. Now, there were none, those rangers had either been killed or were forced to withdraw. She peeked around the overturned train and watched the three rangers stalk two invaders as they stepped past dozens of deceased civilians, victims from the train that crashed.
The armor the invaders wore was . . . unexpected. It was a deep bronze color, reflecting the sunlight from above. Their helmets had what looked like horns attached to the back while they were armed with rifles that flashed with green and yellow lights.
“I don’t think this is the Empire,” whispered Odelea to her friends.
“Don’t be stupid,” Iey’liwea whispered back. “Humans would never dare bite the hand that fed them for all these years.”
“This isn’t humans either—”
A gun battle began to chant its loud and violent sounds from beyond their cover. Odelea momentarily looked around to see what happened. The three rangers engaged the invaders and used another section of the derailed train as cover.
It didn’t last very long.
The weapons the invaders used vaporized chunks of their cover with each hit. The rangers needed to switch cover soon. One of the Aryile rangers stood up too quickly, his shields flickered rapidly as the two invaders shot him. Seconds later, he had no shields, then no upper body, it was vaporized.
Odelea missed what happened next as she had to twist away from the horrific sight to vomit. Iey’liwea wasn’t pleased to see half-digested fruit spatter across her dress and boots. Weapons discharge ceased, and the two remaining rangers gave the three the all clear to get up. As unfortunate as it was to see yet another dead Aryile in the streets, the invader’s tunnel-visioning on him gave the remaining two rangers the required distraction to gun them down and avenge his death.
The five stood above the bullet-ridden bodies of the dead invaders. Clouds of steam lifted away from their blood, warming the streets that became their resting place for the time being.
“Sir,” the Aryile ranger said to his Vorcambreum leader. “These aren’t Hashmedai, are they?”
Odelea chimed in. “I have come to the same conclusion myself.”
“Odelea, he’s a third-
class ranger,” Iey’liwea said to her. “They don’t know any better. They just shoot who their superiors tell them to shoot.”
“I’m a second-class ranger, and I happen to agree with him,” said the Vorcambreum. “The Empire favors melee combat on the ground.” His tiny feet kicked the invader’s rifle away. “Only their weakest and youngest warriors are given rifles, there’s no way we’d be losing to a ground assault team comprising entirely of rifle-wielding Hashmedai.”
“Then, where did their ships come from?” said Iey’liwea. “Nothing travelled into the system; our navy would have detected and intercepted them.”
The Vorcambreum shrugged and led the group deeper into the war-torn downtown streets. “Intel is unreliable right now with all the fighting going on but, last I heard, they just appeared in the system.”
“So, like a space bridge jump,” Iey’liwea said.
“Well . . .”
“Imperial technology, it’s the Empire,” Iey’liwea said.
An energy beam from space struck the edge of the floating city. The noise and blasts that came afterward were heard seconds later, along with violent tremors that shook and threw all five to the ground.
As Odelea fell, she felt what food hadn’t come up from her belly slap into the topside of her stomach. Gravity was pulling her down, more so than she would have expected from a fall. In fact, she was certain her hands, legs, arms were not in direct contact with anything. It felt almost as if the streets had vanished and she was freefalling.
She, along with the rest, brought themselves up to their feet and noted the derailed train from earlier had shifted backward along with several dead bodies. “My Gods . . .” Odelea mumbled.
Ienthei brushed away dust and ash from his blond hair. “Did we just lose altitude?”
“Feels like it,” said the Vorcambreum. “Does anyone know what happens when the equipment keeping this city in the skies fails?”
“There are backup systems that should activate . . . unless,” Odelea said, eyeing the billowing smoke in the distance created in the wake of the last orbital strike.
“Unless?”
“Unless there is major interior damage to the city’s infrastructure,” Odelea said. “In that case the backups might not be reliable, and the city will crash into the ocean.”
“That bunker isn’t going to save anyone if this place falls,” Ienthei said.
“The general is confident we will dispatch the enemy before the damage to the city reaches that point,” said the Vorcambreum.
“Tell him I said he’s an idiot,” Iey’liwea said. “I want off this planet. Now.”
The Vorcambreum grunted while staring up at Iey’liwea’s unimpressed face. “Look around you!”
He pointed to the skies that were holding Odelea’s attention, to strange creatures flying in the skies with massive wings. They looked reptilian and some were armed with cybernetics, cybernetic weapons that was. The creatures appeared to have been harassing Radiance psionics who had taken to the skies with their telekinetic powers and praying to the Gods when their psionic shields failed from the attacks.
“How do you suppose we get a transport through that?” the Vorcambreum said.
“Those psionics can shield us and provide cover fire,” Iey’liwea said, gazing up at the aerial fight neither of them had noticed when they stepped outside.
“Sacrifice the lives of all our air support?” the Vorcambreum said to Iey’liwea.
“To save the lives of two council members and the greatest mind in the Union? Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”
“We’re not just any council members,” Ienthei added. “We are the only two that are worth keeping alive.”
Iey’liwea shot Ienthei a devious grin. “Exactly, the rest can go to Paryo.”
“I’ll make the call and see what I can muster,” the Vorcambreum said unhappily, and probably cursing everyone that voted Iey’liwea and Ienthei into their seats at the Radiance council.
“Good job,” Iey’liwea said. “Maybe you’re not as useless as I thought.”
“One last thing,” Ienthei said, crossing his arms.
“Yes . . . sir?” the Vorcambreum replied.
“My dear sister,” Ienthei said, shifting his gaze up and over to the Souyila Corporation towers in the distance. “She needs to come with us.”
Ienthei’s twin sister Queenea had helped cofound the Souyila Corporation along with Iey’liwea. They conducted controversial projects that involved siphoning ethereal energy from fissures in space that were believed to have linked to aether space, a theoretical alternate plane of existence where the laws of physics were different.
It was the Souyila Corporation’s advancements that allowed the Radiance Union to abandon Xenetheral (XE) crystals as their primary power source, opting to use refined ethereal energy instead. The profits the company amassed in the years that followed allowed Odelea, hired to work there as their lead researcher, to finance various research projects she conducted, gene therapy being one of those projects.
A dejected sigh left the Vorcambreum’s mouth. “The area the Souyila Corporation towers are in is under heavy attack—”
“Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Ienthei retorted. “We’re going down there now, we’re getting my sister and then we’re taking a transport off-world. Understood?”
“Yes . . . Councilman.”
“Excellent.”
Odelea didn’t mind the detour. Getting off-world did sound like a safer option than staying on it, especially if the Gods had intended to make the Aryile people suffer the fate humans had, in which two billion lives will also be claimed as payment. This was a sign from the Gods, her chance to save herself and her research data still stored on the computers within the Souyila Corporation towers.
The Vorcambreum made a quick HNI transmission to his superiors, informing them of the new orders the two council members forced upon him. “I’ve confirmed that a transport is being prepared, it will be a few minutes before its ready.”
“Fine by me, let’s go,” Ienthei said.
3 Peiun
Rezeki’s Rage, Lower decks
Paryo orbit, Uemaesce system
Joint rule of Kroshka and Eensino, Rotation 19, Day 93 (August 2, 2118, 16:41 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Peiun Starblazer regained consciousness.
He saw fellow Hashmedai brothers and sisters race back and forth in the corridors of their frigate. Blood from his head soaked the floor where he had fallen. He stood and felt the highly unbearable heat from a nearby plasma fire swelter his body.
He wobbled when he made his first steps, but eventually remembered how to walk amidst the artificial gravity generators below each deck on the ship. He wondered how Hashmedai, like himself, had operated on battleships many years ago that only had gravity on the bridge thanks to shipboard psionics. Nowadays, artificial gravity was made standard on all ships, including human- and Radiance-built vessels.
He limped past glowing fires that had not been attended to by emergency damage control teams. They had been occupied with a larger inferno that was poised to spread throughout the rest of the corridor, diligently putting it out with extinguishers. Half-charred bodies of unlucky crew personnel had been dragged into the infirmary, their Imperial uniforms drenched with their own blood. Peiun leaned his sore body against the wall, releasing a subtle roar and baring his sharp fangs in the process. Resting in the infirmary was a very tempting thought, even if his injuries were minor compared to everyone else.
His Hashmedai-made HNI activated and a superimposed video of the Rezeki’s Rage’s shipboard psionic, Alesyna, appeared over his eyes. Her red eyes glowed in the partially illuminated bridge, and the holographic screens before her shined blue light across her pale skin and long black hair which was reminiscent of his appearance. Only Peiun’s hair was white like the planet Paryo, the snow and frostbitten homeworld the Hashmedai evolved on.
“Lieutenant Peiun, report to the bridge at once,”
Alesyna transmitted and ended the communication before he could reply.
There was one thing about the past Peiun missed, communication ear implants. His HNI was military grade and synced with the Rezeki’s Rage network. Anyone could use their HNI to bring up a list of the ship’s manifest and view the status and location of all crew members. Alesyna didn’t need to be a psionic to know he was alive, mildly injured, and was limping about on the lower decks, trying to steal a medical bed for himself.
He embarked on an expedition to find a working elevator not obstructed by fires or fallen debris. His HNI created a map of the deck that guided him to the nearest one, while flashing red markers gave him the heads-up of which paths were inaccessible due to damage. During his slower-than-usual walk, he began to retrace what happened to their ship and why he was knocked out. The blow to his head might have made him forget what caused it, but his implants? It recorded everything until he blacked out.
A hologram replayed his last recorded memories over his eyes, eyes that were too sore for the up-close HNI treatment. He forced the hologram over his eyeballs to enlarge and become a holographic window instead that followed him and replayed his recorded memories.
Everything was fine in the recording, then there was an explosion, one that tossed him across the corridor. His head hit a wall pipe on impact, and the recording was blank thereafter until he awoke. He was surprised his short plasma ceremonial sword all officers holstered to their waist didn’t come loose and impale him.
Peiun stepped onto the bridge and indulged in the frigid cold air that hit his body. He exhaled to see how cold it was, mist left his mouth. This was a perfect room temperature. The fires from the lower decks were too much for his Hashmedai body to endure, they burned brightly and created extra light, dimming the glow of the bioluminescence substance in his eyes. The bridge reeked of smoke, much like the corridors and elevators he had traveled through, suggesting that the bridge, at one point, also burned for a period of time.
Celestial Incursion Page 4
