Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2

by Eddie R. Hicks

  She made another attempt to grab the rifle, stretching her middle finger out, hoping the tip of it can at least spin it toward her. It worked. It spun among the low g and its handle came toward her as she opened her hands to take hold of it, then later aim it back down toward the Hashmedai still pulling itself up on her. She pulled the alien designed trigger and the side of the Hashmedai’s body vaporized. She felt its arms become lifeless and release from her body.

  Hijinks climbed back up to the rooftops and lay eyes on the new problem before her. The psionic from earlier stood laughing. It rose in the skies while Chris’ body hovered above. His shields were gone and his protect suit was showing signs of heavy damage as smoke blew away from it. A small fireball appeared in the palms of the glowing cybernetic augmented hands of the psionic. It was slowly growing in size, the final nail in Chris’ coffin was in sight.

  She ran toward her downed fighter as she fired random blots of plasma from her newly acquired weapon. The few shots that hit the psionic were deflected via its lavender barrier. She knew she wasn’t going to kill it not with this rifle or her less than stellar aim. Her intent was to provide a distraction something to force the psionic to think differently, something that might muck up its ability for focus, thus rendering its offence power useless.

  It didn’t work.

  The fireball that was intended to finish off Chris still remained, instead the psionic hurled it toward Hijinks like a baseball pitcher. She dove and rolled, avoiding the white fireball and rapidly ascended back into the cockpit of her fighter. Its systems were still active, good, as it was time to think of a new plan. And fast.

  Chris’ body was tossed telekinetically aside like a ragdoll on the moon. Hijinks became the primary target. Her craft rose in the air commanded by the psionic’s hand as it too lifted. The damaged entrance to her fighter closed and shut; no doubt the work of the psionic. She tried to open it, but to no avail, it was jammed shut and she was trapped. She started to hear strange noises around her, like metal being twisted . . . or compressed. She saw via her flickering HUD that the psionic’s fingers from its raised hand were slowly coming together, like it was trying to crush an imaginary egg with its hands. It was then she realized what the sounds around her were. The fighter was being crushed telekinetically.

  Her hands hit the ejection commands, nothing happened.

  Various systems were failing due to the continual damage the fighter was taking. Alarms blared, computer warnings flashed listing every part of the fighter that was offline, or badly damaged. Sparks started to appear alongside small fires, her claustrophobia that she thought she had beaten years ago, started to resurface. Her breathing became erratic, and the focus of her mind started to drift away into an ocean of panic and pure terror. Her brain too felt like the computer reports in front, everything vital was slowly coming offline due to the situation.

  The fighter’s targeting scanners were still online along with her ability to move her hands toward something. She tapped the display with her trembling fingers; a missile lock was confirmed for the psionic before her. Her thumb then reached over to the missile fire button. She pressed down on it, hoping that it was still intact and could perform the task at hand.

  It was.

  “This is Gladius four, fox three.”

  One plasma missile from her heavily mangled Solaris fighter slipped out from the underside missile launcher and fired. The explosion not only took down the shields of the psionic but ignited the methane surrounding it and created a huge conflagration.

  There wasn’t much of a body left and Hijink’s fighter fell back to the rooftops.

  Aura along with the nine Gladius fighters watched in awe in the aftermath of the huge blast. As the light from the explosive event subsided, she saw Chris’ body slowly rise. And Hijink’s fighter slowly crash back down on top of the rooftops as she leapt out of her fighter once again. She sighed in relief and commanded her fighter to land on the rooftops, and jump out of it to assess everything with her own eyes.

  The two remaining Hashmedai were gone, neither party saw what became of them during the blast and at that point, didn’t care. The psionic was dealt with and the Gladius team could easily off them should they resurface to strike again.

  “Thanks for the assist,” Aura said to Chris.

  “Any time,” he said as Hijinks stepped over to them and offered a round of fist bumps.

  “Down another craft,” Aura said as she looked at Hijink’s fighter.

  “It’s salvageable, just banged up hardcore,” Hijinks said. “Tell Penetrator he can fly it back.”

  “Shit,” Chris said, and his tone wasn’t a good one.

  “Where is Chambers?” Aura asked him.

  “He was heading back to the Winston Churchill and got shot down. Haven’t heard anything since then.”

  Aura grimaced. Losing Hammer was bad enough, she was grateful that Hijinks had walked away from this. But if the cost of that was Gavin’s life . . . “We’ll find him,” Aura said.

  “We? I’m all for rescuing him ma’am,” Chris said. “But I think the Hashmedai are a bigger concern right now.”

  Aura turned away from them and walked back toward her fighter. “All the more reason to grab him now before it’s too late,” she said as she got back into the cockpit.

  “I’m coming with you,” Chris said. “There should be a transport down below, hopefully the staff here will let me borrow it.”

  Aura nodded to him, then addressed Hijinks. “Go with him.”

  “Understood,” she said and the two proceeded to head back inside the black site.

  Aura secured her body back inside her craft, while the entrance to the cockpit slid shut. She took a few seconds to calm herself, before addressing the rest of her team who all continued to fly circles around the black site. “All fighters. Secure the area and await further instructions.”

  Sarah’s mind entered a heart pounding state she had never experienced before. She was dreaming, but fully aware that the visions in front of her weren’t real, well not any more. She stood watching her past life unfold. The day she was born appeared first, her mother was in the delivery room, bringing her into this world, while her five-year-old sister Chloe sat in the lobby with some family members.

  Various images of her life growing up in New York City during the 80s and 90s appeared afterward as the Sarah of the present watched like an invisible force to the people around her. She could walk freely, smell, feel, hear, and touch everything. It was as if she traveled back in time and watched herself growing up again. She witnessed all the mistakes she made in life, she witnessed the fun times she and Chloe had together. If Chloe struggled with something in school, Sarah figured out and understood what made that task so hard so that when it was time for her to take on those homework assignments, she’d get good marks. Better marks than Chloe got.

  Chloe was in some way a scout for life. Any major life changes, Chloe would have to endure first as she was older. Whatever she screwed up on, Sarah planned to do better in, whatever Chloe did great on and Sarah intended to go up and beyond. Chloe got all the parse in the family for being the first to do something great and it was Sarah’s plan to be the one that got all the praise to be the daughter that did everything her sister did, but better.

  Only it didn’t work out.

  Sarah’s marks in school were lower than Chloe’s. She couldn’t keep up, and the dream before her reminded her of that. Then came 9/11 and she watched the twin towers crumble . . . not only did America change that day, so did Chloe. Chloe was, enraged; she had enough of people trying to fuck with the west. She had enough watching lives being thrown away. Sarah as a young girl watched her older sister go through a change that would once again force Sarah to purse the path of trying to be better than her.

  Chloe enlisted in the US marines days after her eighteenth birthday. Sarah marked the day she would turn eighteen, and planned to do the same. Until that day came Sarah went on to do things that Chloe wasn�
��t successful at like being a socializing butterfly. She managed to lose her virginity years before Chloe had and gained a lot of friends. Finally she was making progress on becoming a better person than Chloe.

  Chloe became a marine and fought in the war on terror. Sarah became one in the years later but spent most of her time on patrols. She never saw the action Chloe experienced, nor did she cut it as an officer, like her sister. Years later came the invasion of Earth, and once again she was holding her own, trying to outdo her sister. The attack on O’Hare airport appeared, brave American soldiers died, Sarah led a handful of survivors from the attack who put up an all or nothing defense.

  Then Chloe showed up with Radiance assistance.

  She was glad to see her alive on one hand, but upset that once again her sister was there to pull her out of the fire. It resulted in a brief clash as Sarah ignored Chloe’s orders and ran to get a stinger missile launcher, which resulted in them killing the psionic that harassed them. The aftermath of the invasion saw the two along with hundreds of human survivors fleeing Earth, landing at Lejorania Sanctum. EDF was set up sometime later, and surprise surprise, Chloe was made team leader of Sarah’s group. She hoped to have been assigned a group of her own, not taking orders from her big sister. Then Chloe hooked up with Chris, a man Sarah had her eyes on during the invasion of Earth.

  The ambush on Foicanta appeared in the vision. Sarah grimaced as that vision began to replay. She watched Chloe fall down while Celestial Order rangers attacked them out of nowhere. On this day Chloe once again changed. As Chloe recovered from her injuries, Sarah sensed something wasn’t right on that day and watching the dream again from a distance only confirmed that. Chloe acted differently, she was rash at times and didn’t seem to enjoy Chris' company as much as she did prior to the attack.

  “Is this why you insisted on becoming a psionic?” Sarah said to . . . Sarah. Wait what?

  The dreams ended and Sarah saw herself standing in front of her. She was talking with herself. “I wanted to give my team every advantage they can get.”

  “Lies.”

  “Fuck off, it’s the truth.”

  “You wanted to be better than your sister. You wanted to achieve something great that she didn’t.”

  “You don’t know what’s going on in my head.”

  “I’m you Sarah. And you’re me.”

  Sarah mused about what was going, concluding that this was part of the psionic creation process. Makes sense, as psionics used the strength of their enhanced brains to generate powers. The look alike in front of her must be her subconscious.

  “So is this some exam to see if I’m worthy of becoming a psi?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Sarah’s subconscious said. “But I don’t feel any different.”

  “Likewise.”

  “But we had this chat, that’s a plus.”

  “Yeah, talking with myself, and replying back. Great.”

  “Do me a favor? Stop being a coward,” her subconscious said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Build your own path in life, stop trying to be better than your sister, stop seeing her as a person that gets in the way. You’re all that remains of your family now, our family.”

  “And by the looks of it, it’s going to die with us! I can’t have any fucking kids anymore,” Sarah yelled. “And she won’t either if she continues doing whatever the hell she’s been up to the last two months. Fuck even then, I’m now the infertile one, and she isn’t—”

  UNE Black Site, Titan, Sol System

  Sarah’s body was removed from the pod she entered to undergo psionic creation by the staff of the faculty. Dr. Miriam König stood with her data pad in her hands, reviewing the newly acquired data from the first human to attempt to undergo psionic transformation.

  “What’s her status?” König asked.

  “Zero progress so far,” a staff member said after gazing at a small screen on Sarah’s pod.

  König winced and said, “And it will continue to be like that even if we leave her in.” She tapped in new information on her data pad, listing SSG. Sarah Vaughan as a failure. “Not everyone has psionic potential; even Radiance has its rejects. She’s proof of that.”

  Titan’s North Pole, Titan, Sol System

  The deadly cold air from Titan’s poles triggered storm clouds to move in, blocking out Saturn’s godlike imagery from the skies. The region began to get wet, drenched by the hydrocarbon rainfall. The lakes below slowly swelled in size as the liquid that fell to the land drained into it. Two Earth made crafts entered; one a transport, the other Aura’s Solaris fighter, both vehicles shone bright searchlights below them, lighting up the dark and rugged terrain.

  Chris, Hijinks, and two black site operatives were aboard the transport. Hijinks piloted the craft while Chris sat next to her in the cockpit. According to Michei, Gavin’s transport went down somewhere in this area, though the exact location was unknown. The Winston Churchill was unable to assist in the search, as it was undergoing extensive repairs, and bringing Michei along for the ride was out of the question. Chris still needed to maintain the image that Michei went back to Radiance as ordered, only he and the black site staff sitting behind him knew the truth.

  “Eyes peeled,” Aura’s voice transmitted to them. “There might be Hashmedai left behind lurking around.”

  There was silence for the next eight minutes, as the transport, under escort from Aura, continued to fly around and search every mountain and hydrocarbon lake for signs of a crashed transport as rain from above splashed across the windshield.

  “So I heard you two met during the invasion?” Hijinks said to Chris, breaking the silence.

  “Chambers and me? Yeah. Still get nightmares about watching the crater that replaced Las Vegas.”

  She twisted her mouth. “We’ll find him.”

  “That man has been through a lot. Pregnant wife died during the war, his whole squadron killed. Even during our time at Unity city, he didn’t seem there. Like a man acting like he’s happy when he’s not on the inside.”

  “What about you Boyd?”

  Chris chuckled. “You always this chatty?”

  “We’re on slow moving transport, in the middle of a rainstorm, in the north pole of Titan,” she said, while pulling the transport away to search another location in the distance. “This is boring as fuck, I won’t lie.”

  “Was a Navy SEAL, part of the team that captured Prince Akeia in fact,” Chris said. “Back when we thought he was human.”

  “Right. I remember that story,” she said. “Then you shot him and triggered the war between us and the empire!”

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “I know, I know, I’m joking. Though I wouldn’t down play it too much, your name, like it or not, will go down in the history books of humanity. The human framed for killing the Prince of the Hashmedai Empire.”

  “Much rather be known for being part of the team that took down the command ship.”

  “Shit you did that too, and traveled to Alpha Centauri. Hell you’re a fucking celebrity when you think about it.” She smiled at him then added, “And I’m sitting right next to you!”

  Chris reached behind his head. “Want an autograph?” he said, joking, and the two laughed. “But yeah, that’s my last few years in a nutshell, along with Major Vaughan, her sister, and Chambers.”

  Another fifteen minutes passed into their search. A beep began to emit from the computers, catching the attention of the two. “There!” Hijinks shouted with excitement. “Aura follow us, I think we found it.”

  Hijinks flew the transport toward the beach of a lake. Searchlights from the transport then later Aura’s fighter unveiled an overturned UNE transport while waves from the lake next to it splashed across it. Chris along with the two operatives leaped out of the transport as it landed next to the crashed one and approached. Chris kept his rifle out, half expecting a Hashmedai ambush, while Aura circled around, also expecting trouble.

  He heard
the splattering sound of the rainfall splash against his shields while they created muddy footprints on their small trek to the transport. There were signs the transport was shot via plasma weapons, more disturbing was that there were no signs that whoever was inside left. They forced the doors open and entered, the lights from their helmets providing the only source light.

  Two of the operatives raced toward the cockpit while Chris checked the rear section, no bodies. That’s promising. Now for the cockpit. He spun around and saw the other two grab what appeared to be Gavin’s body, still in his environment suit. They examined him with a scanner, then panicked and injected him with a medical instrument. Gavin was unresponsive and whatever attempts they were using to revive him weren’t working.

  The two men stared at Chris with a grim look through their helmets.

  “He’s gone, sir”

  Chris threw his rifle to the floor. “Fuck!”

  Chapter Four

  Buried Linl ship, Derkurio, Morutrin System

  Phylarlie spun her plasma daggers in her hands, groaned, and looked up at the dark ceiling of the room she was locked in with her red-orange glowing eyes. It was hot, though the three Radiance personnel and the half breed next to her probably didn’t mind the temperatures so much. Her hands clenched onto the hilt of her daggers squeezing them hard as she said, “Okay, run that by me again.”

  “The wraiths are organic weapons created by our gods,” Odelea said.

  “Biological mutations created by aliens you worship, okay I get that,” Phylarlie said, then rose from the floor she was resting on and faced Odelea. “How did you help create them as you said before?”