Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Their lip dancing session ended as he said. “Um so.”

  “Something to remember me by, in case I don’t wake up from this.”

  “You will, I’ll figure this out.”

  Jazz’s determination to break the rules, work in secret to keep her memories alive, it made her knees weak and her body vulnerable as they held each other once again and kissed. Their second session was much more passionate and physical. A discreet corner in the back of the chamber provided the prefect cover should someone unexpectedly walked in as they stripped each other naked. She felt him slide inside her as her hands pressed against the back of his bald head and pushed forward for another kiss, an open-mouthed one.

  Veloshira woke up from her nap within the Silver Raven’s cockpit. She quickly ran a systems check of the status of the ship and the repairs the humans were making to it. She wasn’t sure why they had such a change in heart, Jazz lately gave her strange or vague answers to her questions. Given the recent events, she was almost certain he was keeping information from her for some reason.

  A sight Veloshira wasn’t expecting appeared next to the exit of the flight deck of the human battleship. Chris Boyd. She remembered his face, there’s no way an assassin like her would forget one of her outstanding kill orders. He was aboard this ship, and he probably wasn’t aware of it. You won’t escape this time; she thought as she kicked herself away from her chair and suited up in her trench coat armor, secured her dual plasma daggers and plasma rifle. There was just one thing missing.

  Her fist rapidly banged on the door leading to Jazz’s room, her partner and apprentice assassin. He opened the door, wearing nothing but his underpants, there was a wet floating towel in the back of his room, probably bathing himself. Not an issue other than the fact he had done so hours ago. What did you do recently that would warrant another washing of your body?

  “Ugh what’s up?” he asked her in the Hashmedai tongue.

  “The human Chris Boyd is here.”

  “Oh fuck.”

  “Get ready, we need to dispatch our final target.”

  “Okay I don’t know how to explain this.”

  Another reason, another excuse. She was sick of his excuses, his reasons for doing things a different way. When the two worked out of the Morutrin system he was never like this. They got their target from the Assassins’ Guild, hunted them down, killed them and moved on to the next. No excuses, no extra plans, no detours. He did what he needed to do. Something changed about him, and she began to regret not going through with her threat when they were operating on Earth. Failure in this mission meant her family would be executed.

  “You don’t need to I get it,” she said, pushing him back inside his room. Destiny, Onatiasha and Zhinbryo didn’t need to be awakened for what she was going to scream next. “You don’t want to go through with this, you never did! You’d rather see my son and mate lose their heads!”

  “No one is going to lose their heads.”

  “Then let’s kill him together.”

  “We have a truce with the UNE,” he grunted. “We can’t go tearing up their ship over this.”

  She hissed as she turned away, ready to carry out the mission without him. He firmly and aggressively grabbed onto her shoulder and tried to pull her back. “I can’t let you do this!”

  Her quick reflexes took over and she knocked his hand away from her. Her claws deployed from her fingers and she began a relentless assault, clawing, and punching him like the feral beast Hashmedai evolved from. She had protection, he had none, it was a one-sided fight she easily won via a head butt that caught him off guard. It was a massive one that should have knocked both of them out, the medical systems and painkillers in her gear quickly kicked in. Veloshira remained active, as Jazz’s weightless half naked body bounced off the walls.

  Veloshira activated her cloaking device, rendering her body translucent in a distortion field neither of the two human soldiers noticed as she exited the Silver Raven, in pursuit of Chris Boyd, killer of Prince Akeia.

  Or so she was told.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Silver Raven docked aboard ESV Winston Churchill, Pluto orbit, Sol system

  Dazed, confused, throbbing pain, there was never a dull moment for Jazz.

  It took him several seconds to piece together who had won the struggle between him and Veloshira. Though all he really needed to do was feel the gash on his head. Chloe was next to him, no wait it was Vaishea. Chloe wouldn’t have given a damn about his current state. That and Vaishea had taken control of her body, she was in the common area of the Silver Raven washing up during his confrontation with Veloshira.

  Jazz started to control his breathing, PTSD rage was incoming and he didn’t want Vaishea to get in the crossfire of it.

  “What happened to you?” she asked him as he finally came to.

  “Veloshira, ah shit!”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Probably not if the UNE aboard finds her,” he said as he proceeded toward the exit to his room. “There’s a price on the head of one of the crew of this ship, she’s going after him. We got to stop her before they take it out on us.”

  Jazz started a quick but futile search throughout the Silver Raven for Veloshira. There were no signs she was aboard and the cargo bay doors were open, she had left and he had no idea how long ago. Jazz returned to the upper deck and pulled himself toward the cockpit with the aid of the handle bars along the walls.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he grunted to himself as he started to realize the severity of his new predicament. The alliance between the Silver Raven and the Winston Churchill was coming to an end, unless he acted.

  His assassins attire floated around in the cockpit, black armored trench coat with a built-in cloaking device. He held onto, it had been a while since he wore it. And the last time he did wear it in combat, him and Veloshira were partners, now she was the target, a target that had the same advantages and more.

  He began to suit up. Boyd’s life was in danger as was the alliance. The best course of action was to silently deal with this problem without Xavier or the rest of the crew knowing about it. This needed to be handled like past assassinations jobs, quickly and silently. With Boyd alive and no ruckus caused, no one should doubt the choice to allow the Silver Raven to remain where it was.

  Destiny, Onatiasha, Zhinbryo, none of them could assist him. Everybody searching the Winston Churchill for Veloshira would just raise suspicions. He had to do it alone, the stealth provided by his cloaking device would allow him to slip past the guards and crew of the ship much like what Veloshira was doing.

  Veloshira was a Hashmedai; she was naturally quicker than a human would hope to be. Height and raw strength meant nothing if your opponent can get behind you and push a dagger into the back of your head in seconds. Jazz acquired the last of his gear, his plasma katana and foldable plasma rifle as he gave Vaishea the quick rundown of his suicide mission.

  “The layout of human ships is strange,” she said to him. “If I got lost she probably has as well.”

  Vaishea made a good point; he himself wasn’t familiar with the layout of the Winston Churchill. He’d need help with the task, at least one person that wouldn’t draw too much attention. Someone that knew the layout of the ship, someone that would provide him backup as he was uncertain he could walk away from this alive.

  “Vaishea,” Jazz said, with an uneasy feeling. “You still got those sedatives, right?”

  She held them up. “Yes but, now?”

  “I need Chloe’s help. She’s the only person in the UNE I can trust with this fiasco. She knows the layout of the ship and has experience tracking and fighting assassins.”

  “If I sleep now, she’ll wake up. She’ll want to know why she’s in here.”

  “Yeah, I know. Good chance she might figure it out, the opposite of what we want.” Vaishea looked scared upon hearing Jazz’s words. He felt terrible for asking her to do this but. “What other choice do we have? There’s no ti
me to guide you back into her quarters, then make the swap, Boyd could be dead. Then we’re all fucked. This alliance would be over. We can’t fight the order while stuck in the brig. We need to tackle this shit five minutes ago.”

  She pulled one of the tubes out from the kit and looked at it for a solid ten seconds reluctantly. “You promised me,” she said to him.

  “The other alternative is I go alone, I might stop her, and she might kill me. Hashmedai are faster than us humans.”

  “I’m trusting you here,” she said, seconds before injecting herself.

  “We got a good thing going. I won’t let anything happen to you, regardless.”

  The chemicals inside the tube were injected in her body. Almost instantly her body became limp, lifeless, and floated. Jazz waited for Chloe to retake control of her body as he realized the ironic turn of effects. In some way he had feelings for Chloe, just not the real Chloe, the fake one being Vaishea. A fake woman he’d do anything and everything in his power to make real.

  As he waited for her to wake up, if she woke up, Jazz opened up a secure comm link with Eupiar. “What’s up?” Eupiar’s voice transmitted to his earpiece communicator.

  “Going to need those bad ass computer skills of yours.”

  “What would you like today?”

  “Monitor the cameras aboard the Winston Churchill, Veloshira is on the loose, trying to tag one of the crew, Chris Boyd.”

  “Okay.” Eupiar’s voice was one of uncertainty. Jazz’s revelation no doubt got her a bit worried.

  Chloe’s face started to animate with life. She groaned having realized that once again she did not get a full night’s rest. She felt, different and cold, there was no gravity holding her body down. She thought for sure she retired in her quarters on the habitat ring. Her eyes opened, she was in the cockpit of the Silver Raven. Jazz hovered in front of her, he was dressed to kill, literately as he wore his full assassins garb and was heavily armed.

  “What the hell . . .” she said, frowning.

  “Vaughan listen to me,” Jazz said.

  “Why am I here?”

  “No time to explain, Boyd’s life is in danger.”

  Shit! “I swear Johnson, if this is a joke—”

  “I ain’t fucking around. Look long story short, Veloshira and I were ordered to kill him and the president. As you know I backed away from both jobs, Veloshira hasn’t.”

  Just for once I’d like things to go according to plan without some random curve ball thrown in. “She’s out searching for him then?”

  “In stealth, roaming around.”

  A Hashmedai assassin on the loose targeting her boyfriend and fellow EDF member, this was a problem that needed to be contained at once. Chloe spun her body around and began to proceed to the lower deck to exit the Silver Raven. “I’ll contact the bridge—”

  “No!” Jazz shouted to her as he kicked himself forward to keep up with her. “We need to keep this between us. Think of what they’ll do to us? You saw all that shit back on Rasi, we’re not the bad guys here.”

  She spun around to face him; her arms were crossed as she shot him a ‘seriously” glare with her winced face. “Think about what you said there and the grilling you got from the captain.”

  “Okay, we are the bad guys,” Jazz corrected himself, “but the Celestial Order is the bigger badder guys that need to be stopped!”

  “We’ll she’s just one person,” Chloe said. “With your gear and my skills, we should be able to take her out without causing a major stir.”

  “That’s what I’m sayin’ yo. So let’s do this.”

  ESV Winston Churchill, Pluto orbit, Sol system

  The two of them departed the Silver Raven. Jazz was cloaked and remained at her side as they made their way out of the flight deck and into the main hallways of the central fuselage of the Winston Churchill. Chloe acted like her regular self, and tried to play things off like she had official business aboard the Silver Raven. Nobody asked any questions, she outranked them anyways.

  There wasn’t much talking between the two as it would have blown Jazz’s cover that he was in stealth, or worse, make Chloe look like she was losing her mind as she spoke with something that people couldn’t see. There were no reports of fighting anywhere on the ship which was a good sign, however none of the crew recalled where Chris had run off to.

  A nearby wall mounted intercom allowed her to contact him. He replied seconds later, another good sign, he’s still alive. “Hey, where you at?” Chloe asked Chris.

  “I should be asking you that,” he transmitted back via the intercom. “What were you doing on the Silver Raven?”

  “Wish I could tell you.”

  “Well the captain called for me to join him in a meeting with the marines in regard to the rescue operation on Rasi.”

  “Why was I not informed?”

  “You were, you never replied, then again we all knew you needed some much-needed shut eye. This was before you went to the Silver Raven.”

  Went to the Silver Raven? I didn’t do that, I crashed in my quarters. Was I sleepwalking? No that’s one hell of a sleepwalk if that was the case.

  She ended the communication and made her way to the nearest elevator, she kept the doors open long enough to see the distortion field surrounding Jazz’s body enter with her. The bridge was selected as the elevator’s destination, the sliding doors shut, still badly charred from the fighting no long ago.

  Jazz decloaked as they were alone together and were able to speak freely. “Did you catch that?” she asked him.

  “Most of it, Veloshira ain’t gonna attack him if he’s around too many people. She’ll wait until the meeting is over and plan from there.”

  “What about those mines you two use?”

  “Doubtful, the zero-g will fuck with the calibration; it’s still experimental tech to the Hashmedai and hasn’t been perfected, which is why we usually stick with the stasis mine, it’s the only one that was tested a lot. But if she were to run into him in the habitat ring . . .”

  “They’ll be in play.”

  Chloe signaled for Jazz to return to his cloaked state as the elevator arrived at its destination. Chloe made her way into the briefing room, inside she saw Captain Xavier, Jacob Miles and Chris gathered around the briefing room’s table and a hologram projecting images of the intel she and the Silver Raven’s crew provided.

  “Major. Didn’t think you’d be awake,” Xavier said to her.

  “Having trouble sleeping, sir,” Chloe said as she moved to join them, Jazz did the same in his translucent state and kept low to avoid being detected.

  “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Xavier said. All parties present nodded, and Xavier reached up and interacted with the hologram. It shifted into a projection of a map of the edge of the Sol system. The Winston Churchill was present at Pluto, while the location of the wormhole in the Kuiper belt was seen at the far end. “According to the intel Major Vaughan and the Silver Raven’s crew provided, there’s a wormhole, five days away in the Kuiper belt. It should be able to take anyone passing through into the oceans of Rasi.”

  “Space directly into the ocean?” Miles asked Chloe.

  “When we opened it the water around the event horizon started to freeze because of the temperatures of space. If it’s still open there’s probably a thick layer of ice blocking it.”

  “Nothing a demo team can’t handle. The waters though?” Miles said, “our transports ain’t subs.”

  “We were able to travel through the waters with the aid of the Silver Raven’s shields. If a ship that size could do it, our transports should as well. We’ll just need to modify the shields energy output.”

  “I’ll get chief Weerasinghe on that right away,” Xavier said.

  Miles faced Xavier, puzzled by the captain’s eagerness in regarding the matter. “Right away, sir?”

  “We’re the only UNE ship this far out in the system,” Xavier said. “I plan on rejoining the fleet, now more than
ever since that kid made a breakthrough. That malware wouldn’t be a problem for long. It’s a five-day trip to the wormhole from here and a twelve-hour trip back to the fleet. It doesn’t make sense to travel that far, only to send out a team later to cross that distance.”

  “Fair enough,” Chloe said. “Those people were in rough shape too when were last there, almost a week ago now.”

  “No matter what, they will have to wait five days,” Xavier said. “The longer we put this off, the longer they suffer. We need to get those people home now.”

  “What about contamination, Major?” Miles asked. “Didn’t your report say that place was under lockdown?”

  “From what we gathered the virus only spreads via direct contact, and infects its target quickly,” Chloe said. “With that said, I’m fine. The Silver Raven’s team is fine as well as the refugees we saw. Though it wouldn’t hurt to screen them after you retrieve them just in case.”

  “Very well then, Sergeant Miles, I’ll let you come up with the specifics for the rescue plan.”

  “Aye sir.”

  “Wait.” Chloe said. “I was there, I know how to get to them, shouldn’t myself and EDF be on the mission?”

  “In a perfect world, yes, Major,” Xavier said to her. “But as it stands we have lots of marines throughout Sol to help with the war effort, we only have one EDF team, a team that’s down two members. I’d rather you guys stay and support us here, while the marines handle this.”

  “I’ll be sure to carefully watch what your helmet recorded on Rasi,” Miles said. “Five-day trip anyway, what else we gonna do to pass the time eh?”

  “Take everything ye need for this operation,” Xavier said. “You guys will be alone and under fire from the wraith and Celestial Order forces.”

  Additional tidbits were discussed before Xavier dismissed them from the meeting. All the marines aboard were to get ready and head out in modified transports sans the assistance from EDF, something Chloe disagreed with even after the meeting was over. She exited the briefing room and made sure to keep near Chris and hoped Jazz was doing the same. Veloshira could strike at any moment as they moved toward the elevator.