Unsanctioned Reprisal

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Peiun took a sip of the spiked milkshake, indulging in the creamy texture, sweet flavors, and enticing bourbon alcohol. He pushed the glass away from his lips, lips that formed into a smile. “This is . . .”

  “Yeah, I know, not something a sailor like you should be drinking,” Paul said.

  “This is a drink fit for the most cunning warrior.” Peiun held the drink high up, ready to let out a battle cry.

  “It’s a milkshake with booze, buddy.”

  “The work involved in putting it together, combined with its taste . . . not any fighter should drink it.” He loved the drink and faced Paul. “Only those deemed worthy enough.”

  “Right . . .”

  Paul left Peiun alone for him to gulp the rest of the drink. Human milkshake, it was a warrior’s drink. He’ll have to inform his crew about this incredible discovery. There was no doubt in his mind, this drink empowered human warriors, Marines, to rise up and defeat the Empire a century ago, despite being a technology primitive species at the time.

  Peiun got up after his drink was finished, waving goodbye to Paul with his brawny arm as he ventured to the exit. The exit . . . it reminded him about the woman he bumped into when he entered earlier, the one Paul thought he was with, the one that bought him the drink. Curiosity led him to activate his HNI and review his recorded memories of that encounter not long ago. He’d bedded a number of women during his days as a low-ranking crewman, serving aboard Imperial warships on the fringes of Imperial controlled space. Perhaps she was one of them who recognized him?

  What his eyes saw as he was entering the pub replayed before him via HNI. He looked down to ensure his outfit was free of lint, moved forward at the same time, and then . . .

  And then an error message appeared.

  The video playback resumed with him sitting to speak with Hoylu. He gave the side of his head a soft slap, not that it would make his implants work better. Repeated attempts to replay the memory netted the same results, the moment he was to lay eyes on her brought forth error messages. Drinking was known to affect one’s ability to interface with one’s HNI. However, he was not one to suffer from such effects, the fact he was walking straight, yet distracted by a video replay before his eyes, was proof of that.

  Then there was the strange lag that froze the file transfer of the document he received, lag military grade implants should not have gotten, unless, perhaps, they had become damaged. He never did have the integrity of his implants examined in the aftermath of the attacks, and for good reason. HNI repairs came with neural surgery he’d rather avoid. He had a mission to complete, and neural surgery would only delay that.

  He double-checked to ensure the document he paid a lot of credits for was still good. It was. He gave it another read through as he rode an escalator up to the upper levels of the atrium, on a course to the trains that would take him back to the Hashmedai Arm of the station.

  In the document, Peiun found the name of the ship the men operated on that Hoylu did business with. Its name was the Fortune Runner.

  3 Foster

  Abandoned Shop

  Pictor, Jacobus, Kapteyn’s Star system

  October 13, 2118, 04:40 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  In the background, the last minute of I’m Never Gonna Dance Again played, serving as the war drum for the Marine’s deadly combat situation. It was the last song anyone would have expected to be blasting during a time like this. It also was the last song Murphy heard in his life. He was hit dead-on with three back-to-back tachyon blasts, vaporizing his body instantly, his shields shattering long before they entered.

  Murphy’s death was promptly avenged when Ingram dove and rolled across the floor to a new source of cover. The move had the remaining three Draconian soldiers focused on tracking her, and less on Miles who delivered a gruesome headshot to one Draconian with a particle beam, turning its head into embers and ash. With two targets left, Valiyev shot out the legs of one, sending it to the floor yelping. Ingram vaporized the remaining one when it failed to dive for cover in a timely manner upon realizing it was alone.

  Miles, Valiyev, and Ingram rose from their cover, the machine joints of their exosuits clanged and cracked. They performed a brief perimeter check with their weapons drawn and their hunter’s instincts on full alert.

  “Clear!” Ingram called out.

  Lowering his rifle, Miles nodded and returned to Foster. He gave her and her crew the okay to escape from their half-vaporized cover, as the holographic music player loaded a new song from the 1980s. “Is it really that hard to turn off the fuckin’ music?”

  “Okay, that’s a new voice,” Chang’s voice transmitted.

  Foster spoke into her wrist terminal. “Chang, what the hell?”

  “What?”

  “Dragons don’t like your playlist.”

  “You know you could have turned it off, right?”

  “I tried that,” Williams cut in. “Couldn’t get it off.”

  “Just hit the stop button,” Chang transmitted.

  Williams stared at the music player, shaking his head in frustration. “Yeah, no shit.”

  “Did you double-click it?”

  Williams cringed. “. . . No.” His finger double-tabbed the floating off button, and the music player faded from existence. “Why the hell—?”

  “Do you have to double-tab it?” Chang transmitted. “It’s so if you’re dancing and jamming, your waving hands won’t accidently shut it off if they pass through the holo interface.”

  “Chang, where the hell were you?” Foster asked, as she watched Ingram sift through the pile of ash and melted metal that was once Murphy, searching for his dog tags.

  Chang replied. “I went to grab a coffee, what’s up?”

  More gunfire prompted Foster to assume the prone position once again while the three Marines directed their rifles back into combat. Two new Draconian soldiers had arrived, yelling and pointing at them, no doubt alerting every dragon on the planet to their current location.

  “We’re under attack!” Foster yelled into her wrist terminal as tachyon beams soared over her head.

  “And we’re probably gonna die because you were blasting George Jackson,” Miles commented from his cover adjacent to Foster’s.

  “It was George Michael, actually,” Chang snorted.

  “Chang!”

  Tolukei made a hasty reappearance from the back stockroom of the shop he had wandered off to before the fighting. A purple psionic barrier protected his cybernetically augmented body, while the mechanical joints of his hands and arms began to glow orange, he creeped over to Foster and Miles’ cover.

  “It would appear we’re under attack,” Tolukei said to Foster.

  “Yeah, no shit!”

  Miles faced Tolukei grinning. “Fuckin’ A, psionic support! Light ‘em up, pal.”

  Tolukei glared at Foster with his leathery reptilian face and four eyes. “Shall I assist them, Captain?”

  “Buddy, really?!” Miles spat.

  “I have pledged my allegiance to the Radiance Union, Captain Foster, and her crew,” Tolukei explained. “However, I am not obligated to follow the direct orders of the UNEMC, and so—”

  “Tolukei, just make the bad guys go away!” Foster roared.

  Tolukei nodded and stood, unfazed by the tachyon beams impacting against his psionic barrier creating a splendorous show of white and purple colors. “As you wish, Captain.”

  The rubble and knocked-over shelves the two Draconian soldiers used as cover floated away as Tolukei waved his hands about almost like an orchestra conductor. His fist lunged forward as if he were making a punch, and an orb of lavender plasma propelled away from it, hitting the first Draconian soldier square in the chest. It’s dragon-like armor melted to its flesh due to the intense heat. A second and third blast from Tolukei’s psionic plasma ensured the Draconian never moved again.

  Foster didn’t catch what happened to the second one, whom also was exposed from cover when Tolukei’s telekinesis wen
t to work. But the bloody mess on the wall, with a fog of steam rising from it, suggested one of the Marines got a bit trigger-happy.

  Tolukei turned away from the carnage as if nothing happened. The floating rubble and shelves his mind had levitated came crashing down in an instant with a sudden thud.

  “You guys good?” Chang transmitted to Foster’s wrist terminal.

  She stood once again and went to speak in her terminal, hoping that was it for ambushes. “Yeah, we’s good, Chang.” Facing Tolukei she said, “Get us out of here.”

  Tolukei gave her a subtle nod and informed everyone around him to gather closer to him. He placed his hands together, shut all four eyes, and controlled his breathing, which in turn resulted in the implants across his chest glowing bright colors. A psionic teleportation was in progress to take them back aboard the Johannes Kepler, still in orbit.

  As effective as teleports were to get one out of danger, they were something you couldn’t rely on. Teleporting during combat was next to impossible due to the number of distractions around the psionic. Adding to that, mass teleportation had a windup time of at least four to ten seconds, depending on how powerful the psionic was and their current mental state. If their concentration was broken, even for a split second, that could reset the four to ten second windup time, and that was assuming the psionic was only teleporting themselves and perhaps two other people. Tolukei was being tasked with teleporting the three Marines, Foster, Williams, Odelea, Pierce, and himself onto a small ship in orbit of a super-earth planet. It was no easy task.

  “Wait,” Odelea said, midway through Tolukei’s trance and enlarged her holo notes. “The survivors.”

  “What survivors?” Foster asked her.

  “I’m pretty sure those assholes were referring to us,” Miles said. “We’re all that’s left of our team.”

  “No, not by what I heard them yell during the fight,” Odelea said, walking away from Tolukei, forcing him to end his teleportation trance and the lightshow his cybernetics were making.

  “What did you hear, Odelea?” Foster asked, following Odelea into the shop now littered with the remains of fallen or half-vaporized Draconian soldiers.

  Odelea waved her hands, creating a new holographic note to appear and float next to her face. “They were referring to someone else,” she said.

  “Maybe us?”

  “How? They didn’t know we were here. They were shouting about the survivors when they entered.”

  Odelea pushed her hologram away and lowered herself to examine the bodies of the Draconians. Miles joined the two, shaking his head. “The hell she plan on doing? Askin’ ‘em questions?”

  Foster shrugged. “Probably.”

  “Hey, buddy?” Miles said to a fallen Draconian. “Any idea what you meant by survivors?” Silence fell as one would expect. “Hmm, no answer, eh?”

  “Must be because his face got vaporized,” Foster said, pointing out the fact the Draconian Miles spoke to had no head, and blackened burn marks on the stump where its neck used to be.

  “Oh, really?” Miles chuckled and kicked the headless body. “I thought it was because, maybe, I don’t speak its fuckin’ language?”

  “I do,” Odelea said, rolling one Draconian body over.

  Foster and Miles stood above Odelea and the fallen Draconian. Its upper body had little to no gunshot wounds or small vaporized holes, while its lungs continued to draw in air. Odelea’s face lowered to its head and began speaking to the Draconian in its own language.

  The light glowing from Foster’s tattoos caught her attention. She raised her hands in front of her face, examining the strange hieroglyphs grafted into her skin. The glowing had intensified, almost as if they were reacting to the presence of the Draconian below her.

  She lowered her hands just above the body of the Draconian. The luminosity of the blue hieroglyphs increased.

  “Anything?” Miles asked Odelea who had been speaking with the Draconian in its strange language for the past minute.

  “I can’t hear it very well; its helmet is in the way, so to speak.” Odelea’s slender hands unsuccessfully tried to pry the helmet off the Draconian. “If we can get it off . . .”

  “Good luck with that, eh?” Miles said, patting on her exposed shoulders. The top she wore was a size too big for her small body. He cringed slightly upon noticing, and probably remembered that Aryile women often applied cosmetics to their shoulder and neck scales. “Those helmets are damn near impossible to rip off without a plasma torch.”

  “We have to try,” Odelea said, making another attempt to yank the helmet off. “I’m almost positive the survivors weren’t us, or your team.”

  Miles pushed Odelea aside, and her slender body tumbled to the floor. His rifle took aim at the joints that held the Draconian’s helmet to the rest of its armor. “Particle beam should do the trick—”

  “No! We can’t risk it!” Odelea retorted, leaping back to her feet.

  Miles continued to aim the barrel of his rifle down. “Ain’t got any other options, other than yer psionic friend rip it off with telekinesis.”

  “Would you like me to attempt it?” Tolukei asked.

  “I got a better idea,” Foster said, gazing at her glowing hands.

  She kneeled next to the squirming Draconian. The closer she got, the brighter the glow her tattoos made. When her hands touched the warm surface of the Draconian’s armor, she felt the electronics within it, the computer systems that regulated the life-support, communication, and more. Her mind became one with the armor, just like it did when she entered the maelstrom.

  With a quick thought in her mind, she forced the helmet’s locking mechanics to unbolt and release. She pulled the helmet off the Draconian, unmasking its humanoid dragon-like face, yellow eyes, and razor-sharp teeth exposed from its wide-open jaw, thanks to the pain it was enduring in its wounded state.

  “How the hell?” Miles said in shock, while Odelea lowered herself again to speak with the Draconian. “I heard about yer tattoos, but I never knew it could make you do that.”

  Foster eyed her hands more and peeled back the sleeves of her IESA uniform, exposing her arms and the tattoos on them. They too shared the same luminous glow of her hands. “I didn’t know that either.”

  “Humor me,” Miles said, and tossed her a Draconian tachyon rifle. She caught it with ease, even though she visually didn’t see Miles toss it to her. The speed it was traveling when it left his hands, the angle it was at, and the weight of it. She knew it was coming at her, the tattoos acted like a six sense. “Can you operate it?”

  Foster stood up and away from the downed Draconian, and examined the weapon crafted from beyond the Milky Way. She felt the rifle’s electronics and internal computers sync with her tattoos, much like how the armor did moments ago. The rifle powered on as tiny lights along its sides flashed. She found what she assumed was the trigger to the weapon, aimed its barrel to the wall, then pulled it. A quick beam ejected from the rifle, melting a small hole through the wall.

  She looked away from the new hole in the wall, her mouth wide open in disbelief. “Apparently so.”

  “We didn’t have much luck figuring how to use their weapons since the attacks,” Miles said to her. “Figured it was a biometric lock out, looks like there’s more to it than that, eh?”

  “Makes sense, this is the first time I encountered Draconian soldiers since I got my tattoos. Well the first time since the tattoos fully developed.”

  During her escape from the monolith, she had the tattoos and was under attack by Draconian soldiers, but the tattoos hadn’t fully set in her body. What Foster was now experiencing was her first encounter with Draconian soldiers since her transformation had completed, thanks to the monolith.

  “Okay, cool, I can interface with their tech,” Foster said, licking her lips. “Odelea, you got anything for us?”

  “It’s reluctant to speak.”

  “Well, we did kinda shoot him, and kill his friends.”

&nbs
p; “He taunted me, claiming the survivors on this world will not be rescued.”

  “They fled into deep space via FTL, so yeah, it’s gonna be a while until we find ‘em.”

  “I mean, here on the planet right now,” Odelea said. “There are survivors here, people that didn’t escape, I’m assuming.”

  Foster made a grimacing glare. “Shit, Miles?”

  “Don’t know nothing abou’ that,” Miles said. “My team got ambushed and we fled here, the other teams are reporting they too are getting hit, thanks to your musical show.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Foster said slowly.

  “So, what’s the word, Captain?” Chang’s voice called out from Foster’s wrist terminal.

  “Chang, get ready to enter the atmosphere.”

  “Seriously, Captain?”

  “If there're survivors here, then we’s gotta get ‘em out.” Foster took two steps outside onto the war-torn city streets and frowned at the wyverns flying in circles, looking for their next kill. “Ain’t no way they gonna survive all that.”

  “This is a big ass planet, they could be anywhere.”

  “We’re in the most populated city near the mountains,” Foster said. “If they fled anywhere, it’s gonna be here.” Foster turned back to her team and the three Marines with the tachyon rifle still in hand. “Let’s move out. Tolukei, give us a barrier, and Chang, keep track of our signal and be on standby for an extract.”

  “Understood,” Chang’s voice replied. “Just whatever you’re doing make it quick, Draconian ships are inbound.”

  “He’s right,” Miles said, pushing a holographic tactical map of the region to Foster. “All our ships have been put on alert and are preparing to extract our forces.”

  “Then we’s gotta move now, let’s go!”

  4 Peiun

  Rezeki’s Rage, docked at Imperial Arm

  Amicitia Station 14, Arietis system