Unsanctioned Reprisal

by Eddie R. Hicks

  She looked away from their bodies and the glowing red holes vaporized through their chests and faces and was thankful the young boy was quickly scooped up by his mother, who managed to flee. The two remaining captured Marines sprung to action and were forced to utilize hand-to-hand combos of punches and kicks to disable their supposed executioners. The superhuman strength the exosuit provided the Marines gave them a slight advantage. One managed to disarm and hold a soldier still long enough for Valiyev’s bullets to remove sizable chunks of its head. The other Marine wasn’t so lucky and was vaporized by the Draconian he fought with.

  The drake stormed into the fray afterward, having realized its food had escaped. It came stampeding at the eight like a raging animal. Nothing could stop it. Not even the six direct hits Foster’s tachyon rifle vaporized through its tough skin. It was as if the beast wasn’t able to sense pain, and its size was clearly too large for her to simply turn it into ash, unlike their humanoid soldiers.

  The drake crashed into Tolukei’s barrier, sending rippling waves of purple light across its protective dome, holding the dragon in place for the time being. The draconic beast stood on its back two legs and rapidly assaulted the barrier with its forward claws and jaws. Its speed was mind-blowing. Tolukei yelped and collapsed, holding his head. Psionic mental exhaustion was kicking in; none of his powers were going to be of any use until he recovered.

  That meant . . .

  The barrier shattered. The drake stood ready to maul and eat the first person it saw. That person was Foster.

  “Oh . . . Fuck.”

  Everyone began to spread out and run as the drake charged them, Foster was no exception as she ran in random directions. The entire battlefield turned into almost a bull fight scenario, where the stampeding drake was the bull and Foster was the fighter holding the red flag, being the rifle. Ancient human survival instincts took hold of her feet. Weapons exchange from the Marines, Pierce, Williams, and the remaining Draconian soldiers streaked back and forth, left and right, up and down. None of that was a concern for Foster, only the drake that wanted her in its belly.

  She dove and slid like a baseball player when it leaped for her. Looking up as her body slid across the grass, she saw the underside of its belly and cringed at the thought of the pounds of human flesh and bone that was probably inside it. She made a quick roll to the left, narrowly missing getting crushed by its hind legs. Having realized it missed, the drake came about quickly to face Foster. She leaped back to her feet, unarmed. Her rifle had long fallen from her hands at that point.

  Foster was by no means an expert at bullfighting, she’d watched it on TV a few times back in the prewar Earth days but that was it. The drake lunged at her again, she dove and rolled to the side, it wasn’t enough to create a large enough distance for her. She was still close to it, too close. Hell, she could reach out and touch it if she wanted to, maybe even grab ahold of it.

  Grabbing it is exactly what she ended up doing, as it stopped to reposition itself. She was no bullfighter, but she did participate in bucking horse rodeos in her younger days. She climbed onto and straddled the drake, then held on for dear life as it violently shook its body in an attempt to fling Foster off.

  She remained holding as her sights bounced all over the place. She saw the darkened park one moment, then the ceiling, then the park, then the scales of the drake, then Williams gunning down a Draconian soldier with his pistol when he rose from his cover behind a bench.

  The drake Foster rode on stood high on its back legs, groaning and roaring. Foster’s grip remained tight around its neck, not caring about the flesh on her hands being cut away at by the tiny sharp spikes sticking out from it as gravity continued to pull her down. Her perseverance forced the drake back on all-fours, returning to the bucking and shaking of its body to get her off. It knew she couldn’t hold on for much longer, not without a harness. She needed a way out of the mess. Looking off to the side she saw it, a tachyon rifle, one of many from the now dead Draconians that were once a threat. She needed to find a way to steer the drake over to one.

  She did what she could to force the drake over to a rifle. At one point, she thought she pulled off the trick, and went to leap off her ride, only for it to change direction seconds later. Another dropped rifle came into view, then out of it seconds later. She saw the rifle she had brought in, and then didn’t when the drake made a full turn in the opposite direction. A sudden jerk of the drake’s neck flung Foster off, the pain that shot up through her body upon impact was disorientating.

  To the right of her was a rifle, ahead of her, the drake sizing her up and preparing to make what it hoped to be its final dashing charge at her. She rolled to the rifle. The drake ran to her. She grabbed the rifle and pointed it upward as her back remained against the grass. The drake made a majestic pounce over to her, its mouth was wide open, its forward blood-stained claws ready to rip her flesh apart. The adrenaline gushing throughout her body made what happened next seemingly play out in slow motion before her eyes.

  The hulking presence of the drake eclipsed everything in her eyesight, with the exception of the tachyon rifle slowly rising, slowly taking aim, and her finger slowly activating its firing trigger. A single tachyon beam shot away from the rifle, it traveled upward to the beast above her. The beam missed its head which she was aiming for, vaporizing a hole through its chest that glowed red and orange from the intense heat of the blast. A red-hot hole appeared on the opposite end of its back where the tachyon beam exited.

  Foster was right about one thing, the dash the drake made was indeed the last one. She made a brisk roll to the left, as its body crashed onto the ground, unmoving. Whatever vital organ she hit from the last blast put the dragon down for good. She cowered behind its large body, using it as protection, and eyed what became of the battlefield during her crazy ride.

  There were three Draconian soldiers to the left, keeping the Marines and her crew at bay. None of the Draconians noticed her hiding behind the body of the drake, none of them knew her rifle was in the perfect position to take aim at the back of their heads.

  Her tachyon rifle rose up three times, and the sound of vaporized Draconians echoed in the air, three times, back-to-back. Ash and embers blew away in the aftermath, while bits of melted armor fell to the ground.

  Foster fell back down to catch her breath and process what the hell she just went through. When her head cleared, she felt the presence of something deep within the drake. Cybernetics, some sort of neural implants … She couldn’t make it out. The last flame of the drake’s life had faded, cutting off her tattoos’ abilities to seemingly interact with it.

  She backed away from the drake, giving her tattooed hands and arms a quick peek, wondering if she missed a chance to learn something new about her abilities due to the violence and the will to live. When she was done, she rejoined her team and the surviving colonists that had been given the all clear to leave their cover.

  “Thanks for the assist,” the lone surviving captured Marine, Sergeant Schneider, said facing Miles, huffing and puffing.

  Miles gave him a nod. “Aye, no worries, where’s everyone else?”

  “No clue, sir, the network is all jammed beyond these mountains,” said Schneider.

  “Great, HNI disruption,” Miles said drily.

  “Thought you could reach the fleet?” Williams asked him.

  “I thought so too,” Miles said, conjuring a communication projection with his HNI. The projection was filled with white static, and a signal lost error message flashing. “The jamming must have started when we entered the concourse.”

  Ingram grunted. “You know what that means, right?”

  Foster exhaled. “I was just gonna say, good thing those Dragon Knight’s ain’t here.”

  “I thought you all killed them?” Miles asked Foster.

  “We dealt with their fleet, yeah. I’m assuming they were aboard one of those ships when they got stuck in the maelstrom.” And if I remember correctly, any ship wi
thout the protection of the Charybdis vanishes into nothing. There’s no way that fleet survived.

  “Well, so much for your mission being one of peace,” Valiyev snorted.

  “We didn’t have any choice, we’s had to defend Sirius.”

  Foster’s wrist terminal beeped. Picking up the transmission she heard Chang’s voice say. “Captain, you guys ready for extract?”

  She mused briefly at the fact the wrist terminal was still able to work, but HNI communication was not. The wrist terminal with its built-in apps such as the holo pad, and EAD scanner was custom-built for those that lacked HNI. However, the technology powering them was the same, so whatever was jamming the Marine’s ability to communicate via HNI, should also be jamming her wrist terminal’s ability to communicate. What was affecting the Marines wasn’t a simple case of a communication jam, but rather something preventing their brains from interfacing with the neural implants in their heads.

  “Not yet, why?” Foster replied.

  “I gotta enter atmo now, we’re under attack,” Chang transmitted amidst the sound of rumbling noises in the background. “We should be harder to target the closer we are to the surface.”

  “We’s got a lot of angry wyverns in the skies.”

  “I’ll take the chance, just hurry up; the UNE fleet is still a while out.”

  Leaving the way they entered came to mind. That was until the rescued colonists brought to their attention there were more survivors in hiding. Their location? The IESA outpost Foster had been assigned previously, deeper inside the mountain complex.

  The convoy of humans and two Radiance members stopped, facing a darkened and dormant train tunnel. It was the only pathway to the remaining survivors, and a possible ambush from lurking dragons.

  6 Avearan

  Avearan’s apartment

  Cassini City, Titan, Sol system

  October 13, 2118, 08:05 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  The alarm clock buzzed again.

  Avearan Slaver, Slaver being her Hashmedai title she refused to let her friends know, looked angrily at the translucent holographic date and time hovering above the alarm clock. Her hand was seven inches short of smashing the clock. Her telekinetic powers, however, were not. The clock cracked against the wall, as if an invisible hand picked it up and threw it. Peace was restored her to bedroom, and her psionic brain was rewarded with another five minutes of snooze time. Burying her face into the pillows she slept on.

  When those five minutes were up, she unenthusiastically got up from her bed, groaning at the yellow hazy light entering her apartment from its windows as she went to perform her daily routine. If there weren’t so many towers and office buildings in the backdrop, she might have been able to see Saturn and its rings on the horizon while she stood looking out the window waiting for the coffee maker to finish brewing.

  Coffee … I must be the only Hashmedai here that drinks this.

  She disrobed, allowing her nightgown to fall to the floor, thanks to the city’s artificial gravity. It was time for a shower, after she finished the coffee of course. Number one benefit of living alone, and self-tinting windows, one could walk about naked without any shame. Even when she entered the shower, she left the bathroom door wide open. Frigid cold water sprayed from the faucet, enough to make any human shriek, squirm, and shiver in the aftermath.

  Once patted dry with a towel, she stood before the mirror and activated its planning tool. A number of windows flashed on, some listed the current temperature—indoor temperature of the city of course—outside on Titan’s surface was a chilly, negative hundred sixty degrees Celsius. Even a Hashmedai like her would freeze to death quickly without protection.

  She swiped across the screen, accessing a number of makeup options for her to use, while a simulated portrait of her face appeared in the center, giving her a better idea of how she would look. She had a number of premade profiles to select, ranging from makeup for parties, or meeting with someone important. Human style or Hashmedai style, there were hundreds of options. She selected her default profile, a light blend of cosmetics typically used by Hashmedai women. She was going to class today, no need to overdo it.

  Much better, she thought after applying the makeup, swiping away the holo screens and staring at her nude form and her long, purple hair draped over her shoulders. Her red eyes that never aged thanks to gene therapy stared right back. She rubbed her hand across the scars on her arms and belly, left behind when her cybernetic implants had been removed. They were replaced with smaller ones, barely noticeable, and configured for medical use. It’s a new beginning, one she had to remind herself daily whenever she stood watching her body in the mirror.

  She sat in the living room after getting dressed and preparing a plate of bacon and eggs. Stores that specialized in Hashmedai food were a good two hours away via train, way too much work for grocery shopping. Halfway into her meal, she asked the computer to turn the holo TV on and bring up a holo screen beside her that allowed her to access her personal computer.

  The words ‘Breaking News’ appeared as the headline when TV activated and displayed the local news. It made her fingers stop scrolling across the holo screen next to her, and her eyes lock onto the TV screen. A camera drone was capturing pictures of a fleet of UNE warships battling Draconian bio-ships in space.

  “. . . for those of you joining now,” said the news anchorman. “We received confirmation from our sources, that the United Nations of Earth navy has engaged the Draconian forces currently occupying the Kapteyn’s Star system.”

  She watched the two fleets exchange weapons fire with deadly results. It brought back haunting memories of the incursion last summer, and the chaos and fear that spread in the city when people thought the Draconians would hit Titan on their way to Earth.

  The anchorman continued. “The XSV Johannes Kepler, commanded by Rebecca Foster, who made headlines last summer for allegedly bringing the Draconians to the galaxy, is also reported to have come under attack by the dragons that besieged the planet Jacobus.”

  Text headlines scrolled on the bottom of the holo TV screen, she read them hoping to find some positive news brewing elsewhere in the galaxy. ‘UNE Marines killed after Draconian ambush on Pictor, Jacobus.’ ‘Terran Legion protests turn violent in Seoul, two police officers injured.’ ‘Radiance Union council votes to delay visit to Amicitia Station 14 station amidst security concerns.’ ‘Unusual activity reported in the Morutrin system belt: skirmishes between mercenaries and pirates triggered.’

  Positive news didn’t exist in a galaxy turned upside-down. Only, there’s no up or down in space.

  The news continued to play. Her selective hearing allowed her to ignore what was being said while she returned to her computer’s holo screen. A red-colored enveloped icon pulsed rapidly. There was an unread qmail message. She grimaced, wondering who would have taken the time to reach her via qmail. Only the UNE had the QEC network, while the UNE constructed QEC relay nodes near the capitals of the Empire and Union and in the Morutrin system to help with communication.

  Any messages coming from beyond those regions were sent via telepathy as a standard signal would take years traveling at the speed of light. If someone deep within the empire wanted to talk with her, they would need to send a telepathic message to a psionic at a hub such as Amicitia Station 14. That psionic would have to retype that message and send the qmail to that person on their behalf. Pain in the ass, but it was the only way to deliver FTL messages from systems not part of the QEC network.

  Which begged the question, who would contact her in this manner? Avearan was a psionic, so special implants weren’t required to use telepathy. It would have been faster and easier to reach her mind with telepathy than going through that long complex process, unless the psionic in question didn’t know her personally or was just terrible at telepathy.

  She tapped the message icon, and then tapped the unread qmail. It was a message from an old friend in the Empire. A disclaimer reminded her that the message
had been automatically translated from Hashmedai to English via the EVE AI on Amicitia Station 14, not that she needed one, she spoke both dialects of Hashmedai.

  To: Avearan Slaver

  From: Phylarlie Starchaser

  Subject: NONE

  Sent: October, 12, 2118 04:05 SST

  Hello Avearan,

  It has been far too long since you paid me a visit here on Taxah. Let’s change that shall we? I will be hosting a festival for all Imperial system lords, nobles, and the Imperial family. As lord of the Uelcovis system, I would love it if you were to attend and join us for what will be the greatest Conquest Day celebration in recent years.

  - Phylarlie, lord of the Uelcovis system

  She tapped the close icon and sat back on her couch. Avearan escaped Imperial rule decades ago, only visiting it in secret thanks to Phylarlie’s power and influence. Phylarlie was never one to invite her to visit, let alone reach out to her. The request made her suspicious, Phylarlie wanted something, and she just couldn’t put her finger on it. She opted to get back to it later, not just because she needed more time to think, but because it was time to leave.

  “Computer, shut down all appliances,” she said, and watched as her entire suite and holograms went dark.

  Avearan went for the front door, slinging her backpack over her shoulders, and ensuring she had an ice-cold bottle of water with her for the commute. A commute taken on trains set to standard human room temperatures, was a bit too much for her Hashmedai blood.

  Cassini City, like most major cities on Titan, looked like an oversized multistory shopping mall with towering office and apartment buildings arching away in some locations when viewed from above. Titan was a cold moon. You couldn’t live outside without freezing solid in minutes. Cities had to be built to keep warm air in and the hostile cold out. Normally on colonized worlds such as this, atmosphere processors and plasma heaters would have been constructed to give its residents the chance to go outside. But Titan was an older UNE colony, one of the first after the colonization of Mars and Earth’s moon—now commonly referred to as Luna after years of debate and arguing.