Unsanctioned Reprisal

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Phylarlie brought her into a chamber with pods, five to six times larger than the two of them combined, scattered about. She couldn’t make out what was inside when she peered through their frosted glass covers, only that they were heavy and required antigravity carts to push them out of the room, evident when several scientists arrived to do so.

  “After the draconic incursion,” Phylarlie said to her. “The Empire entrusted the facilities here to study the protective substance the Rezeki’s Rage used to survive the maelstrom.”

  Avearan grimaced as Phylarlie took her deeper into the chamber. Tables held large chunks of burned flesh where large scanning equipment in the ceilings shone rays of blue and white light upon them. Some of the flesh still had mechanical parts attached to them. Phylarlie waved her hand before them.

  “Recognize these?” she asked Avearan.

  She nodded, moving closer to the flesh hulks. “These are the remains of the Draconian ships.”

  “Very good,” Phylarlie said. “We’ve been trying to learn how they were able to create organic ships, and how the cybernetic parts operate.” She made eye contact with her. “You’re a xenobiology student, correct?”

  “Yeah, Doctor Lynn’s memories left an imprint in my head,” Avearan said. “Figured studying it further rather than being the doctor on the Dark Star was a better choice in life.”

  “The Dark Star, it’s been ages since I heard anyone speak of that salvager ship. Have you heard from Captain Trin of late?”

  “He’s still living the salvager life, using the money earned to keep his son’s and grandchildren’s psionic powers a secret,” Avearan said, giving the Draconian ship remains a closer look. “It’s a shame the psionic situation in the Empire remains the same after all the progress we made post Y’lin.”

  Phylarlie stood next to her with her arms crossed over her low-cut top. “What if I told you we could change all that?”

  “How?”

  “With your knowledge of xenobiology, I thought perhaps I could recruit you to give us a hand and speed up our research.”

  There were rumors going about claiming the dragons that attacked Earth had psionic powers, like the wyrm in the Mediterranean Sea. It got her thinking as she looked at the cybernetic parts lying on adjacent tables. The forced training and recruitment into the military, laws that forced parents to give up their children to the Empire or face execution, all of that could be abolished, if the Empire were to regain its power to create new psionics.

  Did Phylarlie’s team figure something out? she thought. Perhaps, but why me? “I’m just a student with experience that isn’t really mine,” Avearan said, facing Phylarlie. “Why me? If the Empire entrusted you to study this, couldn’t they have sent you an Imperial xenobiologist?”

  “Finding people in the Empire that have those skills is rare,” Phylarlie said. “Doctors are trained to heal Hashmedai and nothing else. Those with xenobiology knowledge are forced to join Imperial expedition teams, exploring newly discovered planets to study the wildlife. Simply put, there’s nobody as skilled and knowledgeable in the field as you are.” Phylarlie flicked her wrists, causing multiple holo screens to appear and float over to Avearan. “I need you to familiarize yourself with what we’ve discovered about the Draconians so far. Once you’ve done that, speak to me. I have a special task for you. When we’re done . . . you won’t have to fear the Imperial laws, as they will be changed.”

  Avearan agreed to her terms, not that she had much of a choice. Everything around her was a secret project. People that knew of secret projects and weren’t helping out with them were politely escorted to an airlock at the quickest opportunity. She slid the contents of the holo screens Phylarlie gave her into her wrist terminal, found a secluded area to sit, and went to catch up on the literature.

  Phylarlie went to take her leave, when she stopped suddenly, sighing before the exit. She conjured a large holographic communication screen to appear with an officer from the Imperial navy on it.

  “What is it?” Phylarlie said to the projection.

  “My apologies,” the navy officer said. “But the humans are requiring our assistance with something.”

  Phylarlie’s eyebrow cocked. “And what would that be?”

  “They wish to borrow the device recovered from the Charybdis ship,” said the officer. “The emperor and empress gave it their approval.”

  Phylarlie moved toward a storage area pulling open its doors, allowing white mist to release from it. “Tell them, we have one active device at our disposal they can have.”

  “I will forward your reply to my psionic.”

  “Have a ship prepared and the space bridge delay all requests until it has traveled through it with the device.”

  “Actually, my lord, they will be coming to Taxah to pick it up. The empress also requests that you make them guests of honor for the festival.”

  “Who is ‘they?’”

  “Captain Foster and her crew of the Johannes Kepler.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said with a wicked and alluring smile. “Very well then, keep me posted.”

  The two exchanged Imperial salutes, the hologram vanished afterward.

  “Avearan,” Phylarlie called out to her. “Change of plans, I need you to make some adjustments to this device before you proceed any further.”

  Avearan put her reading material away, joining Phylarlie at the storage lockup. She looked at the object inside, waving away the blinding mist that slowly began to flood the room. The device was large, shaped almost like a cylinder, it was opened from the side and had grotesque-looking tentacles laced with wires sticking out. It was a fusion of technology and organics, the staples of Draconian technology.

  Avearan’s first official work as a xenobiologist working with alien organics . . . rather dragons, was about to begin.

  31 Peiun

  Downtown Core

  Gravity City, Morutrin system

  October 15, 2118, 14:41 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Peiun was lucid dreaming. He knew this for a fact because the images he saw were from his past life as a child growing up on Paryo. He could wake up at any time, but what was the point? He was dreaming, therefore, he was resting, if he was resting then there was a good reason his body demanded he do so.

  He saw the night of the Conquest Day massacre. His father viewed state news reports of the details that night, when the Imperial family and various nobles and lords across the Empire were targeted. He was too young at the time to understand what was going on. But as a grown adult, looking back at that day, having read and understood the historic things that happened, he understood.

  Conquest Day had always been a bad omen amongst the Hashmedai. It was celebrated to mark the day the Empire thought, at the time, they defeated the Radiance Union in the war without end. It ended up evolving into a day where Radiance, or its intelligence agency, Whisper, used it as a means to demoralize the Hashmedai Empire with surprise attacks or assassinations. The late Emperor Rezeki himself was slain on that day by Radiance to insult the Empire.

  Why Peiun’s mind made him dream about that night and reflect upon Conquest Day he couldn’t figure out. Perhaps it was because this year’s festival was approaching, or perhaps it was something else—

  “Hey, wake up!”

  It was Sarah’s voice. The sound of it reminded him of the crash, and the danger they had escaped from, and the danger that was yet to come.

  It was time to wake up.

  Peiun’s body was full of throbbing pain. The downfall of rain continued, making his body appear as if he had gone bathing with his uniform and sword. Sarah had pulled him out from the mangled and burning car, sitting up top of a rooftop. She kneeled next to him, waving an emergency flesh regenerator device over the bloody gashes on his head and arms. They partially sealed up a few minutes later becoming large cuts rather than massive lacerations.

  He went to sit up and look ahead at the patio and park off in the distance on the same rooftop they cras
hed on. Sarah pushed on his chest, to tell him not to move further. “Bad time to ask but are you okay?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I am fine.”

  “Good, you’re no use to me if your bones are all mashed to shit.”

  She put the flesh regenerator away and looked around, focusing on the same things he did. There were witnesses about, some were on the adjacent buildings watching from their balconies, and others were directly before them watching from a glass door that led to the patio they crashed next to.

  The two scaled down the walls and balconies, making two splashes each in the puddles growing in the drenched streets. Sarah led the way pulling on his hand, and evading pedestrians that walked about, ducking behind parked cars and trash disposal units, until they arrived in a dark alley. Well, dark to Sarah, Peiun’s now red-glowing eyes were able to see just fine.

  “Shit, those people we had to cross called the cops,” Sarah said with her back to the alley wall, looking out into the street. “EISS isn’t stupid; they’ll be monitoring those HNI comm lines.”

  An extraction back to the Rezeki’s Rage was called for. Peiun used his HNI to contact Alesyna. There was no reply, and her vitals were listed as unknown, meaning she was out of range. “I can’t get hold of my psionic,” he said.

  Sarah looked back at him amidst the wailing sounds of human law enforcement vehicles. “What about your ship?”

  Peiun’s HNI connected with the Rezeki’s Rage and spoke with the crew. He relayed what they told him to Sarah. “I’m able to reach them, but they will have to send a transport to recover us.” He looked up at the towering buildings creating obstacles to fly around, and the rows of cars and trucks flying next to them. “It won’t be easy to get it through here.”

  “You’ll just draw attention to our location anyways,” Sarah said. “We need your people to land elsewhere, and then we jet to them. Assuming EISS will let us, which they probably won’t.”

  “How many adversaries are we facing?”

  “I don’t know. I was under the impression it was my unit and two or three operatives, clearly there are a lot more.”

  Sarah went to peek out from the alley, then quickly retreated back when law enforcement vehicles arrived, hovering closer to the streets and sidewalks, shining blue and red lights across building signs, windows, and pedestrians that went about their business. Black cars flew alongside them in formation.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Sarah moaned.

  She moved back into the dark alley, and made two looks to her left and right, then deactivated her armor’s grip on her body. Its shields flashed off and its tight fit expanded, allowing her to slip out of it, unveiling what she wore under it, a brief and exotic leather dress.

  “Don’t ask,” she snapped at him. “This outfit was part of my previous cover; thankfully I thought ahead and kept it.”

  She obtained a pair of high-heel shoes from her suit’s storage slot. Peiun grinned at her. “You kept the shoes too?”

  “Like I said, I think ahead. I wasn’t convinced it was a good time to ditch my disguise and go full action girl.”

  He was starting to understand why she had the cosmetics and perfume earlier, and why her appearance was so young. To his knowledge it wasn’t required by human law to remain a specific age with gene therapy when in the military. Her younger appearance was most likely part of her cover.

  Sarah eyed him up and down, after concealing her pistol under her outfit. “Take off your top and ditch the sword.”

  He was taken aback by her unexpected request. “What?”

  “This is a warm world, even to us humans,” Sarah said. “It’s not uncommon for Hashmedai to walk around here with no shirt on.”

  She was right. He had forgotten about the sweltering heat, thanks to the rain. The removal of his uniform’s top gave his chest the freedom it needed to air out and reduce his body temperature. Sarah’s eyebrow rose once his brawny chest was exposed, and rainwater dripped off his drenched pecs and abs.

  “They’re looking for a uniformed Imperial officer and an EDF black ops operative with a protect suit.” She hooked her arm around his. “Not the two of us on a date.”

  The two tossed the items they were leaving behind in a trash disposal unit, then made their way out into the streets, after the law enforcement vehicle turned the corner, of course. The sights and sounds of the city enveloped them as they strode through. Sarah chatted about things Peiun knew nothing about to strengthen the false image they were a couple. He just laughed or nodded, doing his part to keep up the act while the two vanished in an ocean of humans and Radiance exiles walking the busy streets.

  Advertisements for various human products and services flashed, there were even a few ads that targeted some of the Radiance exiles that found their way to live in the city. Merchants barked, offering discounts on fresh fruits imported from Earth. Gentlemen’s clubs promised the most exquisite girls in the sector were dancing that night. There was a small line to enter, while large bulky human men stood guard next to the door.

  The red and blue lights of the law enforcement vehicles circling prevented the two from making any progress in reaching the city limits. After an hour walking, in the on again and off again rain, they meandered to one of the less eye-appealing areas of the city. Everyone was human, and they gave Peiun aggressive glares, Sarah too at times. Someone defaced the logo of a UNE military recruitment poster, writing the words ‘is for humans only!’ next to ‘United Nations of Earth.’

  Sarah shoved Peiun into a cafe, quickly. She remained by the doors, looking outside. Two black cars moved past slowly. The search lights at the sides of them were looking for persons of interest.

  “This is harder than I thought,” she whispered. “I disconnected from the HNI network, so they can’t trace me . . . Forgot I can’t trace them anymore too.”

  “We will have to depend on our eyes.”

  The two did just that, peeking back outside. One of the searching black cars came to a landing next to a group of men. Durendal leaped out of the car and began speaking to the men. Their conversation ended with a strange salute, a fist placed against their heart.

  It made Sarah wince. “Son of a bitch . . .”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Sarah kept silent, waiting for Durendal to get back into his unmarked car and lift off and up out of sight. She dragged Peiun by his hand, back outside and moved close to the group of men Durendal had been speaking to. She looked at them, they looked back, more so at Peiun than her.

  She looked up at Peiun, bit her lip and said. “I need you to kiss me.”

  “How does this help us?” he asked.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  He moved in, hesitating for a moment, trying to remember how to correctly perform a kiss. Hashmedai expressed affection by licking their partners, typically around the neck and shoulders. The act of pressing one’s lips to another was alien to him.

  The two shared a wild kiss. Peiun being a man that had been sexually repressed for so long, couldn’t help himself, and held onto her body. She returned the favor stroking his bare wet chest. Somewhere in the midst of their session, their mouths opened, and their tongues made contact. Their heads pulled away, effectively completing Peiun’s first kiss. Sarah’s face turned a shade of red.

  Behind Sarah, Peiun saw the men Durendal had been speaking to fuming and pointing fingers at them. “Are you attempting to goad them?” he asked her.

  “I’m just doing what I do best.”

  “And that is?”

  “Being a bad girl.”

  Peiun experienced his second kiss in life, this time it was full of energy the two exchanged with each other. He liked it. This was exactly what his body needed for months, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it was an act and in the public eye, he’d be taking his pants off.

  Assuming Sarah didn’t do it first, her hand slipped extremely close past his abs.

  “Get a room!” one of the men yelled.

>   She guided him into alley, a small one with a dead end. She stopped and waited, not uttering a word to him. Footsteps splashing through the puddles were heard from behind, they grew louder as the seconds passed. Peiun counted at least four different people walking in a group, the men Durendal had spoken with.

  “We are being followed,” he whispered to her.

  She smiled. “Good.”

  “Hey!” a voice called out to them. “Human pussy wasn’t meant for Hashmedai.”

  They turned to face the group of men, blocking off the alley’s exit back to the streets. The men were rugged-looking wearing leather coats with no sleeves. The leader of the group walked closer to Peiun, his face and arms covered in human body art. “Hey, vampy, I’m talking to you!”

  The leader shoved Peiun back and spat at his feet. He reacted by hissing and displaying the size of his fangs. Sarah backed off panicked and cried, though he suspected she was acting.

  “Look at this guy, thinks he’s all tough,” said the leader of the group. “Your kind waltzes onto Earth, kills our people, now you think you can come in and take our women?”

  “Look, please just leave us alone,” Sarah pleaded with her fake and somber voice.

  The leader pointed at her. “You shut the fuck up, bitch! Once we’re done with him, we’re gonna make you appreciate how good a big human dick feels.”

  The leader of the group turned to his crew standing behind him, giving them the okay to move in. Little did he know he inadvertently gave himself the final chance to see them alive. Their foreheads exploded with a splatter of red and meaty chunks painting the alley walls and surface. Sarah stood holding her magnetic pistol, its tip glowing orange as a result of the rapid discharge.