Unsanctioned Reprisal

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “Where in this place can we find that?” Bailey asked.

  “Nowhere,” she said grimly. “There’s a clinic in the city if memory serves me correct. If we can get him there, I can do more for him.”

  “Exactly where in the city?” Miles said, looking at the outside world from the opened door.

  She shrugged “Fifteen-minute walk at least.”

  “Them bloody dragons are making a mess of the place outside,” Miles said. “Was lucky to make it here alive with ‘im.”

  “There’s no medical ward here in the manor,” Avearan said. “Either we drag him there, or he dies slowly.”

  “Fuck!” Miles stomped his exosuited foot to the ground and looked outside, fixing his eyes on the circling wyverns and their swooping dives into the city. He grabbed his rifle. “Lead the way.”

  Bailey and Avearan carried Williams’ limp body, running into the outside arctic cold. Miles took point, following the directions to the city Avearan verbally gave him as his rifle remained active and forward, ready to put down any dragons that might cross their path. A weak psionic bubble was the best she could muster to defend the three while they created three lines of footprints in the snow, heading to the city of Muro.

  The shadows of two wyverns circled around them four minutes into their fifteen-minute trek. There was no turning back. Miles stopped running.

  “You two go ahead,” he yelled to Avearan and Bailey. “I’ll keep ‘em busy, get Williams the help he needs!”

  52 Foster

  ESV Marcus Antonius

  Near Uelcovis Space Bridge, Uelcovis system

  October 17, 2118, 02:24 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Captain Rebecca Foster. Survivor of the Imperial invasion of Earth, former Captain of the Carl Sagan, leader of the first human expedition team into the Sirius system, current commanding officer of the Johannes Kepler, and now, apparently, Princess of the Dragons.

  She led Chevallier’s team past the fallen and blood-dripping bodies of Terran loyal crew personnel that got in the way of the stampeding wyverns and drakes. They barged into engineering shouting, with their weapons drawn, like they were robbing a bank. The engineering crew were smart and raised their hands in surrender, dispersing quickly into the corridors while the four assumed control.

  The device that powered the mind shield of the Marcus Antonius was found first after a lengthy search. It was shot to hell by the four rifles in the hands of the group. A flare of sparks, black smoke, and flames signaled to the psionic duo of LeBoeuf and Maxwell, that their powers were no longer limited.

  Foster ran to the AI core.

  “Okay, now what?” LeBoeuf asked her.

  “Get to the bridge and destroy the EVE android,” she said. “I’ll finish up here.”

  “Uh, bridge psionic is gonna give us problems, not to mention EVE units know how to fight,” Maxwell said.

  Foster stood at the massive apparatus that was the AI core. It was twice as big as the one on the Carl Sagan. She wondered if the Kepler’s core was of the same size, she never did get the chance to visit it.

  “Go hard as soon as you teleport up,” Foster said. “They ain’t gonna be expecting you three.”

  “Two,” Chevallier said, stepping over to Foster. “I’m staying,”

  Foster faced her, grimacing. “Still don’t trust me, eh?”

  “Get going you two,” Chevallier said to her team. “And don’t get brainjacked by EVE.”

  “The current psionic chip implants we have are resistant to that,” LeBoeuf said, and gathered the blue and purple waves of psionic energy to perform the teleport.

  Maxwell concurred. “Yep, most EVE units don’t even have brainjack probes installed anymore because of that.”

  The psionic duo vanished, leaving Foster alone with Chevallier. Foster went to work on ripping apart the cables and wires that made the AI core work, ignoring the smell of burning plastic and metal wires that arrived when sparks flashed.

  “They ignored you, Foster.” Chevallier said.

  “Who? LeBoeuf and Maxwell?”

  “No, that first drake you released. You were the nearest and had minimal cover; it should have killed you, as with the others you let out.”

  “Y’all got away fine.”

  “Because the guards started shooting at it before we went to take cover—”

  “You mean hide and scream in the closet?”

  “Take cover,” Chevallier reiterated. “If those guards hadn’t fired at the first drake, LeBoeuf, Maxwell, and I would have been attacked, I’m sure of it. But not you, it ignored you. So, yes, I still don’t trust you, but I don’t trust Moriston and his people either.”

  Foster yanked a tray of data crystals from a wall panel. Her tachyon rifle vaporized each one with a light show of white and yellow blasts. “Yet, here you are helpin’ me.”

  “I’m not helping you.” Chevallier faced away from her, holding her rifle out and searched for possible targets. “I’m helping the Johannes Kepler. Those are the only people in this system I trust, as of now.”

  Foster continued her willful acts of destruction against the AI core, while Chevallier stood watch. After six minutes, every panel, computer and weird twenty-second century gizmo that made the AI core work, stopped working, the ship lost its internal EVE AI. All that remained was the android—

  A crash and bang thundered. At first, she thought she overdid it with the AI core. It turned out to be something much worse. Chevallier’s rifle blazed, using particle beam shots. Foster ran to see what was up. A giant mech punched and kicked a hole in the wall, and its mechanized joints carried it into engineering, trampling over computer terminals like they didn’t exist, sending flames and sparks up.

  The mech had rail guns for hands and a set of plasma missiles attached to its back. Up front in the driver’s seat of the mech, was the raging face of Moriston and a variety of holo screens that displayed the mech’s operational status to him, amongst other things.

  Fear paralyzed Foster while Moriston’s voice transmitted to them via the mech’s external speakers.

  “Eat this!” was all he had to say.

  The mech’s rail guns fired. The rounds were meant to end Foster. Chevallier ate them instead, diving to shield and push Foster away to safety. Mechs were heavy ordinates designed for vehicle to vehicle combat, and in some cases, small ships or fighters that got too close. The rail gun rounds ripped through Chevallier’s shields and armor. Once Foster got back to her feet, Chevallier wasn’t moving. The blood that pooled around her body did, however.

  The only saving grace Chevallier had was that her shields and armor might have helped slow and reduce the destructive fire power of the rail guns, on top of the built-in safety systems of the mech. They were after all on a ship, and so the rail guns would have fired rounds at a lower speed to prevent putting holes through the bulkheads and venting atmosphere out into space. As a result, Chevallier’s body was somewhat whole with the exception of her arm.

  Foster shut her eyes from the horrific sight, trying to convince herself it wasn’t karma that did this. Williams, after all, found himself staring up at the skies with his life bleeding away, thanks to Chevallier.

  No more tears, she told herself. Dragon Princesses don’t cry. They get even.

  She held her tachyon rifle and checked its power supply. It was still in the green. With her back to the wall of the burning AI core, Foster yelled to the mech around the corner, waiting for her to make the next move.

  “Moriston!”

  “Consider this a taste of what’s to come, Captain,” his voice transmitted. “Those that support the UNE after our objectives are complete will be dragged out into the streets and shot, just like her.”

  Mechanized steps clanged. Waiting in the AI core for Maxwell and LeBoeuf to finish, was suicide. Foster needed to fight her way out from the dead end she was in. She dove out and imagined herself as an action heroine in a sci-fi flick. She thought of Ellen Ripley or perhaps Sarah Connor w
ith a dash of Kara Thrace, as she rolled across bits of debris that littered the engineering room floor. Her tachyon rifle blazed, hitting the powerful shields of the mech. The mech fired back, its missed rounds turning a computer station behind her into an explosive and fiery blast.

  She kept running, relying on the fact the mech was slower than her to turn and face her. Walls and computer stations didn’t do much for cover, only hid her from sight, then crumbled into pieces when rail gun fire hit, or worse, plasma missiles. The most recent blast sent her spiraling over the railing, falling to the level below.

  She heard the mech turn to search for her, and Moriston’s heckling voice and laughter. “Why do you wish to see the human race fall?”

  “Why can’t you let us do our job?” she said, running away from the drop the mech was expected to leap down. “We want the same thing you do!”

  “Your way will weaken us! Aliens can’t be trusted!”

  The mech fell exactly where she expected. At that point, she hid behind the reactor, hoping he wouldn’t be stupid enough to risk hitting that.

  Moriston continued speaking, his face through the windshield searched for what became of Foster. “The Hashmedai invasion, the Celestial Order, Radiance’s attempts at consuming the UNE into their collective, the Architect of Sirius, the Draconian invaders . . . We need to return to our roots, return to an era when we humans were conquerors, looting and pillaging lands we explored.”

  “Sounds like you’re the one making us regress,” she spat. “You want us to revert back to savage and unenlightened ways!”

  “It’s in our blood to do that! It’s just we went about it the wrong way during ancient times. We targeted our own species. But now, things are different, we have the stars to take for ourselves, and aliens to make our slaves.”

  A plasma missile launched from the back of the mech, soaring toward the reactor. He really was stupid. It exploded remotely, seconds before impact likely by his command. The blast did minimal damage to the reactor, but the heat from the exploding plasma made Foster scream as her flesh singed.

  A second missile launched, delivering the same results. He was trying to smoke her out. Ignoring small plasma fires below her feet, she tapped her wrist terminal. “Maxwell, LeBoeuf, status?!”

  “I just got roundhouse kicked by an android,” Maxwell’s voice groaned.

  In other words, Foster had to hold out longer. Taking control of the ship was still their best option to prevent another war with the Empire, and perhaps search for other UNE ships that weren’t entirely controlled by the Terrans. The two psionics needed to stay the course and destroy the EVE unit.

  The missiles stopped coming at her. Peeking around the glowing reactor, she saw why. Moriston’s face was looking upward at the deck they both fell from. There was something up there he didn’t like, most likely the thing that forced him to jump into the mech in the first place. The dragons Foster released into the ship.

  The floor above shuddered as the footsteps of a drake stepped on it. Foster aimed her rifle at the wall behind the mech and fired. The back to back tachyon blasts hitting and melting a section of the wall, grabbed the drake’s attention, sending it running to it. Her actions also grabbed Moriston’s, and his assault resumed. She was ready to faint from the heat splashing on her from the plasma bursts.

  Her actions paid off. The drake leaped over the railing, diving down to the lower level. It faced the mech, the mech faced it, and a gargantuan wrestling match began. The mech’s shields were strong, sparkling blue with each impact the drake clawed and bit into it. Foster assisted the drake, shooting her tachyon rifle when the mech was forced to turn its back on her. A point-blank rail gun round sent the drake to the floor. Foster continued her assault, until what remained of the mech’s aft shields shattered.

  The FTL energy blasts from the rifle began to melt and vaporize large chunks of the mech’s rear, especially its power cells. Its functions seized, while fires erupted from the exploding power cell. A loud explosion and blinding black smoke enveloped the mech. Foster moved in close to finish the job.

  She arrived at the burning mech, brushing away what smoke she could, trying not to breathe it in at the same time. She looked up at its wide-open cockpit entrance. She didn’t see any blood, well human blood that was. Moriston had no choice but to eject, and the lack of blood meant he was uninjured. The drake lay on the floor, its breathing was shallow, while its blood slipped out into the floor, white steam lifted away from the bubbling yellow fluid.

  Light emitted from her tattoos, they intensified the closer she neared to the beast. They were reacting to it, rather, it was reacting to the cybernetic implants it had. It was almost as if the tattoos told her mentally the drake had the implants. She knew where they were, they were in the same location as the drake she encountered on Jacobus. Touching the drake caused her to feel its pain, their minds are almost linked. The drake’s implants and her tattoos served as a means of linking their minds together.

  This must be how the Draconians control them, she thought to herself.

  A vision came to her, it was one of engineering. Moriston was above the previous level, looking down at the two. He was getting ready to jump. It was a warning; too bad she didn’t realize it quickly enough to stop and face him.

  The impact of Moriston falling onto Foster broke the link she had with the drake, sending her to the floor. She went to grab the rifle that fell from her hands. His foot kicked it past the drake.

  She noted the two of them were unarmed as she quickly got back to her feet. Her fists rolled up into a ball—his did the same. Foster and Moriston fought the old-fashioned way, with punches and kicks. Moriston was a government agent, Foster was a space explorer. It didn’t take long for the two to know who was better trained for a slugfest.

  “Foster, we have control of the bridge and the EVE is no more,” LeBoeuf said over Foster’s wrist terminal.

  Sorry, can’t come to the phone right now, too busy getting my ass kicked . . .

  Moriston’s boot pushed Foster back at the burning mech, and away from the drake. His back turned to the dying beast, Foster’s back hit the floor once again. He lunged down, wrapping his hands around Foster’s neck, squeezing hard, until they flushed.

  “Foster, whatever it is your friends can do, they need to act soon,” LeBoeuf transmitted again.

  Her hands from the bout were too sore to pry his death grip off her neck, and too sore to claw away at his face. Too many seconds had passed without air and proper blood flow into her brain. Looking behind Moriston’s body, she saw the dying drake, the two made eye contact. Her weakened hands reached out to it, sending a nonverbal plea for help.

  It struggled and limped about, but eventually the drake got to its feet, and located Foster’s displaced tachyon rifle. It held the weapon within its jaws, and moved lamely over to her, while her vision slowly began to fade away.

  “Don’t hate me for this, Foster,” Moriston said. “I just want humanity to have a future . . . I want my wife, my daughter, and son to know I avenged them, made the Hashmedai suffer the same way they did, and stopped at nothing to make it happen! I’m sure your father would be pleased as well. So, please, don’t take it personal while I stand here and fucking kill you for destroying the seventy-seven years of hard work I put into building the Terran Legion in secret!”

  The drake collapsed, dropping her rifle in the process. It lost too much blood she figured. Using its nose, it pushed the tachyon rifle, sliding it across the floor past Moriston, but not past Foster. She quickly grabbed it with her free hand and pointed up at the distracted Moriston. He was shedding tears for what she figured was his reminiscing thoughts about his lost family.

  Pulling the trigger was harder to do than she thought it would be, as was watching his entire body flash white and turn into ash and glowing embers that blew away from the gusts from the above air vents, with the exception of his hands. Those were still around her neck; the scene was straight out of a horror movi
e.

  “Go be with your family . . .” she said to the ash that was once Moriston.

  She took thirty seconds to recover, throw the pair of creepy hands on her neck to the floor, cough, and breathe properly, it hurt for a bit when she did. Afterward, she kneeled next to the fallen drake. It too had a single tear fall from its eye. She patted its thick scaly skin as a means of thanking it. It touched Foster’s mind one last time. It requested, no she, requested that Foster return to the bio labs and recover something of great importance.

  Foster promised to do so, seconds before the drake died.

  53 Avearan

  Medical Clinic

  Muro, Taxah, Uelcovis system

  October 17, 2118, 02:35 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  “Go! Go! Go!”

  Avearan pushed open the doors to the long-abandoned medical clinic in the city of Muro. She instructed Chef Bailey to find a medical bed and drag Williams’ body into it, the best he could given his age. She made a snarky comment to him, suggesting he ought to invest in age rollback gene therapy, opposed to simply halting his age at this time in his life where the hair on his head was grey.

  Miles remained outside with his rifle discharging at random, drawing the swarm of dragons to his position in order for them to make it as far as they did. It left her torn between saving Williams’ life, the reason they came there in the first place, and rushing out to aid Miles who probably wasn’t going to survive the onslaught of the dragons.

  “Avearan, come let’s do this, nuh?” Bailey called out to her from the back rooms.

  She joined Bailey, working quickly to mend Williams’ injuries, and recruiting him to work as her nurse. Bailey, despite his age and lack of knowledge about current century Hashmedai medical equipment, was quick to get her what she needed. Medical scanners, flesh regenerators, towels, canisters of antibacterial chems, and gloves, he found it all without issue.

  When she was convinced she bought Williams’ another ten to twenty minutes of life, she had Bailey fetch her a case full of chems. The case was packed full of small handheld devices that delivered into one’s body the desired chemical for their treatment. There were anti-pregnancy chems, stims, sedatives, vitamin supplements, and more. What she needed, however, were the stims and sedatives. Miles’ life was going to depend on it.