Anstractor Vestalia

by Greg Dragon

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Although Rafian had been grounded for rescuing Aurora and disobeying orders, he was still responsible for gaining leadership knowledge. He was made to shadow different commanding officers on random days, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was responsible for staying sharp via the virtual machines and holographic study.

  Vani’s duties were more mundane. Being primed for navigation, she often pored over galactic maps projected so large that it took up most of their tiny apartment. Vani had grown fond of Aurora, but her jealousy of her closeness to Rafian was hard to keep in check at times. The fights they would get into would range from her being upset about Aurora hanging out or his aloof attitude about everything that seemed to concern her.

  For Rafian, Vani was a drama queen. But he saw her as his drama queen. He would often call her a “spoiled spacer brat,” better suited for some tucked-away planet like Louine, with maids and manservants who would cater to her every whim while she was oblivious to the galactic war. It was a nice insult to levy at Vani, but Rafian would say it only in those rare moments when he was angry.

  She was so vocal and expressive that it made him love her when she was happy and hate her when she was upset. He never wanted to end up coddling her since he feared that she would get used to it. So he fought back when she was disagreeable and encouraged her when she was being cute. At the end of the day, he loved her immensely, but he was concerned about their future if she didn’t find a way to curb her rage.

  It had been three months since he rescued Aurora, and he was told that he could finally fly his first mission whenever he was prepped and ready. But he was restless and mentally drained from fighting with Vani. So he decided to hop onto the next shuttle heading to the warship, Missio-tral. Since the Helysian was part academy and floating barracks, missions were not carried out directly from there. This prevented any retaliation from enemies tracking a pilot home or spies who managed to see where she was cloaked and orbiting.

  Rafian stepped off the shuttle with a spring in his step, his 3B suit primed and his air supply full. He was armed to the teeth with the weapons he had chosen for this particular trip. On his person, as usual, was Samoo’s gun, a las-sword very much like the one that had almost taken his arm off, and a sniper rifle that he had taken from the special reserves.

  “Rafian VCA,” a deep voice stated from somewhere in front of him. He recognized the voice as that of Vallen, an old friend from his days as a cadet. Val had grown to be very mature—in terms of looks and speech—unlike the other boys, who still maintained their boyish features and higher voices.

  They grasped forearms in the customary greeting and moved to a corner to catch up on their individual happenings in life. After the first grade exercise that Rafian had undergone, Val was transferred to the Starship Alpha Terracydes, where he was deployed into fighting on a small moon by the name of Cairn. Many had died on the moon, but Val had proved himself an ace at survival. He told Rafian of his tour of duty, and Rafian in turn told him of the Aurora mission.

  “So with a badass like Val Tracker down here, why would they need a half-witted scrub like me along?” Rafian jokingly asked.

  But Val reassured him that the mission was indeed important and best suited for a soldier who could pull off a stunt like the one he had done on Geral as a cadet.

  The friends spoke for an hour before they were summoned to be briefed on the mission. The man in charge was a short, bulldog of a colonel named Cilas MEC, who went by the nickname Rend. He had a raspy voice that sounded like an engine badly in need of oil and Rafian was in awe at being in his presence.

  The fact that Rend was in charge of a mission meant that it was not only important but that it was also classified, high-level, and more than likely going to be something that he would never be able to discuss. Rend spoke and the entire room dared not breathe lest they miss an important detail about the mission at hand.

  “Warriors, let me first congratulate you on being chosen for this mission. This duty that you are being asked to perform is one of great importance and one that will gain us much ground in retaking Vestalia and granting our people freedom.”

  He continued to tell them of how honored they should feel for being selected and reminded them of their sworn secrecy in matters of military service. He then brought up an older woman to give the pertinent mission details. Her name was Helga ATE, which she combined to make her call sign, “Lady Hellgate.”

  Hellgate, unlike Rend, was soft-spoken, but nobody dared mistake this for weakness. She was known for her ferocity and merciless attacks on enemy cities, leaving nothing in her wake but fire and death. Hellgate had leveled her share of civilizations, and Rafian imagined her kill count being in the tens of thousands.

  He smiled slightly at the war heroine because she was one of the soldiers who had inspired him during his studies to become a pilot. She explained the mission details, and Rafian blinked away his admiration in order to truly listen to what she was saying.

  “It has been 183 days now since the Geralos took over the moon of Meruda, whose rich resource of Io-89 they have coveted since they started aggressions with the Alliance. Rend and his troops have gained much ground in the last few months after the Geralos commander Baiken fell from tripping a mine outside Unik5.

  “The lizards are in disarray. It’s what happens when they have no leadership. So far, we have been able to take advantage of this panic and destroy a number of their forward operations. We cannot afford to lose momentum now. You are all here to help us push into the capital of Arisani, jewel of Unik5.”

  The hard woman paused to look across the room and her eyes focused on the area where Rafian was standing.

  “You were all handpicked for this mission because of your military record. We aim to take that capital by any means necessary. Once we succeed, the lizard’s reinforcements, supplies, and ultimately their morale will deteriorate. We will turn the tides of this war, AWHOO?”

  All of the soldiers present echoed the war cry, “AWHOO!” including Rafian, who screamed it out enthusiastically. Hellgate spoke more on the specifics of the mission and the divisions that would carry it out. Rafian hoped that he would be allowed to fly with Hellgate’s Nighthawks, but he was chosen for recon instead.

  He, Val and several marines were hustled aboard a Shadow Raven en route to the moon of Meruda. They were to march under deadly fire upon the gates of Arisani and hold it for their comrades. He felt a knot in his stomach but he tried not to think about it. His eyes found those of another marine and he realized that they were all young soldiers, hungry to prove themselves.

  He was made to don a full suit of armor with blast helmet and trek boots, and without thinking, he kept the 3B suit on and placed the armor over it. The company he was in was nicknamed the 12th, since eleven had gone before them on similar missions. He counted thirty soldiers in his unit, and they all seemed to know one another.

  “Time to cash in that death sentence we all signed up for, eh, boys?” a freckled, red-headed marine shouted as the men and women strapped themselves into their cryogenic chambers in preparation for the FTL jump. He was met with laughter and a few similar jokes, but the mood was forlorn, and Rafian hated the way it all felt.

  The glass doors shut around each one of them, encasing them within individual egg-shaped pods. A cold, thick, white mist coalesced about them, placing them into stasis, which would allow them to survive faster-than-light travel. The enormous Shadow Raven lifted up out of Missio-tral’s dock and flew for a time before jumping to Meruda.

  When they were stabilized and close enough to the moon, the pods opened up and the soldiers were allowed to mobilize. Rafian realized that one of his hands had not been thawed and panicked at the sight of his paralyzed fingers and the grim claw they formed.

  “One second, Lieutenant!” a pretty, young corporal announced as she rushed over. She shoved a six-inch needle into his arm and it began to thaw instantly. Rafian thanked her and got down on the deck to do hi
s ritual of push-ups and sit-ups. All of the marines had their post-cryo rituals, and as the ship moved to break orbit, they all found the deployment bench behind the pilot’s cockpit and strapped themselves in.

  The moon of Meruda had gravity close to what the soldiers would consider normal but it had an unfriendly atmosphere, making it a mandatory helmet-and-suit affair for oxygen breathers. Rafian thought it was pretty brazen of them to attempt a hostile takeover of a moon that circled the enemy’s planet, but he was excited for the mission and was convinced that there was no other place he’d rather be.

  The ship flew near the surface, and then the countdown started. By the time it had reached thirty seconds, something crashed into the side of the ship, and the Night Raven no longer had the desire to stay airborne.

  They were falling fast, and the pilot did his best to level her to the ground as Rafian and the others took emergency measures and waited for the collision. They came down hard and the impact killed the pilot instantly. There was gunfire everywhere as the sounds of the war became real to them, and as a unit, they exited the back hatch of the downed vessel and primed their weapons for attack.

  “STAY LOW AND HUG THE CLIFFS!” a man with a captain’s shield on his lapel was yelling back at them as laser fire and kinetic bullets rained down on them from all angles. Rafian saw four soldiers go down from gunshots, and the rest of the company huddled close to one another and ran along the face of a raised crater that provided some cover from the onslaught of bullets.

  Rafian thought the position they were in was simply stupid, but the brave marines pushed through it, returning fire as they could until there were only twenty left, hunkered down in a ravine that kept them safe from the fire and allowed them to catch their breath.

  Meruda was a desert moon, and the sand ranged from white to a graphite gray. Above them, a blazing star kept the surface bright like a spotlight shining down through the inky expanse of space. The sky appeared nightmarish, all red clouds with black splotches, broken only by the bright orange star, which gave the planet a strange crimson tinge.

  “VCA get to a vantage point!” the captain commanded as an out-of-breath Rafian looked over the other marines. It was his cue to take action, and as commanded, he scurried back along the ground on his elbows and knees until he could see a large hill behind the area where the ship had crashed.

  Triggering the cloaking device on his arm, Rafian climbed out of the ravine, and the other marines began lobbing bombs in order to draw the Geralos’ attention off of the invisible sniper who was trying to flank them.

  Rafian made it to the hill with a minute to spare on invisibility, but he could hear the sound of a gun above him at the apex of the dune and knew that a Geralos was already using it for cover. He pulled out his las-sword, happy to finally put it to good use, and began climbing the hill, angling in a way so he couldn’t be seen. He reached the gunman as soon as the cloak wore off and ignited the las-sword to maximum power as he swung it into the shoulder of the Geralos.

  The cut made a sound like fruit hitting a wall. The creature’s torso split into a seared gash of spurting blood as it died silently and unaware. The soldiers below were still firing at the enemy, and Rafian dug himself into the sand beneath the bloody body and commandeered his rifle. His thought was to camouflage himself from the other Geralos soldiers who would look his way for retaliation. He spared no time in picking off the other snipers, dropping five before they realized what had happened.

  The marines rallied, and before long, the ravine was secured. The Geralos who survived retreated to another point, but within two hours, the Vestalian military had set up an outpost at the crash site and were able to check in with their command.

  Rafian wondered how Val had dealt with situations such as this one for as long as he did without dying. It made him respect the hardiness of his friend even more. He sighed in relief but stayed stationary in case any Geralos were dug in and waiting for him to slip. He slowly scanned the battlefield for signs, but nothing was moving. He wanted to get up and run to the rest of the troops but something in the back of his mind told him to stay put.

  “What’s your situation, Lieutenant?” the captain asked, speaking through the comm, and Rafian whispered, “I.H.O.”. It was the code for Instinctual Hold-Out and a soldier’s way of saying, “Trust me, I think something’s up.”

  Rafian did not want to say that he thought a sniper was playing possum because the captain would have answered by commanding his troops to level their perimeter with artillery. A smart sniper would survive the noisy onslaught, and a few more marines would end up dead within the hour. The only answer to a sniper was another sniper, and Rafian hoped he would see the enemy before the enemy spotted him.

  The dead Geralos who lay on top of him was heavy and beginning to stink, and the sand was making an awful noise against his helmet as a steady wind blew from the east. Why was there wind? He began to wonder if something had happened off in the distance, but his concentration snapped back into focus when he saw a dark shape come into view and then duck behind a rock instantly.

  The Geralos was waiting out his cloaking device very much as Rafian would, but had made the mistake of being seen before he reached that rock. Rafian spotted him about 150 yards from the camp and felt a sense of urgency come over him to stop the progress. He had to flush that Geralos out into the open to make his shot because the cloak would allow him to get close to their camp and deploy a bomb or carry out whatever assassination attempt he had been assigned.

  Rafian’s mind was racing for an answer. It normally took five minutes for a cloaking device to recharge, and then it would keep you invisible for another five. He would have to make his kill shot before that Geralos could move, but the large rock he was hiding behind was enough to keep Rafian blind from getting the shot.

  He thought about jumping down and killing him with his sword, but the distance was too great, and while he was pretty fast on his feet, he was not going to make it off of a hill and cover 150 yards in an instant.

  There were two minutes left until the cloak would be active, so Rafian touched his comm and asked the captain for some fire to be leveled at the rock. The request was met almost instantly, and Val Tracker was the one to do it. Val walked out to the center of the camp with a heavy star gun strapped to his waist and planted himself into the ground. The loud rotary motor of the gun began to spin as he laid out kinetic gunfire in waves upon the area of the rock that Rafian had signaled.

  The Geralos ran out from the rear to seek cover, and Rafian put a plasma round in his neck as soon as he popped out. Through the scope, Rafian could see the grenade on the ground where it fell and he shot it, leaving a massive crater in the sandy moon’s surface.

  He hoped that the other Geralos would assume the mission was successful and grant them some respite for a time. Either way, the threat had been removed, and he could finally crawl from beneath the ripe body of the dead sniper to rejoin his fellow marines.

  Memory 08 | Violent Vani

  The fighting was intense on Meruda as the marines moved towards the capital as commissioned by Lady Hellgate. After the rough landing and a brilliant display of command by Captain Relled ZEK, the marines finally got a break. One of the brave men of the 18th had taken out the communications tower at the main forward outpost of Arisani, and that allowed Hellgate’s squadron of Nighthawks to bring air-to-surface warfare on the Geralos.

  Rafian had lost track of time, but it had been three weeks of fighting for him. Fifty-three confirmed kills and one nagging injury from a kinetic shot that grazed his helmet when an enemy sniper found his position. The shot rattled his head a bit, and he found himself getting on-and-off headaches. The soldiers were all brave, and while a few of them could use a bit of charm school, he could not ask for a better team to watch his back in a time of aggression.

  The squad had come up to a small lake on the outskirts of Copl, a city a few miles outside of Arisani. The Nighthawks had done a number on the buildi
ngs, but there were still snipers and hardcore infantrymen dug in deep.

  The marines were asked to take the building and secure it for high command to use as a final stage for the takeover of the main city. The soldiers took to the water and began wading in on the city as the starry sky lent enough illumination to give the situation an eerie ambience. They had barely made it halfway across when gunfire started ripping into the water around them like raindrops.

  A few men took shots, and the medics rushed them into stasis suits to pull them out of the water and onto the near shore. Rafian swam behind a rock and ducked for cover along with some of the other men. It was impossible to see where the shots were coming from, as the ruined building walls remained tall and mysterious in the distance, obscuring whatever and whoever was there firing on them.

  Val Tracker took to an area behind what seemed like a downed vessel and began spraying the buildings with his star gun. His return fire slowed the enemy’s barrage enough for his fellow marines to keep pushing forward, and Rafian swam over to his friend and initiated his invisible cloak so that he could observe the enemy without any distractions.

  His night vision revealed numerous shapes moving within the buildings, and he realized that there would be quite a fight if ever they made it to the shore and engaged the attackers. Relled ZEK kept his men moving forward, an energy shield protecting him as he huddled them close and advanced on the shore. Val’s gun barked like a large dog, hitting anyone careless enough to be in its crosshairs, and Rafian stood at his hip, picking off the clueless Geralos who were not under cover.

  The soldiers stormed the beach, and the fight became extra violent. Two men were disintegrated by scrape bombs, and a Nighthawk was shot from midair as it lagged behind its commander on a flyby called in by ZEK.

  When Val and Rafian made it up to where the others were, the wild gunfire from the Geralos had gone silent, and the only shots were some unfortunate marines being picked off by their snipers. The open gunfire barrage to keep them from crossing had now become guerilla warfare. The moon’s rotation was relatively fast and gave them eight-hour days of scorching, hot light. But it was dusk when they were commanded to take the shore, and they all knew it was to give command the luxury of arriving during the day to take the reins and move on Arisani.

  “Raf, come with me,” Val whispered, and he retracted and shouldered his heavy weapon before pulling out his sidearm.

  “Just us?”

  “Just us. Captain wants us to play recon.”

  Rafian shouldered his sniper rifle and then moved the las-sword to position it on his hip. They stayed low and moved silently around to the side of the city in hopes of gaining entrance to the west. Captain ZEK had a few mechanical cannons assembled and fitted near the entrance to provide covering fire as the pair of soldiers moved to get around the wall.

  Val was not as fast as Rafian, but he stayed at his back with his eyes aware. When they arrived at a busted-out hole in the wall at the west of the city, a Geralos soldier popped out with his gun drawn, only to have his hands cut off and then his head by the rhythmic humming of Rafian’s las-sword moving like lightning in the night.

  “Nice weapon you got there!” Val whispered with a smile.

  Rafian replied, “This is their technology. If we come across another one, it’s yours.”

  Val nodded in approval.

  They took out three more men before making the ascent to the mayoral building and Rafian radioed Captain ZEK to begin the approach. Val and Rafian reached the balcony of the large mayoral building, which was a mixture of Vestalian and Geralese architecture.

  Val sat with his back to the south-facing wall, pistol drawn and eyes and ears ready. Rafian was cloaked and had his rifle on a tripod as he lay prone on the thin wall of the balcony, looking south towards his incoming squad. Every Geralos who tried to engage ZEK and company was shot from the rear by Rafian and Val.

  “These guys must really be in a panic,” he whispered to Val. “This is basic-level stuff, bro. You gotta watch your flank.”

  He was wondering at the general ease with which they had taken the city, but he was right about the panic, as the lizards mostly retreated to the main city to make their last stand against the invaders. Along with Rafian’s crew and the pilots of the Nighthawk, Colonel Rend had coordinated eight drops around the city at various positions. His thought was to move the eight squadrons into the center simultaneously and disallow the Geralos any chance of reinforcements or escape.

  Rellos ZEK took to the stairs and walked up with two other marines, Connor YEM and Vestalia LAU. The soldiers greeted Rafian and Val and then focused on the door to what would’ve been the mayor’s room. ZEK used hand gestures to let them know that the other soldiers were scraping the city and that he intended to take the room cautiously. The five marines pulled out their handguns and then stood to either side of the door as Connor rigged a short to its mechanical faceplate and waited for ZEK’s signal.

  The captain nodded once, and the door flew open, then Val threw in a flash grenade and Rafian and Vestalia rushed in with pistols at the ready.

  There were four occupants in the room reeling back from the grenade’s light. Rafian shot one in the face and slid to the ground as another began firing recklessly in their direction. Vestalia caught the worst of it as three bullets hit her in the torso, and she screamed in pain, trying desperately to cover the holes in her suit.

  ZEK was inside as soon as Vestalia went down, and his shotgun plastered the remaining three Geralos against the wall in an instant. Connor mounted Vestalia to tape her suit where she had been shot; the atmosphere of the moon was full of things that didn’t do well with human flesh, and while the bullets were doing enough damage to her body, the parasites and toxins would kill her if they were permitted too much time with exposure.

  Connor and Val hoisted the girl up on the table and brought out a stasis suit to freeze her vitals until they were able to bring her home and patch her up properly. Rafian held her hand as they did their work, and through her mask he could see the strength in her eyes as she squeezed his hand tight until the stasis had frozen her solid.

  “Tough bird, that one,” Connor said to no one in particular. “In a way, her name fits her perfectly.”

  Connor was always poetic, and Rafian nodded at ZEK, who looked as if he was shouldering the guilt for what had just happened to Vestalia. Rafian placed his hand on his captain’s shoulders to reassure him and spoke freely, disregarding protocol.

  “First-rate shooting there, Cap,” he said to the man whom he had grown to respect over the course of their stay on Meruda.

  “Right back at you, son. Hell of a head shot on that entrance.”

  “Best place to put it, sir,” Rafian replied, and they both nodded in unison, allowing the credit to settle in to calm the adrenaline that had reached a boiling point during the firefight.

  The star’s light was beginning to come up over the city of Copl, and the soldiers secured its perimeter and set up camp. The lucky ones who were allowed to sleep bunked themselves into old Geralese homes and slept.

  Rafian thought of Vestalia’s pretty face looking up at him with so much courage after she had been wounded, and his mind drifted to Vani and how he would feel if that were to ever happen to her. It bothered him that he felt nothing, but he blamed this on his training. He loved Vani and planned to marry her as soon as they were given the go-ahead by command, but he wondered if he still loved her the way he did when they were kids.

  Just another stupid city and a couple of smart moves before I can go home to those lips, he thought, and then he smiled at the thought despite himself. He allowed his mind to wander off into the pleasures of actually bathing and eating solid foods. He had been living like a dirty worm since they dropped on Meruda, and there had been no pause to allow them to set up a proper camp that would let them remove their suits and clean their unmentionables.

  Just one more mission, he thought. One more mission, and I can go h
ome to her.

  Val came over to where Rafian sat deep in thought and plopped down across from him. “Let me guess, marine. You’re probably thinking of that pretty girlfriend of yours.”

  Rafian had to smile at the accusation. “Is it that obvious?” he asked, but Val didn’t return the smile as Rafian assumed he would.

  “Well, I know you weren’t thinking of her while fighting these things, but check your thoughts when you do. The lizards have consumed enough pureblood Vestalian women that some have the ability to read us and put thoughts into our heads. It happened to me once when I sat on my gun thinking of Chelle, and some recon spucha bastard gave me visions of her being tortured and killed. I wondered where the hell that level of thought came from. I thought it was the war, y’know, screwing with me.”

  Rafian was intrigued and horrified at the same time. “So these guys have us outmanned and outgunned, and they can put thoughts into our heads now?” he asked Val, but not in a way that Val could answer. “How exactly are we even winning on this moon with those odds?” Rafian mused.

  Val gave a mocking laugh, injected a ration supplement into his mask, and then sat back chewing for a while, as if the question was worth considering.

  “Who knows, Raf. Maybe they’re letting us win for some greater strategy. But remember what I told you, in case you’re ever alone with one of them. You should keep Vani and her memory off of the battlefield.”

  Rafian nodded and thanked his friend. Val then went on to make fun of him for having a thing for bad girls, a joke that apparently had made its rounds to Missio-tral from all the friends who knew him.

  “Vani’s not a bad girl, Val. What has she done to anyone besides be annoying?”

  Val looked genuinely surprised. “What? Do you not know why they made her a button-pushing navigator instead of leaving her on the admiral path she was pursuing?”

  Rafian shook his head, sadly awaiting what he assumed would be disappointing news.

  “Well, your woman punched out the cadet commander after they had words one night, and the woman was carted out to receive multiple zaps to her face to keep her pretty. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about this. Look at you, thinking that you had a gentle wildflower all this time. It got bad, man. You must’ve been on a mission or something, but princess had to call mommy and daddy to bail her out, as the commander was a step away from shooting her out of an airlock for assaulting an officer. Her parents are powerful people so she got away with it, but you need to watch your back with Vani Narcila. That girl has a temper on her!”

  Rafian chuckled. “She didn’t tell me about any of this when I came back with Aurora.”

  “See? You and bad girls, man! First with Kim, and now with Violent Vani. Hell, if you and Vani don’t work out, you can holler at Rueche SYN, the girl who tried to blow up the ship after she failed out of Special Operations.”

  Rafian looked at Val and smiled. “What about Vestalia? Is she a bad girl?” he asked, still thinking of her pretty face grimacing from the stasis.

  Val got serious and made to get to his feet as he answered. “You’re not her type, Raf, trust me. Vani would get her before you would. Either way, I’m gonna go take advantage of this chance to sleep, buddy. If I were you, I would do the same.”

  Memory 09 | Arisani

  The hot steam of the pressurized cleaning chamber felt good on Rafian’s skin as he scrubbed the grime that had accumulated on his body all those days he was in uniform. He had forgotten to remove the skin-tight 3B suit when they had forced him to put on his armor, and it was actually painful to remove.

  Something had changed with his body, and he couldn’t tell if he had been shot unknowingly or if it was purely mental trauma from everything that had occurred up until now. He couldn’t tell how long he had been in thought when he collapsed, but the people who were waiting in line to use the chamber saw it happen, and he was rushed to a building that the field medics had converted into something of a makeshift hospital to treat all of the wounded marines.

  When Rafian opened his eyes, he was strapped to a desk with wires running from nodes attached to areas of his naked body. He felt vulnerable and wondered why they hadn’t bothered to give him some underwear before tying him down to the cold, hard desk to work on him.

  “Am I all right?” he asked the doctor, who was an older man he had never seen before. Rafian thought he was odd looking, because the military ships had nobody that looked like him. He was neither muscular nor military looking in the least, and his pallid face had the scars of someone who had come face to face with a grenade.

  “How long have I been in stasis?” Rafian asked, but the man was ignoring him, typing away at a panel and looking over notes the entire time.

  “You’ve been here a week,” he finally replied, and then shifted his attention to another machine. “How long were you in that 3B suit?” the doctor asked Rafian as he checked the computer rapidly, paging through the vitals on the screen.

  “A little over a month, I think.” He felt as if he had run a marathon, because his breathing seemed to get increasingly harder.

  “Son, have they sat you soldiers down and explained to you what the 3B suit is and why you should use it sparingly?”

  “Sure they have, doc, but that was a long time ago for me. We have always worn these suits—hell, for a time, they were a fashion statement on the base.” He smiled at the memory.

  “Lieutenant, the 3B suit is a deep-space Zyrotech experiment that got pushed ahead way before it should have. It was due to the war that we went ahead and bypassed protocol to allow it, but this was contingent on the user knowing and understanding the risks. When you put on your marine armor, the suit should have been removed first.

  “The suit is an alien technology that adapts to your environment and to the needs of the life-form wearing it. What has happened to you is, your body has adapted to the suit and vice versa. So when you took it off, your vitals panicked, and they are now trying to fix whatever it is that they assume is missing, even though you technically are healthy.”

  The doctor’s lecture was the last thing Rafian wanted to hear, as he had welcomed the thought of finishing the entire mission whole. He asked if he could just wear the suit temporarily to rejoin his comrades, but the doctor wasn’t hearing it. He sedated Rafian in order to prevent him from leaving and then began working on fixing the damage the 3B suit had done.

  It took another week before Rafian was released and able to move around on his own without issues. He found out that the legendary Lady Hellgate had gotten killed and this made him sink into depression. He asked if she was flying when it happened but was told that it was at her camp that the war maiden had met her demise.

  Of all the bad news throughout the war, this was the one that finally got to Rafian. Colonel Rend was now using “Lady Hellgate” as the mission codename for taking Arisani, and he came to the camp to give Relled ZEK the objectives before leaving with three of his soldiers.

  “I should have been there,” Rafian muttered under his breath as a young girl by the name of Levoria DRE told him everything he had missed while in recovery.

  “So how do you feel, Lieutenant?” Levoria asked. She was only fifteen and was on the mission because her teacher, Wei Venthai, died from a bullet upon deployment. Levoria was very knowledgeable about the geography of Meruda, so they’d sent for her immediately to aid in the affairs of the takeover.

  “Remember, you’re to stay here until you’re summoned,” she reminded him, as if to squelch any hope he may have had of being allowed to grab his gear and run after the troops. It wasn’t as if he could, since his 3B suit was now worthless and had been sent back to Missio-tral for salvage.

  He remained quiet, thinking of Lady Hellgate and how he had been robbed of the chance to meet her personally. They were so close to finishing their mission and he had planned to see her when it was time to return to Missio-Tral.

  Levoria, taking his silence for arrogance, shook her head and retrieved
a scan pad. “We’re due for a storm any day now,” she said quietly, sitting with her legs crossed, her fingers poking and sliding rapidly on the surface of the pad.

  “Sounds about right,” Rafian responded, sounding defeated. “I’m gonna take a jog and do some exercise if I may have my leave?”

  “You can go, Raf, but I need your word as a Starfighter that you will not do something stupid like travel to Arisani city.”

  “Don’t worry about that, I’m not going anywhere,” Rafian said as he saluted and exited the building.

  There were many injured warriors in the city and Rafian saw this as he jogged between the buildings, trying to shake the sadness of Lady Hellgate. He saw many other restless marines playing games, priming weapons, and wrestling one another.

  He even came across a couple of older women pretending to tan themselves under the Merudian star. Of course it was a joke, being that a skin-colored texture on a 3B suit fitted with a mask was truly nothing like the half-naked women on Vestalian beaches. The whole spectacle reminded him of the pathetic facade that was a soldier’s vacation. He recalled how they denied him leave after rescuing Aurora and how cynical it had made him.

  After eight miles of rotations around the hospital-city-camp and a few brief moments when he ran into familiar faces, Rafian retired to a house that had been gutted and took a much-needed nap.

  A day later, Rafian got the news that Colonel Rend had taken the city. He also heard that Val Tracker was with him, and that made him proud and happy for his friend. It was all bittersweet because he wanted to be there. But he was happy for the memories that stayed with him of picking off all the Geralos with his rifle.

  What he wouldn’t have done to see the look on those lizards’ faces when Vestalian black uniforms emerged from every point on the compass, laying down deadly fire in their direction. He imagined it was glorious, and Rend had undoubtedly delivered one of his famous speeches. But Val had experienced it and that was good enough for him.

  He was sitting at a table eating by himself with his mask off. The disappointment he felt over the suit situation was slowly eating him alive. This tour was his opportunity to finally take it to the Geralos after years of training. It was his first real mission, and what was he doing? Rotting away at a table, eating hard rations mask-less, a luxury afforded only to those lucky enough to be in their camp, with the Phalene pipes providing a safe atmosphere.

  “You’re lucky to be alive!” Levoria had reminded him. She watched over him like his personal guard, and he was trying to figure out whether she had been hired for this duty or as an excuse to get her out of the fighting. Levoria DRE was more civilian than soldier, as her primary study had been maps, civilizations, and weather since her tenth birthday. Though she was very introverted and odd at times, he appreciated her company and the fact that she meant him well.

  Vani, on the other hand, was extremely worried about Rafian, and he was only allowed to speak to her once every other day for a short period of time. Their communication was normally short but he knew he was lucky to be allowed even that. For all the disappointment he felt about missing the final phase of the war, he was extremely lonely and wanted to see her soon.

  A few days after the taking of Arisani, vessels began landing on the moon to replace troops. A Veralyn medical cruiser was also there to take the wounded back to their respective ships for treatment. Rafian was taken to the Helysian, where he was presented with a Platina panther’s skull for bravery in reconnaissance affairs.

  It was an extremely high honor, and it was accompanied by a letter written by Lady Hellgate herself. She had learned of his suit incident and hurriedly typed and sent in recommendations for him to receive the skull. The letter was on rare Louinian clover paper and the ink was laced with stardust—very expensive. It was the written words, however, that held the true value of the award for Rafian, because it was a personal letter to him from his hero. The letter read:

  Lieutenant Rafian VCA, though we never met formally, I have followed your rise on the vessel Helysian and want to say that I admire your spirit. It is men like you who will win this war for us, and if the fates allow you to live past this night, I hope to fly wing to wing with you on the take back of Vestalia. Get well, soldier, and keep your head above water and your finger firmly ready to squeeze. For we are going to free Vestalia, or we will die trying.

  — Lt. Col. Helga ATE

  The letter forced tears from Rafian’s painfully dry eyes, but he was still in his mask and suit, so he let them flow freely in the Vestalian custom of opening one’s heart to the dead. “I will always fly wing to wing with you, Hellgate,” he muttered quietly under his breath, and removed his helmet so that he could wipe his tears.

  Vani was in their apartment waiting for him when he finally arrived. She ran to the door, and as she embraced him tightly, her chin dug painfully into his shoulder. The mission had taken a toll on him and he was beyond fatigued.

  After a while, Aurora SYN came by and he didn’t mind telling her the story of his week of boredom in the city of Copl—since everything else about his adventure was classified.

  “I can’t believe we took Arisani!” Aurora exclaimed after he had finished talking.

  Vani was next to her, beaming with a similar excitement. “Do you know what this means, Rafi?” Vani asked as she clasped his hand inside hers. The trio was on the bed, and Rafian was reclined, looking up at the ceiling as they spoke. Vani had her legs across his torso with her back against the wall, and Aurora lay next to him with her right hand serving as a brace for her head.

  “Well, I assume it means that sooner rather than later, General ARA will be making a push for Vestalia,” he said. “Does it matter? All we did was take a tiny moon. The Geralos are everywhere and we’re so small; if they can kill Hellgate, they can kill anybody.”

  “Why must you be so negative about it?” Vani pouted, and Aurora laughed at her the way she always did whenever she would make a funny face.

  “I swear, Vani, you could be a holo-actress. You’re as pretty as those girls, and you have loads more personality!” Aurora declared.

  Vani, who always liked to be reminded of how beautiful and talented she was, ate it up with a smile. A friendship seemed to have developed between the two girls in his absence, and he noticed it almost instantly when Aurora came in and Vani regarded her in a familial way.

  Rafian was right about the command to take Vestalia, but that effort would come along only after the planet of Geral was given the same treatment that their home world had suffered. General ARA was a man with a hardwired code for revenge against those who had slighted him. As such, it would only be a short time before the war on Geral was underway.

  That night Rafian slept like a rock. It was the first real sleep he’d had in months, and he dreamed of Vestalia the way it had been described to him before the Geralese invasion. He dreamed of walking her busy streets hand in hand with Vani, breathing air that was natural to their planet and not manufactured from a machine made to sustain human life.

  He wasn’t sure how long he was out, but it didn’t matter with a dream like this occupying his time. When he awoke, he was no longer in a Vestalian city but in a tiny military apartment, on a lumpy, metal-based bed with a beautiful young woman nestled in his arms, sleeping soundly, as if there were not a worry in the universe as long as he was there.

  “We are going to free Vestalia, or we are going to die trying,” he muttered, and as he watched Vani sleep, he realized that for the first time, he actually believed it.

  Memory 10 | Fall Out

  At eighteen years of age, Rafian VCA had twenty-three missions under his belt, over 240 certified kills via dogfights, and his face on a plaque in the Hall of Honor aboard the Helysian. He had done drops on Geral, recon in the seventh quadrant of Finian space, and helped retake Arisani when she was assaulted by Geralese Special Forces.

  He had a sixth sense for danger and an eye for strategy that went beyond his years. Many offic
ers from other ships began to seek him out for counsel, and his name had become somewhat of a legend within the ranks of the Vestalian military.

  Vani, who had taken Aurora’s praise seriously, began acting in small holo movies during her off-hours. It made her stressed out and tired all of the time, and she and Rafian would argue constantly because of it. Eventually, Rafian grew tired of the torrid situation between them, and when clearance came down from the commander for him to marry, he locked it away in his bunk safe and never told her he had received it.

  After a while, he began sleeping in his ship or in the bunk beds of the barracks just to stay away from her. Vani was one of the sweetest girls he knew when she was happy, but it was her bad times that became unbearable, and he came to the silent conclusion that they had gone as far on their journey as they could.

  To clear his mind—and also as therapy after missions—Rafian began a routine of scouring, shining, and running maintenance on his ship, the H1G8. It was a ritual that would take literally hours, and once it was completed he would go home to Vani, kiss her goodnight, and crash on the floor from exhaustion.

  The tension between them was going on the second month, and she was beginning to realize that he wasn’t going to be the one to apologize and make up this time. One day after he had spent time on his ship, she confronted him, but he coolly told her that she no longer made him happy.

  “Am I that terrible that you can’t come home?” she asked with as much effort as she could to mask the hurt and anger in her voice. But he was not swayed by it in the least and stated most affirmatively, “Yes, Vee, it’s bad. All you ever want to do is complain and make me feel bad for my career.”

  Vani kept her mouth shut and nodded in agreement, then began to cry loudly. Unable to help himself, Rafian embraced her, and she sobbed into his shoulder for what felt like days. “I think we need to take some time off from each other, Vee. Just for a while, till the air clears a bit.”

  Vani loosened her grip a bit on him but kept her face on his chest when she agreed to their separation. She hadn’t said anything to him, but she had become extremely edgy after hearing the way the other women were talking about him. He had grown to be a handsome, muscular young man, and his name carried more weight than he could have ever imagined.

  Vani was even more beautiful, enhanced by the pressure of the holo-vid industry. However, being beautiful was not enough to slow her jealousy, and her spicy tongue was no longer considered cute by her peers. She had become angry and nasty in their eyes, and Rafian received the worst of it as she punished him verbally for every pretty eye that batted itself at him from a distance.

  But women were the last thing on Rafian’s mind as he became more and more obsessed with Vestalia and the opportunity to one day bring the war to the Geralese invaders. Women were looking, but the young captain was always busy, poring over info pads and holo recordings or seeking the counsel of older men.

  Once in a while he would run into Kim, but after largely forgiving her for the past, he paid even less attention to her than before. For a time it was like this, and the lack of Vani on his arm made its rounds, and soon it was assumed that the young captain was single. Unfortunately for Rafian, the news of his temporary split with Vani reached the ears of those who had a personal interest in seeing them married, and he was summoned before the Minister of Military Affairs.

  “Take a seat, young Rafian,” the minister commanded as soon as Rafian entered her office. It was a very interesting layout, this office of hers, as there were no angles like the apartments and offices of all the other military personnel onboard.

  Rafian felt as though he had walked into a room that wasn’t onboard the ship. Even the minister was very different from the other crewmembers on the Helysian. She wore flowing robes with little lights sparkling along its length, and a matching headdress that held a half-circle symbol at the top.

  Rafian sat in the chair that faced the desk and crossed his legs in anticipation of trouble. The minister walked past him, and her hand caressed his shoulder ever so gently, so as to let him know that she was friendly. She was a Meluvian woman, and her smooth olive complexion was broken only by the trademark freckles that Meluvians had around their eyes and nose area.

  She had straight white teeth, light-gray pupils (another Meluvian trait), and dark-green hair. By human standards, she was beautiful, and it made Rafian a bit uncomfortable knowing that his answers would probably be influenced by the fact that he wanted this woman as much as he did.

  Meluvians were always used for interrogation and positions of judgment, due to the effect their aura had on others. A Meluvian prostitute would always be the busiest and best paid, and a Meluvian lawyer would be the one at trial to fear.

  “Do you love Vani Narcila, Captain?” the minister asked as she walked to the front of her desk and leaned back against it.

  The first thought in Rafian’s mind was that she was standing a bit too close to him for comfort, as he noticed that he could almost see past her robes. He snapped to attention, not allowing his eyes to wander, knowing she would notice immediately. He concentrated his gaze at a painting of the Meluvian landscape that rested above her desk in an alcove of the smooth, rounded wall.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do,” he said.

  “You can call me Suwle,” she said softly. “Your commander is worried about your relationship. You were given clearance to marry and he likes for his officers to be married. Many are saying—”

  “I am not planning on marrying Vani Narcila anytime soon, Suwle, or anyone else, for that matter. I have found that love creates more stress than it relieves.”

  “Young girls can be a handful when you are with the wrong one,” Suwle said after a short pause. “I urge you to figure it out, make it work. I’ll put a note to the commander that you’re testing the buffet. He was a young man once; he should understand. I do warn you that this will give you a bit of a reputation, but it will keep him out of your business when it comes to relationships.”

  Rafian thanked her several times, and then stood up to kiss her ring, which she graciously allowed as she stared at him curiously. “Someone knows how to flatter a Meluvian. Who taught you that?”

  “I met a few women of Meluvia when I fought for the bridge of Traxis.”

  “So, do you know of any other customs that we Meluvians have?” Suwle probed.

  “I do know quite a few,” Rafian said as he looked up from the kiss, completely unguarded of his intent.