The line broke apart in front of him, as both sections of it turned. The monks ran to the sides. For a brief few seconds, Theo thought the two sections would join again in the middle to smash them like a surging wave. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Makram run around the tip of one line. He chopped into the neck of the monk on the far end. Theo couldn’t understand why he’d done this until it hit him: this monk was one of the ones who barked orders a minute ago. Makram wanted to take out the commander first.
“Run back and to the right!” Cierra shouted at him, drawing him back to the present. Theo ran backwards in the direction of her voice. He followed the sound of it, as Cierra ran.
Seconds later, two of the novice monks broke rank. They ran at them. Both came in at full speed, with their swords high over their heads. Cierra let them approach within a range of three paces, and then ran past the one in front of Theo. She struck out with her infintium blade, and eviscerated her target. Guts spilled and splattered on the ground like wet sausages.
The other one hesitated long enough for Theo to strike with his lasana blade. The sword sliced through him effortlessly, from top to bottom. Theo jumped back, as the novice peeled apart, and slid down to the soil. He was frozen for a moment, looking at the damage he had done.
“Damn! I wondered what that thing would do to a human target.” Cierra murmured in awe, but they were in battle, and it was not the time to appreciate such things. “Come on. Let’s get over to the right. Cherish needs our help.”
Cherish tried to avoid being surrounded by ten Yasta monks. She’d already sliced up another eight or more, but the Yasta monks still had one seasoned commander left. He knew her weakness was in a complete encirclement. She jumped back, almost struck down by a blade from behind. Cherish launched herself forward, but the rest of the monks had formed the circle. She faced a noose of infintium blades that continued to tighten around her. She lifted her chin high. If she had to go out by a Yasta blade, she would do it with dignity.
“Hey!” Cierra shouted at the nearest monk, who turned around in time to see her blade swipe downward. It connected with his neck. She attacked the one to his left, and then went to work opening up the encirclement.
Now, Theo knew what he needed to do. He struck down a monk to the right, and caught him off guard. The lasana blade seared right through him in one stroke. The next one raised his blade. He tried to engage Theo, but his lasana broke the man’s sword in half. The power from Theo’s swing continued on to cleave through the monk’s skull. A third monk charged, his sword raised in the air. Theo split this blade in half, too, with a swing to the left. Deftly changing direction, he did the same to the man who had wielded it. Both halves of the enemy hit the dirt with a sound like a dropped sack of potatoes.
Theo felt himself beyond the constraints of humanity. He tore apart one monk after another, each with one sweep of the sword. Blood flew as they fell around him, as trees did back on his home world during harvest time. Theo’s entire person was becoming coated with the red fluid that had, seconds earlier, pumped life through the veins of others, but he was oblivious. “This is for Mari! And for my children! And this is for Relisse! Die, scumbags! Die!” He continued to wield the sword in a haze of blind rage.
Suddenly, there were no more monks to kill. Theo stopped and turned around. In the distance, stood the figures of Cherish, Cierra and Makram. None of them said a word. Theo lowered the dripping blade, and stared back at the trio.
Theo suddenly saw himself from the outside, as a devil incarnate, covered in blood and gore. His jaw was still set as he burned within. His chest heaved with every thundering pulse of his heart.
“You can stop now, Theo,” Cierra told him, quietly. She never took her eyes off him. “They’re all dead.”
Theo placed the sword on the ground, and sat down on the cool soil. He looked up at the sky, as the setting star turned it red. Blood red.
Gradually, Theo’s rage subsided. A new peace began to dawn within him. It was something that he had never felt before. Not since Mari and the rest of his family had perished on Relisse. Theo wondered if he was, in fact, a new species of human. There were legends from before humanity moved to the stars about a race of immortal beings who gave life to humanity from clay with blood. He’d encountered those tales years ago, but they didn’t have much to do with his previous life as a farmer. Now, it all had a meaning, that stirred within him.
“I don’t think he’ll move until we get back.” Cherish’s voice was distant. “Give me a few minutes to check the main compound for any survivors. From the way they launched that final attack, I think they threw all they had at us.” Theo heard her move away, but he was too drained to look.
Makram whispered an order to Cierra. “I’ll check the gatehouse and ramparts. You take a walk around the fields and inner building. Yell if you see anything. We should meet back here in five minutes.”
Later, still sitting on the battlefield, Theo felt the presence of someone else near him. His first thought was to grab the lasana sword, until he heard Cierra’s breathing. Theo, who sat cross-legged on the ground, returned to his deep meditative state. He didn’t move. All he wanted to do was stare at the pattern of dried blood on the ground. It was amazing how the blood changed color so quickly. The same thing happened to slaughtered cattle. Perhaps humans and cattle weren’t that different after all...
“Theo,” he heard Cierra speak to him. “There are no more monks in this monastery. We’ve checked everywhere. We have to leave, and return to the base. Hubard was in touch with us. He had a quick look through a special link to the data sphere. He’s excited about what’s inside it. We have to leave in three minutes. All hell’s broken loose on the local military channels. There are several militia units on their way in our direction. Theo, we have to leave. Do you understand me?”
Theo blinked his eyes, and looked up at Cierra. She was very beautiful. Why hadn’t he ever noticed her before? Of course, once he committed to Mari, other women didn’t even enter to his mind. Not really. Plus, she was his brother’s wife. Except for the fact that he didn’t have a brother anymore. “I’m fine, Cierra.” Theo stood, and picked up his sword. He tossed off the Yasta robes. “How many of them did I kill?”
“Fifteen, maybe sixteen. We don’t know how many each of us took out, there were too many. None of us kept a count. Theo, they didn’t know about that lasana sword. You cut through every infintium blade they used. Theo, do you know where you are?” Cierra’s voice was full of quiet concern.
Theo tilted his head, confused by her question, but he answered her anyway. “I’m with you, Makram, and Cherish. We’re about to leave for the base. Do you need me to kill anyone else?”
“No, I don’t, Theo. Please put that blade away. It’s too easy to do serious damage with it.” Her eyes were full of fear and sadness as she looked at him. Theo slid the sword back in its scabbard. “You need to get yourself under control. I watched you finish off those final novice monks. It was a massacre out there. You won’t be so lucky in the future. This place had too many novices in it. The Brother Yasta monks they did have were too old to put up much resistance. Now they’ll know about the new blade.”
Theo let out a high, dissociated chuckle. “How are they going to find out? Who will they interview if everyone is dead?”
“They’ll do a complete analysis on this place, and figure it out. Come on, Theo, we have to go.”
Theo picked up a handful of dirt from the ground and looked at it. It wasn’t much different from what he remembered from his home world. Why hadn’t that occurred to him before? Everything seemed more connected now.
“Theo!” Cierra called to him from the gatehouse. “We have to leave! Cherish and Makram are already on the other side of the wall. I can’t leave you here with that lasana sword.”
Theo sighed and followed her. He was careful to step over the dead bodies on the ground. One or two still twitched. He considered using the lasana sword to end their agony, but Cierra
wanted him to follow her right away. He continued to the gatehouse, and he walked with Cierra through the open gates to the forest.
The trip across the forest was uneventful. By now, Hojae had broken camp, and was at the orbital lift. As they walked, Makram made them hide a few times when attack ships soared over the trees. They bore the emblem of the regional militia.
Soon, they reached the orbital lift. It took a few minutes to enter the passenger compartment and buckle in for a quick take-off. They had a little time to wash the blood away, which was made harder by its having mostly dried into a hard, brown substance.
“Hubard says not to worry.” Makram reassured the others, before plasma jet boosted them into orbit. “They won’t try the same missile attack, because he sent their last one back home.”
Theo was quiet for most of the trip back to the hidden Carbonari training base. Once again, the orbital lift made a connection with a cargo hauler that allowed them to slip onboard. The cargo ship took them back to the unnamed planet where the Carbonari kept their base. It was a few hours before the lift could make planetfall, and discharge the team back onto the surface.
The next day, Theo rose from his bunk in the training barracks. He went out to the roster in front of the practice field. Theo expected Cierra would greet him. His practice sword was balanced on his shoulder. However, when Cierra met him, it wasn’t the greeting he had hoped for.
“There’s an emergency meeting. Hubard wants to make some kind of presentation. He found something on that data sphere we captured that he wants to share with everyone.” She didn’t quite look at him the same way, since the massacre. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Theo followed her down a concrete walkway through some of the native red grass. In the distance, he watched a few flying mammals chase insect prey over a local swamp. The lecture hall entrance was under the symbol of the Carbonari, a pickaxe and shovel arched over a flame. It had something to do with the origins of the Brotherhood, but no one seemed to know, or care, where they first were used. Theo and Cierra walked into the lecture hall and took a seat in the back galleries. The hall was filled to capacity. Theo noted several of the senior brothers on the lower levels.
“Greetings, dear cousins!” Hubard addressed the assembly, using the term for members of the secret organization. “I summoned everyone to this meeting to allow you to see something of great importance. I found it on the data sphere that our team so recently recovered from the Yasta monastery on Turtiez,” Hubard reached down and touched a switch on the projector he was standing beside. The space over the assembly was filled with the image of Relisse. Theo tried to turn his face from it. “This is what Relisse looked like until two months ago. At that time, there was a runaway reaction on the surface, which turned it into an inferno. The reaction took place so quickly that very few people escaped. Our information about what happened is limited to the passengers from a cargo ship that we engaged to take some of our people from Carristoux back home. We do know there was a Yasta cruiser spotted leaving the vicinity of Relisse once the disaster began.”
I watched the damn thing flee the scene, Theo thought.
The image turned to that of the planetoid in the hellfire that it became. Theo felt his body shake, as he relived the horror of that day. He was one of the passengers of the cargo ship who’d watched the destruction of Relisse. Cierra, who’d lost her husband during the disaster, placed one hand on Theo’s shoulder. Part of him wanted to shrug her off, but another part of him couldn’t bear to.
Hubard continued his speech. “Because of an imperial edict, it’s been impossible to get close enough to Relisse to observe its current state. The emperor declared a no-fly zone around the planetoid. Any ship approaching it is fired upon. However, the data sphere recovered from the monastery on Turtiez has a survey of Relisse’s current state. Now, observe when I bring up some enhanced images of the surface.” A close-up of Relisse showed a shiny, black surface that struck Theo as a very familiar one. He couldn’t recall where he’d seen it before.
Cierra’s hushed whisper sounded close to his ear. “It can’t be…”
“The entire surface of Relisse was converted to high-grade Relissarium. If the report is correct, this means the process was used to turn the surface of Relisse into a source of the mineral which we captured from Carristoux. We know about its ability to absorb energy. It's very effective as a blade. Consider, if you will, what the empire can accomplish with an almost unlimited supply of this substance. Furthermore, I propose this was the whole reason for the incident, to create a massive source of Relissarium.” He let the meaning of his words sink into the assembly.
“That was pretty hideous.” Theo confided in Cierra after the lecture was over. “Hard to believe the empire would do such a thing to an entire world that never did anything disloyal.”
“People can find all matter of reasons to justify their actions, if it means they’ll maintain power. I’m sure the emperor had something to do with what happened on Relisse. I’m also sure he loses no sleep over it.”
“This is disgusting. We have to stop him, no matter what the cost.”
“It gets better," Cierra whispered to him. “Hubard didn’t talk about everything he found on that sphere. There’s something else he held back. You need to know about it.”
“What might that be?” Theo stopped walking, and looked at her with intensity.
“Remember that smuggler Garth? The one who tried to two-time us?”
“Of course, how could I forget?”
“He’s really a Brother Yasta agent named Karl.” She looked at him and let the significance of the revelation sink into Theo’s mind.
“How did he find out about it? It was all on the sphere?”
“It was buried somewhere deep inside the files. Hubard found it when he unlocked the survey data.”
Theo stopped, and looked up at the yellow light of the star they orbited. He felt the deep, burning fire of a warrior rising up within him. The shape of his new life was now coalescing. He knew what he had to do.
The Adventure Continues…
If you liked Blood Red, you’ll love part three, Strike Force Retaliation.
Theo is going back to his home planet, for the first time since its surface became a blackened cinder.
A strange mineral named Relissarium, having the properties of almost infinite strength, has been discovered there. Whichever side can weaponize it first will dominate the other. The Yasta are already mining it, and the Carbonari must stop them. They are dropped onto Relisse, to blow up the mine. But, why is Karl, the double-crossing traitor, already waiting for them? And even if Theo and the team escape the ambush alive, can they stop the Yasta from obtaining vast quantities of Relissarium?
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Blood Red: The Relissarium Wars Space Opera Series, Book 2 Page 7