Backlash Rising

by Brandon Ellis

  She shook her head again. “No. I have an escape vehicle ready in here.”

  Zim squeezed his fingers into a fist, his knuckles going white. “If we go out there in the open, we're dead.”

  “No, you’ll be dead.” She closed her eyes, her lips moving, but no words came out. She opened them as if she had just calculated the perfect plan. Her eyes set, and her muscles tightened like a warrior ready to pounce. “Stay here and I'll be back.”

  Zim took a quick peek around the pillar. “What? Where are you going?” He quickly pulled his head back.

  Several whir sounds from her plasma gun blared through the garage, followed by grunts and a few gasps. Someone gurgled as if choking on their own blood. He stole another glance.

  Sabra crouched in front of a hovercar, her gun in hand. Three dead enemies were lying across from her on the floor, blood pooling on the concrete around them.

  A guy leaped out from behind a nearby car, firing. She moved quickly as if calculating the enemy’s actions. She jumped on the car’s hood. His bullets sparked across the asphalt, and she littered him with several plasma bolts. His arms and legs flailed as he went into the air, landing lifelessly on his back.

  “That's four,” she shouted. “I know there's a fifth.” She hopped off the car and whipped her head around to Zim, her face contorted in terror. She reached her hand out, yelling, “No.” She pointed her weapon at Zim and fired.

  Zim’s heart skipped a beat, and he fell to the ground, getting as low as possible and slipping under her shots.

  “Get behind the pillar,” she yelled.

  A sharp sensation grabbed at Zim’s side and then another at his back. His legs spasmed as if out of his control, and he let out an involuntary scream. He flipped on his back as more agony tore through his body.

  Cold metal touched between his eyes, and one of Payson’s soldiers stood over him, blood seeping out of his neck. Zim turned his head, his eyes blurry, his vision doubled.

  Sabra hurried his way, her eyes set on the man standing over Zim. She pulled the trigger again and again.

  Payson’s soldier took a step back and lost his grip on his gun, letting it fall to the ground, and bounce against Zim’s leg. Sabra reached Zim and placed one more shot into Payson’s soldier. Blood splattered, and he fell through the doorway into the basement she and Zim had come from.

  Sabra fell to her knees, her hand coming down on Zim’s chest, grasping his shirt. “You stupid, stupid man. Get up.”

  Zim shook his head, blood oozing out of his mouth and down his chin. He coughed and cringed as a pain swelled in his stomach. “I…can’t…move.”

  “No, no.” She shook her head, her eyes wide. “We’ll get you patched up.”

  Zim’s energy dimmed, and he gazed out at the parking garage. “I’m good…as dead.” He spat out blood.

  “Not on my watch.” She bent down, picked him up, and threw him over her shoulders.

  “Why do you need me?” begged Zim, wanting to die. The pain consumed him and the blood oozed from his body, making him weaker. He wouldn’t live, no matter what medical magic Sabra and the Space Templars attempted.

  “I won’t fail my brother,” she said, moving toward a hover vehicle. “You are our chance, Zim. Enki needs you for information, to set up Enlil, to prove once and for all to our father that Enlil needs to be cut from all money, from all military, and all ties to the family.”

  Zim tried to laugh. “Good luck…with…that.”

  His body bobbed up and down as Sabra walked, his limbs going numb.

  “On Planet Aurora,” Sabra told him, “they’d tap your brain, gathering memories from you. We’d send your memories to the Nibiru council where my father presides as king. It would be proof, and my father would have to act so his people and his council don’t look down upon him. My father knows what’s going on, but he hides it from the council. Enlil would finally be cut off from future business, from future dealings.”

  Zim grinned. “Dumb plan. Your…father knows…and will…always turn a blind…eye.”

  “You’re not hearing what I’m saying. He wouldn’t be able to anymore.” Sabra opened the door to a large vehicle. She shoved Zim in the back seat where he lay motionless, his vision fading. He stared at the car’s ceiling, wanting to go to sleep.

  Sabra sat in the front and reached back, slapping his face. “Stay with me.”

  “Yeah.” He slowly closed his eyes and let out a breath, wanting to go to sleep forever.

  Another slap, this time harder. “Don’t do that.”

  His eyes opened wide, his heart somehow beating faster.

  She touched her wrist band. “Status report.”

  “Just a moment,” a woman said over the wrist band. “Payson and his team have left the building.”

  “How many down?”

  “One of our Templars, and seven of his elite.”

  “Make it twelve. I took out five down here. How many does that leave Payson?”

  “Fourteen.”

  Sabra glanced around the parking lot. “Where is Naveya?”

  “We don’t know. She had the antidote. She couldn’t get it to her target, Devon, so she left it with us. We’re getting it coded into the Suficell Pods, just in case.”

  “Do we have eyes on Payson?” She started the hover vehicle, and Zim felt it lift off the ground. He turned his head toward her and reached out, mumbling something he couldn’t understand himself.

  She looked back at him as the woman on her wrist band comm replied, “No, ma’am. We think he’s heading for Sphere One.”

  “The toxin.” Sabra gently slapped Zim a few more times. “You never let it out of the airlocks, did you?”

  Zim forced a grin, though his face did its best not to cooperate, his muscles numb, and his body weak. “I tricked…you.”

  Sabra palmed her forehead. “I missed a step.” She sighed and tapped her wrist band. “Operator.”

  “Yes.”

  “Payson knows the toxin’s location. Zim never ejected the toxin into space. Set everyone’s new path to Sphere One. We cut him off. Out.” Sabra pressed the accelerator, heading up a ramp and out of the parking lot, the streets empty of cars. Zim vibrated on the back seat, his vision narrowing as his eyelids became heavy. She turned a hard right, bringing the car to a stop at the side of the road.

  The hovercar descended, and Zim watched her open the window and speak with someone in Space Templar fatigues. “Medic, I need immediate help. Get in and work on Zim.”

  A woman jumped in the passenger seat with a box in her hands. Her hair was disheveled, and her face covered in soot. She pulled out an injection gun and pressed it against Zim’s shoulder. A shock went down his arm and spread across his chest and stomach.

  “That will stop the bleeding,” said the medic.

  Sabra gave a nod, then sped off toward the hovercar tunnels that connected each Sphere. She glanced in her rear-view mirror, her eyes focusing on Zim. “You’ll be fine.” She lifted her gaze, looking beyond him and out the back window. She smiled. “We have several Space Templars in hover vehicles following us. Good.” She winked at Zim. “We’ll get Payson soon enough and get you healed.”

  Zim let out a soft laugh, the best he could force out. He knew he wouldn’t live, and he didn’t want to. He failed his Monarch on so many levels. “I’m…dying,” he muttered.

  The medic nodded, pressing something else he couldn’t see against his chest. “He’s lost too much blood. We’re losing him.”

  Sabra slowed her vehicle and lowered her head. “We can’t save him? Not at all?”

  The medic shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “I…told you.” Zim stiffened and his body went cold. He closed his eyes, unable to keep them open no matter how hard he tried. He lifted his hand, and it fell just as his life left his body, his lungs pushing out his final breath.

  16

  Koda

  Starbase Matrona

  The hovertrain switched tracks,
moving from the hovertrack leading to Sphere Nine to Sphere One.

  Devon snorted. “I can’t believe you asked her on a date for family passes.”

  Devon and Koda sat on the last seats in the back car. Other than them, the car was empty.

  Koda smiled. “Let alone granting us access to a restricted Sphere.” He leaned back, clasping his hands behind his neck. “I have my ways.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “Sometimes.” He glanced out of the window, seeing dozens of skyscrapers whizz by in a blur, something he remembered fondly as a child.

  His father, Shae’s brother, captained a vessel for the Star Guild fleet before his mysterious death. Koda was four years old when his father passed. Shortly after, Koda’s mother became a hovertrain conductor. Many times, he sat on his mother’s lap in the hovertrain driver’s seat, watching the world go by, wondering where his dad went and why he left him. Shae then took over as the father, and did the best he could, visiting Koda often, playing with him, buying him toys, and roughing him up like a father did to toughen their sons.

  He rested his head against the cold window, his mind shifting to the dangers at hand. He was running from Payson and his men while trying to uncover truths. The more crap he found on the Anunnaki, the easier it would be to free his people from those bastard’s chains, but opening the airlocks and releasing the toxin into the cosmos came first. Perhaps a simple task. Quick, even.

  He let out a sigh. In these times, simple never occurred. Only an hour ago, he thought Payson would end his life. He glanced at Devon, who settled his head in his hands, bouncing his knee up and down.

  Koda put his hand on Devon's knee and gave it a friendly squeeze. “We can do this.”

  Devon’s posture stiffened. “When we get to Sphere One, then what? We investigate the Starhawk Transports?”

  “Exactly, but after we check the airlocks first. When we find the toxin barrels, we release the barrels into space. That’s priority one.”

  “Then what? We just search for information?”

  “We’ll hang around Sphere One and dig for whatever we can find. Maybe we’ll find the location of Destination “N” or other crap the Anunnaki don’t want us to see.” Koda didn’t know what he was looking for, per se, but maybe an empty Starhawk would grant him more information when he snuck inside and pulled up the data on the monitors.

  He gulped down apprehension. What if pilots, perchance Anunnaki, occupied the Starhawks?

  Devon rubbed his hands on his pants, his breathing shaky and his movements interrupting Koda’s thoughts.

  “Something on your mind that you’re not telling me?” asked Koda.

  Devon leaned forward. “I should have realized. I'm sorry, Koda. We need to get off the train at the next Sphere Nine stop.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Payson and his team.”

  “We’re on a hovertrain. We’ll get there before him.”

  Devon shook his head. “I don't think we can stop him and his gang no matter what we do or what we find.”

  “If you need to get off at the next stop, I understand.”

  “It’s not that, really. It’s…” he let out an exasperated breath. “Your uncle should have killed Payson while they were in their cells.”

  Koda shot Devon a look. “Yeah, I know, but killing prisoners is against Star Guild law, and as the head of Star Guild, my uncle couldn’t and wouldn’t end their lives.”

  “It would have been smart to make an exception.” Devon curled forward more, his forehead against his fist. He squeezed his eyes shut, agitated.

  Koda put his arm around Devon’s shoulders, calming his friend. “We’re fine. Are you worried about the toxin?”

  Devon abruptly sat tall. “I painted it.”

  Koda gazed blankly at Devon, wondering what drug someone slipped into his drink.

  “Painted it?”

  “Sometimes I paint things that come true, and I painted the poison unleashed on all of us. Many dead, more dying, and it felt like all of Matrona fell ill.”

  “I’m not following. You painted something?”

  “Remember when I told you I had another skill besides hacking holocomputers?”

  Koda nodded.

  “Well, that's my skill. You asked me what I'm good at—my specialty—and that's it.”

  “Again, I’m not following. What’s your skill?”

  Devon looked left and right as if searching for someone hiding in the car. When he didn’t see anyone, he leaned his head back against the wall. “I’m Robert Rose.”

  Koda hesitated for a moment, then chuckled. “You ought to be a politician. You're good at keeping a straight face.”

  “I’m not lying. I'm serious. Well, actually, I'm Robert, and another person is Rose. Rose taught me how to find my talent and how to follow my intuition. When I combine the two—talent and intuition—I’m fantastic. I predict things in my paintings.”

  Koda put his hands up for Devon to stop. “Whoa. Slow down. You're talking nonsense—”

  “No, I'm not. I'm Robert, and Rose is...well, I told you who she is a while ago. I can prove I'm the painter, though.”

  Koda leaned away and gave Devon an odd look. “Yeah, I'd like to see that.” The attack, Payson almost killing them in the capitol building, and the chaos happening all around rattled Koda’s brain. Many artists claimed the Robert Rose name and were proved liars soon after. Devon had lost his mind.

  “There.” Devon pointed at a pad and paper attached to a wall next to a hovertrain door. He walked to the door and swiped the items off the wall. He plopped down on the seat. “What do you want me to draw?” Devon held the pen’s tip over the paper.

  “I don't know.” Koda didn't care. He wanted this nonsense to stop.

  “What's your favorite Robert Rose?”

  Koda rolled his eyes. “Uh, Star Fire, I guess.”

  “Star Fire? That's one I blazed with color. I don't have paints with me, just this pen.”

  Oh, brother. “Then I guess you can’t draw it.”

  “Without color is fine.” Devon drew a torus-shaped nebula. “This is a butterfly nebula. Don't ask me how I know, 'cause I wouldn't be able to answer that.” His strokes flowed quickly, nearly flawless. “I see it like I'm staring right at it in space. To me, it’s like two nebulae crashing into each other.” He drew faster. “I see it on the page before I finish. It’s almost like I’m tracing, really.” Moving the pen over the paper, he composed a ship flying toward the nebula. Then another ship, and another.

  Finishing, he let his hand fall to the side and picked up the paper. He held it in front of Koda. “Those are Space Templar starships. They are more cylindrical and aren't as big as ours. Here, just like the Star Fire painting you liked, I portrayed the ships coming to save us.” He pulled the paper into his lap and shaded in the nebula.

  Koda caught his breath. “Okay, stop.” He eyed Devon and then the paper. “What the Guild?”

  The resemblance was uncanny. Devon had drawn an exact copy of Star Fire.

  Devon lifted the pen slightly off the paper. “I know. It’s poor quality, but I can't make it fiery like I did in the original.”

  “Put that pen and paper away. Don’t let anyone see it.” Koda looked around. Robert Rose had a certain style, one that nobody could duplicate correctly, or so the art critics said for years. Many artists made attempts, and every time the experts caught the lie.

  Koda blinked rapidly, not believing what he just witnessed. He slapped his face gently, running his hands over his eyes and slowly down to his chin. “You’re Guild’n kidding me, right?” He took another glimpse at the drawing. “You're him? Who...how…” Koda shook his head back and forth like a wet dog. “This is insane. You're only a kid. What the—”

  “I’m not that much younger than you. I'm not a kid.”

  “Well, you look like a kid, and you’re what, eight years younger than me? You’re a kid in my book.” He threw his hands up. “How can I
be sitting next to the most talked about artist in all of Matrona? You're Matrona's biggest mystery.”

  He looked Devon up and down. Maybe Devon lied, maybe not, but who knew. Weirder things happened, like the Anunnaki invasion or finding out he’d grown up and lived his entire life as a slave in a slave race.

  “I’m a mystery because I keep it that way. Again, I’m Robert and someone else is Rose. Rose said they would hunt and kill me for what I put in my art. It's all about truth. Many people resonate with my paintings, but Zim would have me killed.”

  “Who is Rose?”

  “I can't say.”

  “Why?”

  Devon’s expression softened. “She won't let me. I'm not even supposed to say who I am.”

  “Your paintings talk about the future. How is that possible? If your paintings warn us about future events, why is it you don’t know what’s happening now? I mean, you didn’t know we were a slave race until you figured it out via hacking into Zim’s database.”

  Devon tapped the pen against his lips. “How do I answer that?” He looked off. “What you say is true. I didn’t know what was really happening to us until I hacked Zim’s holocomp. When I’d paint, all I’d get were these weird visions, and then I’d paint them. It’s that simple. The media talked about it before on the news channels, though they didn’t get it right. They didn’t understand my paintings, other than they thought they were unique and original.”

  “A month ago, maybe longer, I can’t remember, you painted the next line of Overseers, including me. I thought that was a hoax or a damn good guess.”

  “Not a hoax, but I figured that's what people would say. I did my best. I had someone put that painting in the Sphere Six museum, cover it up in a white tarp, and unveil it the moment the elections ended. People thought I had painted it after I knew who won and switched the paintings, but how could I paint something like that so quickly?”

  Koda shifted in his seat. “I’m in your painting. That was weird.”

  “I painted you because you’ll be the best politician this starbase has ever had.”

  Koda leaned back, crossing his arms, his lips turning up. His ego liked the idea, though he doubted Devon. “Well, cool. What else did you predict?”