Noylarlie stopped her walk. Her red eyes shifted, examining the woman more closely, comparing her to the many people she’d seen in the past. All grown up, which means she was a child when we last saw each other. Noylarlie began to think, a child, a human child—when did she ever encounter one? Never, not officially. After all, she hadn’t been to Earth. In fact, last time she checked, she was on course to head to—
This was a dream.
This was Hannah, the human girl from those dreams.
“Hannah,” Noylarlie finally said.
“Aww, you remembered my name! Splendid!”
“What do you want?”
“Come play with us, Noylarlie. Chloe and Jazz are here,” Hannah said with jubilation. “Danyal is all grown up as well, and quite handsome, if you ask me.”
The human soldiers, Chloe and Jake—or Jazz, as he’s often referred to—as Noylarlie remembered them from past dreams, but Danyal? That was a new name. “Who is Danyal?”
“You will meet him soon enough, when you visit the Middle East.” She winked at Noylarlie. “Oh, and do watch out of the orbital defense platform around Earth. They are programmed to target and shoot Hashmedaian ships on sight. Jazz got lucky with his ship; he entered directly into Earth’s atmosphere from his space bridge jump.”
… … …
►► Crimson Arrow, En Route to Earth
► Sol System
Noylarlie’s eyes shot open. She was back aboard the Crimson Arrow. Her weightless body was comfortably slouched over in her chair in the cockpit as locks of her black hair floated in front of her face, obscuring her view of the tiny blue sphere in space from the forward windshield of the ship.
“So there I was, surrounded by two Hashmedai warriors when the gods sent me the greatest care package ever.” It was Parcisei. Noylarlie quickly remembered the flow of events, Parcisei rambling about some story to pass the time until they reached Earth. Boring stories at that; they put her to sleep. “Hey, Noylarlie, are you listening? I’m getting to the best part here!”
Noylarlie’s body sat up straight again, and her hands brushed back her free-floating hair from her face. Parcisei’s mouth continued his tale, something about Fahia saving his life. None of it was her concern. She fell asleep at the helm. The space bridge put them just outside the star system that held Earth and its newly formed human battleships. Her psionic mind merged with the Crimson Arrow’s computer systems, and she started to review every bit of sensor data she missed during the slumber. Nothing new to report, according to the logs. Good, she thought, and she began to scan the region of space around them with her gifts. Detecting the presence of ships with psionics was much faster than relying on ship sensors that traveled at the speed of light.
Her mind sensed nothing close enough to be a threat, though two human battleships made a slight course change, a change that could lead them directly to the Crimson Arrow. She kept her eye on the ships in question—rather her mind on them—as the Crimson Arrow propelled forward at sub-light speeds toward Earth, the blue dot that became larger and larger with each passing hour.
… … …
►► Dasht-e Kavir Crater Prison, Earth
► Sol System
Danyal Aksoy frowned as his dark-red eyes saw the contents of his meal tray: Halal chicken and vegetables. The chicken was fine, though he was getting sick of eating it all the time. The vegetables however? They tended to upset his stomach; his Hashmedai half didn’t like it, while his human half made it possible for him to digest it in the first place. He sat down at his cafeteria table alongside his fellow cell mate, Mustafa Farhadi.
Danyal was half-human, half-Hashmedai, and he bore features from both races. His eyes were dark red, and glowed only when it was pitch black; even then, it was a faint glow. His hair was soft like his Turkish mother’s, dark silver along with his goatee. He wasn’t very tall, five six. Neither his human mother nor Hashmedaian father was tall, either. Ironically, those two numbers together make the age number he will be when he is expected to be released from prison—fifty-six years old—thirty-four more years go to. Sadly, his friend Mustafa probably won’t live long enough to see that day. Danyal wasn’t quite sure of Mustafa’s age, but he was old enough to struggle to sit down or get up at times, and he wore a long gray sage-like beard.
The cafeteria quickly started to fill as other inmates came in for their meals. Most of them were human, as indicated by their orange jumpsuits, Hashmedai were forced to wear red jumpsuits. Danyal was only able to see six or seven other red suits, not counting the one he was forced to wear.
“My friend, you must eat before it gets cold,” Mustafa said, snapping Danyal’s attention back to his source of nourishment in front of him.
“Yeah, yeah,” Danyal grumbled as he attacked his protein with a fork. The meat was tough to pierce and had a dry flat taste to it.
“So are you going to tell me a story today for a change?”
“Eh?”
“I’ve told you many, many stories, my friend. You must have a few interesting ones from a time when you weren’t locked away here.”
“I got nothing.”
“Nothing at all? No wife? Children?”
“Nobody would want to deal with a half-breed like me, so no,” Danyal said, and he shoveled another piece of tough meat into his mouth.
“That’s not true; you must not say things like that. If my daughter were here, she would have followed you everywhere,” Mustafa said. “Half-breed or not.”
Amazement filled Danyal’s voice as he asked. “You had a kid?”
Mustafa chuckled, then said. “I’ll tell you about her, if you tell me more about yourself!”
… … …
►► ESV Winston Churchill, Earth Orbit
► Sol System
A large pair of sliding doors allowed Chloe to float into the Winston Churchill’s engine room located at the aft end of the ship. It was a hefty-size chamber spanning five decks, each one linked together by small lifts that carried crew members to their stations. An oversize reactor shimmed from green to blue to green again, silently supplying the Winston Churchill with its energy needs. The zero-g environment resulted in most of the crew hovering next to or above their areas of expertise, be it motioning shipwide systems or performing maintenance. And in the case of CPO Shanuka Weerasinghe, floating before EVE’s body as it stood upright in her recharge and maintenance cabinet.
Chief Weerasinghe was young compared to his colleagues. His black hair was slicked back and shined under the ship’s lighting. He wore an orange engineering jumpsuit, which comfortably covered his brown skin. A holo pad floated next to him, displaying EVE’s status, while a second floating holo pad listed maintenance reports and repair requests from all over the ship.
Chloe floated over as the chief engineer held his weightless tools to attach one of EVE’s replacement arms. Sparks sprayed outward as his tool began to stitch together the mechanical components from the replacement arm to EVE’s body. As the sparks stopped, Weerasinghe spun his floating body around, and extended one hand out to grab one of the several floating tools orbiting him. He stopped as he took notice of Chloe watching.
“Ah, Major, sorry. I didn’t see you there,” he said while raising his welders shield mask away from his face.
“It’s all right, Chief. I was checking on EVE, wanted to make sure she was OK.”
“Your concerns for my well-being are unnecessary, Major,” EVE said.
Chloe was relieved to see the android was able to function after the thrashing she took.
“My memory is stored within the systems of the Winston Churchill as well as this unit. Furthermore, you must remember that I am a machine and can easily be replaced.”
Don’t say that. You’re part of the crew, as far as I’m concerned, Chloe thought.
“The fuck you can,” Weerasinghe said to EVE. “Do you have any idea how much it cost to build you?”
“Thirty-two million Earth credits to be exact, Chief
,” EVE said.
“Exactly the reason why we don’t have an army of you to replace all human soldiers—costs way too much,” he said.
“Opposed to the cost of human lives on the battlefield?” Chloe cut in.
“Well uh.”
Gotcha, “Don’t worry about it,” Chloe assured him. “How long before she’s operational?”
“About another sixteen hours.”
“Correction, Chief, eighteen hours,” EVE said.
“EVE, you said sixteen was the estimated time five minutes ago.”
“That was before Major Vaughan entered. Productivity has dropped significantly since she began to speak.”
Chloe chucked and said. “I should go; I got a debriefing to head to anyway.” Her hand extended outward, giving Weerasinghe a pat on the shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Chief.”
Holding on to a handle on the wall, Chloe pulled her body back toward the sliding doors that she had entered. She stopped suddenly as EVE called out to her. “Fascinating, my memory must be suffering from an error. Major Vaughan does not have plasma burn scars on her back.”
Chloe was shot in the back by small plasma arms fire several times during the invasion of Earth. A few of those blasts left some nasty burn scars across her back. “Hold up, how did you know about those?” Chloe asked, spinning her body back toward EVE.
“I scan the physical condition of every person who boards this ship. You do not possess any scarring, yet my databanks from your first scan says otherwise.”
“I do have scars. Perhaps your scanner is not working right.” And maybe it should stay that way, body scanning and recording the data is creepy as fuck.
“I’ll look into that when I’m done with her body’s repairs, Major,” Weerasinghe said.
… … …
Chloe’s body swam through the weightlessness in the Winston Churchill briefing room to take a seat at the table. Her body brushed past Ken as his hand reached out to tap her arm. “Thanks for the assist, mate,” he said.
“Don’t sweat it,” Chloe said, stopping her glide briefly.
She then propelled forward, joining the rest of the people in attendance at the debriefing, including Jacob, Grace, Sarah, Xavier, Ken, and Kasidey. Chris, Tom and Michei were still being checked out in the infirmary for the wounds they suffered. The debriefing started with a rundown of what happened. Xavier’s face remained unchanged the whole time, even after learning of the massive damage done to EVE. Real questions got asked later on.
The biggest one had been on Chloe’s mind since the start of the operation: “Any idea why they were after you two?”
“They were after the files on our computer,” Ken said. “We did some digging after those two assassins showed up.”
“What he means to say is we hacked into Radiance databases to access locked-away Whisper files,” Kasidey interjected.
Xavier’s expression changed to a more fascinated look with a raised eyebrow. “What did you find?” he asked.
“Flags mostly—a list of names of people flagged to have encountered or be associated with a group of heretics called the Celestial Order,” explained Ken.
Heretics, Celestial Order—Chloe had not heard those names in a while. They were also names she had hoped would have stayed within Radiance-controlled space. “The heretics,” Chloe grumbled to herself while her lips curled.
Her reply got Ken’s and Kasidey’s faces to lock onto her as Ken asked, “You know of them?”
Chloe’s chest exhaled while her mind began to piece together what she knew of this group. “Sarah and I…our first encounter with the Linl was heretics posing as humans to do some kind of strange experiments,” she said. “Then aboard the command ship, I discovered another one who was with us.”
“Then there was that fiasco at the desert on Foicanta,” Sarah added.
Chloe briefly thought back to the time she and her team ventured to a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, or Dark Lejorania, as Radiance calls it. Celestial Order fighters ambushed them.
“Who the fuck is the Celestial Order?” Xavier asked. Naturally, most folks here on Earth wouldn’t know the group.
“A powerful cult of religious fanatics from Radiance,” said Chloe.
Light laugher slipped out of Grace’s lips, and then she said, “Kinda sounds like what Radiance is right now.”
“The difference is the Order has a different interpretation of the Radiance religion, and rumor has it they’ve recruited Hashmedai and are working on getting human followers,” said Ken.
“My report from our victory aboard the command ship during the invasion all but proves they indeed have Hashmedai working for them,” Chloe added.
“Well back to the matter at hand,” Ken said as his hands produced a holo pad. Several quick finger strokes across the pad’s bluish holographic interface loaded a larger image of Jazz for everyone to lay eyes on. He then continued his information dump. “Your friend Jake Johnson’s name turned up, I found it to be quite odd that a human would make this list.”
“So we did another search,” Kasidey added. “This time relating to people from Earth…two other names appeared.” Ken’s finger swiped across the holographic screen, replacing Jazz’s image with a younger man with both human and Hashmedai features. “Danyal Aksoy, human Hashmedai hybrid. He’s currently serving time in prison for a string of robberies and gang activity.”
“Do they work for the order?” Xavier asked.
“No, rather someone in the order is looking for them. Radiance flagged them for investigation as a result,” said Ken.
“Why haven’t our names appeared?” Chloe asked. “We directly engaged in combat with some of their members.”
“No idea; perhaps they don’t deem you a threat,” said Ken.
“We fucking killed their people. How is that not a threat?”
“Couldn’t tell you, mate, though now that I recall, all your encounters with them netted zero survivors,” Ken said. “Can’t be added to a shit list if there is no one alive to ID you.”
Fair enough, Chloe thought. Xyniea, Pierre, Amanda, the Hashmedai commander, and the ambushers at Foicanta. All of them died before they could call for help. “You said there was another name, right?”
“Yes,” Ken replied, while his fingers swiped once again. The next hologram that came into view caused Chloe’s mind to wander backward. She started to remember the dreams she had, the little girl who whispered cryptic messages to her. “Hannah Grey.” Ken’s voice cut in to her thoughts. “The alleged mastermind of the HLF. I believe members of your team met her personally. Correct, Chloe?”
Chloe was slow to respond. She was too busy finding a place to put a newly discovered piece of the puzzle. Hannah was the name of the girl in her dreams. Chloe’s memories of how she looked matched with the woman appearing in the hologram before her and everyone else. If Hannah were a child back during the invasion, then she would be a grown woman today. Wait…and she is the mastermind of the HLF? The same one who ordered her killed, thinking that Chloe was Sarah?
“Yeah,” Chloe finally said. “So what’s our next move?”
“The HLF that attacked us wanted the info on our computer, which happened to contain those names,” said Kasidey.
“Good thing we got tipped off about their attack; gave me time to back up the files,” said Ken.
“You were tipped?” asked Chloe.
“Aye,” Ken replied, “some bloke callin’ himself Deep Throat.”
… … …
►► Port Shala, Morutrin Prime
► Morutrin System
The performance by Avearan and Phylarlie on the dance floor wasn’t exactly what the patrons in the club were expecting. The two engaged in an eye-catching exhibit of combat that sent everyone around them fleeing, while the loud music continued to beat and vibrate throughout the air. Avearan was quite impressed with her adversary’s abilities, shields, and the two sets of daggers she swapped back and forth, all the while timing her jump po
rts to carry her out of the way of Avearan’s psionic fury.
The strobe lights continued to flicker, providing a secondary source of lighting on top of the streaks and flashes of blue light and bright, blinding white fireballs that slowly ignited fires along the walls as each one missed its intended target. Worry and paranoia raced across Avearan’s mind as her eyes scanned the seemingly empty dance floor. The assassin was gone, at least gone from her sights. She might have reactivated her cloak, or perhaps jump ported behind a wall. Either of the two options was bad. Avearan was wide open for another attack, one she would not see coming. Bad enough the assassin was still alive; every other one she had encountered until this point would be dead or dying.
The orange glow within her arm ceased, while the blue glow from her upper body began to shimmer. Strengthening her psionic shields at this point was the best method for survival; as long as they didn’t shatter, this assassin would not be able to land disks directly on her. One stun disk followed by a thrust to her gut would be the end of her.
The assassin emerged behind her. Avearan sensed a pair of daggers seconds away from impacting her shields and the presence of assassin disks on the floor beneath her feet. Smart, she thought, but Avearan’s gifts were quick to take form. Her mind forced the area around her and the floor to snap freeze, leaving behind frozen and inoperative disks, white mist expanded throughout the humid strobe-lit environment while a sheet of ice formed below her. A tidal wave of blue light carried and jump ported her on top of the bar counter. She looked back to see a flabbergasted assassin with her shields flicking blue from the blast of cold air.
Before the assassin could counter, Avearan’s hands folded, her mind gripped every glass and bottle behind the bar’s counter. They floated in the air around Avearan. The glass cups shattered into large fragments, while the bottoms of the bottles broke, unveiling jagged razor-sharp edges, all of which launched toward the assassin with Avearan’s telekinetic might. Avearan’s mouth burst open with laugher as blue lights zigzagged throughout the dance floor, while the glass projectiles followed and changed trajectory in an attempt to chase their prey, the assassin.
Uprising of the Exiled (Splintered Galaxy Book 2) Page 28