Uprising of the Exiled (Splintered Galaxy Book 2)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  ► Sol System

  Danyal and Mustafa’s prison cell rocked violently, sending Danyal’s resting body flying out of his top bunk. The lights flicked on and off with each rumble, sending dust from the ceiling to float slowly to the floor, the same floor Mustafa helped Danyal rise up from. Danyal quickly noticed that the force fields holding them and other prisoners within their cells flicked rapidly. In fact, he wasn’t the only one. He took a closer peek at the prisoners in their cells adjacent to him; they were all primed and waiting for the force field to fail.

  “This is what I was talking about, my friend,” Mustafa said, patting Danyal’s shoulders. “Keep praying to god; he knows we don’t deserve to be here treated like animals!”

  “If we get out of here,” Danyal said, eyeing the flickering force field, “this is going to be the greatest late birthday present ever.”

  An explosion from the outside sent a thunderous shockwave that pushed everyone to the floor, including a squad of guards in riot gear who was running past their cell. This time Danyal’s hands guided his old cell mate back to his feet. “If we get out of here, gods willing,” Mustafa said, “we must find my daughter.”

  “I thought you said she’s dead.”

  “No, no, my friend, she is gone…from this planet.” Mustafa returned to his feet, breathing deeply. “Radiance, they took her away.”

  … … …

  Whigli’s fiery bombardment left a smoldering path of destruction leading right into the prison via a massive flaming hole in the wall. At this point, Eupiar’s young figure sprinted toward the hole, doing everything she could to maintain her balance and ignore the heat that pounded on her body with each explosion.

  Jazz and Veloshira’s translucent bodies led the way in. The now darkened hallways were sparsely populated with armed guards running with determination in their stride. Those who saw Eupiar, met their ends swiftly with a combination of Veloshira’s dagger play and Jazz’s steadfast katana cleaves; their shields were no match for the assassin duo.

  The security station wasn’t hard to find. It was a room with dozens of holographic screens transmitting live video of the interior and exterior of the prison. Jazz’s face formed into a grin as he saw the feed from outside, flames, bodies, and debris scattered in random directions. Interior feeds depicted rioting prisoners overpowering guards, and hundreds more waiting to join the fray, stuck behind force fields that remained active.

  Until now.

  “OK, you should be good to go,” Jazz said to Eupiar.

  Eupiar ran and knelt next to a hulking computer server in the far corner of the room. Her quick and nimble fingers pried open a front panel, revealing a network of wires and other bits of high-tech chips and tubes Jazz was unfamiliar with. Her laptop slipped out of her bag and into her hands, loading a holographic window next to her face and a holographic keyboard beneath her fingers as they slipped down to type.

  As she did her part, Jazz and Veloshira rigged the entrance to the room with stasis mines and then later, the hallway leading to it. Eupiar was going to be all alone in a few minutes; those mines were going to be the only damn thing keeping her safe.

  “I’m in.” The words Jazz was waiting for Eupiar to announce. “Danyal is located in block D, cell number twenty-seven.”

  A large explosion that caused the trio to fall to the floor cut off Eupiar’s revelation. As they came to, Eupiar’s semidark glowing eyes scanned a new data beam into her holographic screen. She grimaced. “Power’s been cut; all the inmates are leaving their cells!”

  “Gonna head out. Don’t forget to get the mind shields down,” Jazz said, stepping toward the door.

  “That’s another issue.”

  Just before he and Veloshira left, Jazz stopped to face Eupiar once more “And yo, tell Whigli to chill the fuck out.”

  … … …

  “God is great! God is great!” Mustafa and several of the Arabic-speaking inmates chanted in unison as they leaped from their prison cells, overpowering the unprepared guards.

  A full-on riot was in progress in all areas of the prison. The fleeing prisoners used tables, chairs, and fire extinguishers as weapons as the guards relied on their ePistols and rifles. Pistols and rifles slowly found themselves in the hands of prisoners, as outnumbered guards had their shields slowly shattered and their heads bludgeoned to bloody chunks. The speed of Hashmedai prisoners gave the rioters a massive edge, as most of them took point in the attacks.

  A few of the inmates broke off from the riot and took their chances with the outside world and Destiny’s and Whigli’s assault in the process. The rest stayed within the confines of the prison, determined to kill every guard, every member of the staff, including those they suspected to be holed up in the security office, the mob’s next target. The image initiated sporadic shaking within Eupiar’s hands as she saw and then heard the swarm coming toward her. The mines Jazz and Veloshira set out weren’t going to be enough, not by a long shot.

  Think, think, think, fuck! Her mind started to scatter, the opposite of what she needed right now. Contact Jazz? No, her mind was still on the fritz; there was no way she’d be able to correctly vocalize what needed to be said. Those guys needed to be stopped right now. You have the power, Eupiar.

  Four deep breaths later, her mind and her self-preservation instincts took control. Keystrokes and interactions with various holographic displays gave her access to the power grid of the prison. There were still some areas with power, power that she transferred to her section of the prison. The lights once again came on, removing the glow from her hybrid eyes.

  A series of hacked commands forced a fire door to fall from the ceiling, a mere two meters away from the mob. One Hashmedai inmate took notice, and raced toward the heavy falling door. He didn’t make it, as indicated by his halved body releasing a pool of blood to the floor. She laughed and then inputted another hacked command, forcing a second set of doors to close behind the mob, halting their advance entirely. They were stuck in the hallways, yelling a barrage of profanities in Arabic, Hashmedian, Russian, Chinese, and English while a small group of them went toward the first door in an attempt to raise it off the crushed Hashmedai.

  Her index finger and thumb spread apart while interacting with the camera relaying the footage of the trapped rioters. It zoomed in, revealing that the body of the Hashmedai was still wedged, and therefore prevented the door from fully closing. If enough hands got underneath it, they could force it open. Fuck me!

  Nevertheless, Eupiar was safe for the time being. She sighed in relief and then loaded a window to display a security cam she programmed to track Danyal’s movements. She became frustrated upon learning that he and a handful of rioters from the back didn’t get trapped with the main group. They proceeded to backtrack through the prison hallways. Her hand inputted new commands, and new cam footage appeared. It showed the areas they could potentially be running to. She saw a new problem; armed guards, five or six, and they looked pissed. Fuck!

  “Eupiar, I fucking hope this is your doing,” Jazz’s voice transmitted on her communicator.

  She smiled and said, “Perhaps, why do you ask?”

  “’Cause Vel and I are fucking trapped with these prisoners.”

  “Stand by. I’ll get you out.”

  “Fuck it; just get Whigli in here to teleport us and Danyal out.”

  And then she remembered the mind shield. The fiasco made her forget she needed to finish hacking it. Teleportation, let alone psionic skills were not going to happen inside the prison. “Yeah about that.”

  “Oh my fuckin’ god, seriously?”

  She didn’t reply, too much was still going on. One cam feed showed that the trapped rioters were making progress in lifting the fire door. Another showed Danyal and his friends walking into a gunfight, and they didn’t have any guns.

  “Shit!” she yelled to herself.

  “Shit? What do you mean shit?” Jazz’s voice echoed.

  A quick set of keystrokes sent a
nother fire door down between Danyal and the guards. Temporary fix, prison staff has the power to override doors such as this, and she was in no position to find and reprogram security codes. That door will be forced to rise up in five minutes or so, and judging by the progress the rioters were making, they could very well have the first fire door pushed up high enough for everyone to slip underneath in less than five minutes.

  “OK, Jazz, I got no time to explain,” she said with a panicked tone. “You have five minutes to kill everyone around you, or Danyal and I will be dead.”

  … … …

  Jazz translated Eupiar’s last message to Veloshira. The two stepped their clocked bodies on the opposite ends of the blocked hallway. Jazz stood next to the rioters raising the door, Veloshira next to the door that would eventually lead them toward a trapped Danyal. Five minutes, eh? he thought as he loaded a song to be played over his earpiece. “Protect Ya Neck” by the Wu-Tang Clan. It was a five-minute song, meaning once it ended, time was up. Every motherfucker needed to be on the floor before that.

  His hand reached back, gripping the hilt of his plasma Kanata, prompting the plasma to flow through its blade, canceling his cloaking device in the process. The music that he frequently listened to in high school began to play, and his head bobbed up and down to the beat as terrified prisoners leaped back in shock as Veloshira and he emerged from out of nowhere with plasma weapons primed and ready to spill liters of blood.

  Jazz launched the first strike. His body moved to the beat of the music, burning and cutting his attackers in half. Blood splashed across the walls with each successive slash. One by one, dismembered bodies hit the floor as angry rioters charged Jazz simultaneously. None succeeded in taking him down, including the bullets that managed to rip past his body armor.

  Veloshira was an even harder target. Her Hashmedai speed and reflexes combined with her double dagger play to create a deadly display in front of Jazz’s eyes. Watching a petite woman like her remove heads of taller, hardened prison inmates made Jazz chuckle as he beheaded a Hashmedai prisoner who got too close for his liking. His boots were making splashing sounds, as the hallway carnage pressed on. One rioter caught him off guard, grabbing him from behind like a wrestler. Two rioters took notice, and charged toward an immobilized Jazz. Their bodies quickly turned into ashes and mixed into the pool of blood on the floor, vaporized by Veloshira’s quick draw with her plasma rifle.

  Jazz saw her aim toward him, but actually, she wanted to tag the brute grabbing Jazz from behind. Jazz’s head quickly lowered, fully exposing the target behind him. A beam of green plasma vaporized the head and neck of the rioter who gripped Jazz. He felt the man’s grip weaken instantly as the plasma ended his life. Jazz shook him off to continue his savage cleaves, removing body parts and painting the walls red in his wake.

  First things first, man, you’re fucking with the worst

  I’ll be sticking pins in your head like a fucking nurse

  Jazz’s favorite lines of the song had played at the most convenient time possible. Veloshira had lunged both of her daggers through the head of her last target. The inmates were indeed fucking with worst. The blood bath was over. Jazz and Veloshira stood motionless, breathing heavily as blood from their attackers rained off their bodies. Jazz’s hand rose up to his face, wiping away an excessive amount of blood that was clouding his vision. Veloshira’s white hair was looking more on the pink side as she collected her daggers from the head of downed rioter.

  “Eupiar,” Jazz transmitted. “Ya five minutes is almost up. Where da fuck do we go from here?”

  … … …

  Eupiar frantically inputted command after command, trying to gain access to the mind shield with little success. All the while, she looked on as Jazz and Veloshira finished their last inmate, effectively making her safe from them. She switched attention to the cam following Danyal and looked on in horror as the door keeping him and his friends safe hastily lifted off the ground.

  “Eupiar. Ya five minutes is almost up, where da fuck do we go from here?” Jazz’s voice bellowed from her communicator.

  A double tap on a key on her holo keyboard caused the rear door to open for Jazz and Veloshira. “Go quickly!” she yelled. Shockwaves created by magnetically propelled bullets lined the cam footage that followed Danyal. There were dead bodies on the floor—none of them guards—as the barrage continued for a few more seconds. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  … … …

  Jazz and Veloshira ran through the prison hallways, coming to a stop at the scene of five dead prisoners, and weapons’ fire from eWeapons blazing nonstop. The assassin duo activated their cloaks as the guards stopped firing, and entered to assess the situation. Jazz saw six guards step in with their weapons drawn. None of them had combat armor on, and most likely, they had been called in on the fly when the action started. And it was the only good thing that had happened today. Both Jazz’s and Veloshira’s rifles erupted with anger, turning the six armed guards into six piles smoking of ashes.

  Racing toward the pile of inmate bodies, Jazz saw Danyal, covered in blood, but he was still breathing. There were bullet holes in his arm. OK, second good thing today. Jazz reached down to help him up; he was clearly in pain as his bloody body struggled to get to his feet.

  “We need to get outta here, Danyal,” Jazz said to him.

  Danyal shrugged Jazz off and looked down at his fallen cell mate with regret forming in his face. “How…do you know my name?” Danyal asked.

  “No time to explain.”

  A blood soaked hand rose up toward Danyal, gently resting on his right cheek. His cell mate wasn’t dead just yet. That’s one tough old man, Jazz thought.

  “My…daughter.”

  “Mustafa, don’t speak,” Danyal pleaded, holding his dripping red hand.

  “Rana, that’s her name. If you see her, gods willing, keep her safe.” Mustafa’s limp hand came crashing to the floor seconds later.

  Danyal shut his eyes in sorrow, as Jazz, from behind him, placed his hand on Danyal’s shoulder. “Sorry for ya loss, bro. But like I said, we gotta go.”

  … … …

  ►► ESV Winston Churchill, Earth Orbit

  ► Sol System

  Chloe floated into the briefing room aboard the Winston Churchill, summoned there unexpectedly. She pondered what the meeting could be about, seeing how only Ken, Kasidey, Xavier, and Jacob were present. About Ella and her actions that got her tossed into the brig? Probably not; everyone was aware of that by now. The gem? She sighed as that thought crossed her mind. Keeping that damn thing a secret from the crew was a big mistake, and as she recalled from the report, Ella was found holding the gem in a grateful and obsessive manner.

  She moved her body closer toward the weightless group and the central table in the middle. Xavier looked extremely fatigued and overdue for some rest. Chloe didn’t remember him ever getting rest since coming aboard. He was always on duty, always involved in something. She couldn’t help but wonder if her team’s actions were the sole reason he was forcing himself to stay awake.

  “Thanks for joining us, Major,” Ken said to Chloe.

  “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Xavier said.

  “What’s up?”

  “We’ve been scanning the region where Sergeant Boyd and Vaughan were found after escaping from the HLF base,” Kasidey said. “We’re relying on what they told us about the base, how long they traveled, and what the EISS knows about it.” A hologram appeared, displaying top-down satellite imagery of a cold snow- and ice-covered region. “We believe it’s here, a downed Hashmedai stratosphere frigate buried beneath the snow and ice.” Kasidey’s hand pointed to the area in question. A red line formed a circle around a small mountain-like range.

  “Command wants us to lead the strike in taking it out once and for all,” Xavier said.

  “Us?” Chloe asked.

  “Major, you and your team are still the best-equipped, trained, and experienced when it comes to dealing
with Hashmedai. And we fully expect all of the HLF’s Hashmedai members to be hiding here,” Kasidey said.

  Ken added. “Game plan is to bomb the region with our fighters. Once they’re softened up, we’ll send your team along with marines to capture or kill all surviving members of the HLF…including Hannah.”

  As he spoke, the hologram appeared with overlays depicting where the airstrikes would hit, and where the assault teams would land and enter the base.

  It was music to Chloe’s ears. “When we leave?” she asked with a smile.

  “Now, we can’t afford to waste any time on this,” Ken replied.

  “I’ll get my team ready,” Chloe said.

  “Aye, same,” Jacob added.

  “One last thing,” Kasidey said. “As you all are probably aware, Dr. Lynn has been sent to the brig for some…bizarre behavior. She was found holding this strange gem in her hands.” The hologram morphed into one of the red gem, causing Chloe to bite her lip. “It’s being tested in the labs now, and…we discovered it’s emitting a high concentration of psionic energy, the source of the spike in psionic energy that was discovered shortly upon the arrival of the EDF team.”

  Fuck.

  “Major, do you know anything about this?” Kasidey asked Chloe. “Have you or anyone on your team seen her have it before coming back to Earth?”

  The redness of the hologram painted a red glow across Chloe’s face, hiding the fact that she really was starting to flush. “Never seen it in my life.”

  … … …

  ►► Crimson Arrow, Earth Orbit

  ► Sol System

  Noylarlie looked out of the forward windshield of the Crimson Arrow, looking at the enormous blue planet she’d waited so many weeks to come to. Earth was minutes away, and there was not a single thing in the galaxy that was going to stop her from landing. Not the human battleship in orbit, not the orbital defensive platform, or the human forces that might be stationed on the planet’s surface. Or the three or four battleships she passed on her way, which just recently changed course, alerted to her presence.