Starfade

by Gary Swaby

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “YOU!” CHIAKI YELLED. “Where the hell is he? Where is Pearson?” she glanced around the room as if he was hiding in the shadows.

  “Pearson isn’t here, Nova. But I am, because I’ve been tracking your ship since you left Flade.”

  In her rage, Chiaki hadn’t processed that Vraxen was aiming a rifle at her. She pulled her SMG from her waist and aimed right back at him. “Why are you tracking me?”

  “Pearson told me to keep an eye on you.”

  “Serious question, Vraxy; are you an idiot?” Through the window panes on the door behind Vraxen, Chiaki could see shadows indicating movement outside. A firefight was now a guarantee.

  “You insult the one who saved your life?” Vraxen responded.

  “I appreciate you keeping me alive and all, but if you’re still siding with Pearson after he left you for dead then I’ll happily accept you as the enemy. Your stupidity means you wouldn’t make a good ally.” His blue eyes widened. “I almost shot him for trying to leave without you, you know. I showed loyalty to you because you helped me. But now I guess it means nothing.”

  Behind Vraxen, two Alliance marines burst through the doors with their guns aimed in her direction. They stood either side of Vraxen. “Shoot her, now,” one of the marines yelled. His voice was amplified through speakers on his helmet. “We have orders to shoot on sight.”

  “Hold on,” said Vraxen, raising a hand from his laser rifle. “I’ve got this.”

  “We’re giving it thirty seconds before we fire, merc.”

  “Come quietly,” Vraxen said to her, “you’ll keep your life if you follow my instruction.”

  Chiaki looked Vraxen dead in his eyes. “Pearson never paid that debt, Vraxen,” she told him. “The loan sharks want you dead the moment you’re seen on Utrion again.”

  Vraxen squinted his eyes, and she saw his chest inflate as he took a deep breath. The room became still and motionless to the point Chiaki could hear the moment one of the marines fingers squeezed over his trigger. Chiaki raised her synthetic arm in attempt to deflect the shot. She’d also turned her head sideways in fear; but in waiting for the impact she realized that no shot had made it her way. When she turned to look back at the marines, she saw that Vraxen had the shooter pinned against the door, wrestling the gun from his grip. The Stowyth had interrupted the marines shot and saved Chiaki.

  The other marine was now pressing his gun to the side of Vraxen’s head. “Stand down!” he yelled.

  Galactic Alliance marine armor was modular, allowing each marine to mix and match pieces of armor to clip over their skinsuits. Both marines wore heavy armor plates on their upper body, but Chiaki noticed that in their haste, they’d not equipped leg pieces and were only wearing ordinary combat pants. Chiaki took advantage of this vulnerability by firing a shot at the marines’ thigh. His screams echoed around the room as blood oozed through the hole in his pants. He crashed to his knees, wailing.

  “You’re lucky I don’t use lasers, asshole.” She walked over to the marine who was now crouching down to comfort the wound and whipped her shiny new arm across his helmet, leaving a dent on the crown and knocking him out. Next to her, Vraxen was tossing the other marines’ body across the room. His body crashed against the rack carrying the terminal; then, his body collided with the PVC floor tiles.

  “We don’t have long before the other marines come,” said Vraxen. “We have to leave now.”

  Chiaki eyed him, half impressed at his decision to betray Pearson and half skeptical about whether he was double crossing her or not. After all the dirt she’d just read about the Alliance, she couldn’t trust anyone. “How did you track me, Vraxy?”

  “Pearson’s unit left trackers on your ships when they held your people hostage. All I had to do was pay attention to where your ship was headed, after eight hours it was obvious to me that you were coming here.”

  “Tell me you have a shuttle waiting…” she said. With the station alerted to their presence, the odds of them staying alive long enough for her own shuttle to arrive was slim.

  “It’s on the roof, we just have to go out to the hall and take a ladder up. Follow me and put on your breather,” he said. Chiaki was relieved.

  ***

  Chiaki followed Vraxen through the square panel at the top of the ladder. As her head emerged from the gap, Vraxen shot down a couple drones that were ready to spit a barrage of gunfire at them. When the threats were gone, Vraxen turned to help Chiaki up by the arm.

  “This thing looks fancy, what else does it do?” he asked, tugging on her cold metal fingers.

  Chiaki smirked as she pulled herself up. “It eliminates the need for me, if you know what I mean.”

  She could see a navy blue shuttle, parked thirty meters away. On the other side of the shuttle, a couple of marines landed on the roof using Jet Boosters. Immediately, Chiaki noticed one of them was of the Guaghul species.

  Vraxen removed a compact weapon from his back holster and handed it to Chiaki. “Take this and shoot. An SMG won’t cut it here. Just hit the button on the side to decompress it.”

  Chiaki held the front handle of the weapon firmly with her synthetic hand and followed Vraxen’s instruction by tapping the button with her right hand. The weapon’s nozzle extended from the front, and an extra handle popped out at the back. She raised the weapon to a comfortable position and took aim. The marines then took cover behind the shuttle.

  “Cover me,” said Vraxen. “I need to get in close and make sure they don’t tamper with the shuttle.”

  Vraxen’s legs extended, making him shoot up a couple feet taller. He used his extra height to sprint across the roof, covering a larger distance with each step.

  Chiaki continued to move forward, aiming through the weapon’s sights along the way. When she saw one of the marines pop up to take a shot, she fired at his shoulder and saw a bright red bolt fly through the air. There was no recoil. She wasn’t sure if the shot had hit the marine, but he slipped out of sight without firing his own shot.

  When Vraxen made it to the shuttle, he used his momentum to leap right over, landing right in front of the marines. A few shots were fired, but Vraxen was able to dodge them and kick the guns from their owners’ grasp. Both marines stood to engage Vraxen in close combat. He wouldn’t be able to keep this up too long, because having a fistfight with a Guaghul was like throwing your hardest punches at a brick wall.

  The Guaghul were often referred to as tanks because they could give and take astounding levels of damage on the battlefield. They were stout beings, with long heads that often had several small horns aligned from their crown right down to their nose. Their faces were wide and brutish; and like all species in the Alliance, the Guaghul had its own custom fitted helmet that wouldn’t fit other beings’ measurements.

  Chiaki picked up her pace and ran to the shuttle until she had enough momentum to leap on top. Being so short, she was inches away from tripping herself on the hood of the shuttle for not gaining enough height from the leap. She was able to use her arm to correct her balance and with her momentum sustained, she leaped onto the human marine; wrapping her synthetic arm around his neck and locking him into a hold. Her legs dangled at the marines’ sides and he made desperate attempts to flip her off his back. Chiaki tensed and applied as much pressure around his neck as possible. The marine was leaning his chin down so that the cusp of his helmet would block her arm from tightening around his neck. Chiaki dug her right elbow into his shoulder several times, forcing his head to whip sideways and then she locked her other arm around his throat even tighter.

  Eventually, the marine fell backwards and Chiaki gasped as her back slammed against the hard surface. She kept the pressure around the marines’ neck until she was sure he was knocked out; and then she slowly released him and shuffled herself from underneath his body.

  When she looked up, she saw that the Guaghul had wrestled Vraxen to the ground and had begun pu
mmeling him with his three fingered fist. Chiaki got up close behind him and laced him with multiple kicks across his spine until he stopped beating Vraxen. When the Guaghul turned to face her, Chiaki immediately threw a fist to its helmet using her synthetic arm, but the Guaghul showed no sign of being affected. She hit him again, and then again, and then again; until the Guaghul blocked her and landed a haymaker to her chest—winding her.

  The Guaghul was about to follow up on the attack, but Chiaki saw Vraxen’s extended frame rise up behind the marine and lock him into a hold. “Time to take a page out of your book,” said Vraxen, as he locked his arm around the marines’ neck. When Chiaki had caught her breath she closed her synthetic palm into a fist and used her nerves to pop a small spike from the top of the knuckle. She slammed the fist into the Guaghul’s abdomen.

  “Tobi, shock him!” she yelled. And then an electroshock was released through her arm, leading right to the spike and into the marines’ body. It was a custom mod that she’d built into the arm herself.

  The Guaghul’s body jerked for some time until it went limp, at which point Chiaki withdrew her fist. When Vraxen released the marine, his body crashed against the giant roof tile. Chiaki felt she might pass out, as the electroshock left her spent.

  “Are you alright?” asked Vraxen.

  “I’ll be fine in a minute, just get me in the shuttle,” she said, walking to the vehicle, off balance.

  Vraxen typed a code on the shuttle’s security panel and it sprung to life. “Open up,” he said. When the doors had opened he helped Chiaki into the shuttle and into her seat.

  “So,” said Vraxen, watching Chiaki from the opposite seat. They had removed their helmets and their breathers to get comfortable as the shuttle lifted them into the air.

  “So,” she said, still regaining her strength.

  “What’s the plan here? Are we going to your ship or mine? I parked a little further out than you.”

  “Is it an Alliance ship?” she asked.

  “It was provided to me by Pearson, yes. But it’s not an official vessel.”

  “What number FTL do you have?”

  “Just a level two,” he said. “I guess Pearson didn’t want to spend a whole lot on me.”

  “We’re taking mine then, and you’re going to show me where the tracker is.”

  Vraxen opened a small compartment next to him and pulled a soda from it. He offered it to Chiaki. It was a glucose based energy drink. Chiaki didn’t want to accept it, but she did because her body told her she needed it. She popped the spring and took a long sip from the can.

  “Ahhh,” she said with satisfaction.

  “What’s next then?” Vraxen asked. “I hope you have a plan, because Pearson won’t take our newly established partnership lightly. He’ll try to find us.”

  “Good, let the asshole come. He needs to be taught a lesson.”

  “You think you can take on an Alliance commander?”

  “Not alone,” she said, and she looked him in the eye.

  “I might be good,” he smirked, “but even I’m not egotistical enough to think that I alone can stand up to the Alliance marines.”

  “Then we fight fire with fire,” said Chiaki, swaying the can of soda in her hand as she spoke. “We recruit our own Alliance marine.”

  Vraxen laughed. “And how do you expect to do that?”

  Chiaki crossed her legs and took another sip of soda. She burped and felt her body kicking into gear again. “We’re going to Trador, Vraxy.”

  “What? You want to go to the same prison that they want to lock us up in? You want us to turn ourselves in?”

  “No way,” she said. “We’re going to spring out a marine they have locked up there. A guy called Brandon Wardson.”

  Chiaki watched Vraxen’s eyes twitch and she was sure that it was the Stowyth equivalent of a roll of the eyes. “Well, I have no home to go to and I have no more work, so I guess I have no choice but to follow you.” Vraxen shook his head. “From loan sharks, to marines, to hackers and weird people with pointy ears; how the hell did I get myself in this mess?”

  Chiaki took a final swig of the soda and crushed the can in her new hand. “Like my brother used to say, before a marine murdered him, sometimes you have no control over your path.” And when she looked out of the window she saw the Yamata coming into view.

  THE END

  Chiaki (a.k.a Nova) will return in Realm Blender Book Two. Please read Realm Blender Book One if you haven’t already.

  About the Author

  Gary Swaby is a writer who suffers from sickle cell anemia. After suffering from chronic pains all of his life, he gravitated towards video games, computers, books, anime, and comics.

  Follow Gary on Twitter at: @GarySwaby and check out his blog www.garyaswaby.com for more info on sickle cell and his book projects.

  www.garyaswaby.com

  Acknowledgments

  This book is for all my fellow geeks, and otakus out here.

  I have to thank my mum, Vanielee, for working hard all these years to ensure I always had a place to rest in my times of pain. Without her, I wouldn’t have had the time or place to express my creativity.

  Thanks to all my closest family members for supporting me through the years: Greg, Grandad, Kiesha and my Grandmother (Rest in peace).

  These people have played an important part of my upbringing: Carmen, Michael, Robert, Colin, Oliver, Kieran Blackman, Anette, Shirley, Mark, Murray, Jenny, Masha, Aunty Daphne and Uncle Beanie, Kieran Todd, Kyle Ross, David, Una, Nicky, Lisa and everyone else who has been an important part of my life.

  When I go through hard times, there are a few people that I consider to be my support system. We share the good and the bad with each other; and I can’t go a day without the jokes these people provide; thanks a bunch: Carl Ebanks, Rameez Quadri, Richard Bailey, Edward Velazquez, Ilesha Knight, Dana Abercrombie, Tony Polanco, Anthony Frasier, James G, Fergus Mills, David Jagneaux, Tatjana and Torrence Davis.

  Thanks to Garrett Glass for showing me everything that was wrong with my writing and helping me to slowly improve. I hope I didn’t let you down.

  I’ve spent countless hours of my life playing online video games with Clemens and Emma, and those games we play are some of my biggest inspirations. Thanks for the hours!

  Thank you to Julienne for being the first to officially call me a writer. That’s what gave me the confidence to begin putting this book together.

  And thank you to the Sickle Cell Society.

  Thanks for reading! Please add a short review on Amazon and let me know what you thought!