by Shay Zana
A soaring shadow darts by in her peripheral vision, and her barrel tugs in that direction of its own accord, finger loosing shards in a wild arc. All that Morrison sees meeting her fire is shrubbery, chopping under the impacts and weeping blue sap. The air fizzles around her, cackling as if sensing her inevitable death.
Her shields have dropped!
Her fireteam has just received an assaulting surprise attack, and in the first few seconds, she lost six soldiers. Three to instant headshots from unseen snipers, one to a thrown blade through the heart, and the other two to bursts of weapons fire; one of them being entity particles from what could only be a Phoenix. Now there remains only herself and two of her men, and she barely even caught a glimpse of their attackers.
As the three remaining UEU soldiers regroup quickly amongst the foliage, standing back-to-back and observing their surroundings frantically, the Paragons flank around them, staying silent and hidden through the blue leaves.
Natheus lurks further back from the fight, slinking through the blueness and locking onto all three targets with his Parallel, waiting on Mazayus' signal. He breathes steadily and keeps his pulse just as steady, and as he scopes his primary barrel up on Lieutenant Morrison’s helmet, his datakey automatically lines the other two barrels up with the two soldiers with her, synching with his almost effortless neurological command.
Mazayus, Deo, and Boone are mere metres away from the soldiers, in a triangular formation, weapons poised, ready to launch another attack if Natheus misses his mark. Doubtful.
Morrison's heart races inside her chest, pounding through her ears, and even her eyeballs vibrate with the pulsing movement of her blood flow, yet she remains outwardly calm. She knows her attackers are Paragons. She had heard distant gunfire in the night, which enabled her to readjust her squad’s movements in that direction, but it gave no hint as to who they were dealing with, other than people well equipped.
But those entity particles had been proof enough. Only Paragons wield Phoenix’s and can manipulate entities. But by the time that clue was provided, it was too late.
Now she regrets her blind recklessness, allowing her craving for vengeance to override her judgement. Her brother is disappointed, she can hear his vile words inside her mind, accusing her of failing, failing, FAILING! She should have been more cautious, but she thought they would have the element of surprise. It is all his fault, he died like that and left her, his screams at the greetings of death’s prison ringing through her ears, telling her to avenge him, avenge the blood of the millions, BILLIONS, who are perishing because of Serenity’s new weapon.
Killing these Paragons would have made it better, to hear them roar as her rifle ripped apart their faces and her claws tore out their machine hearts.
She hears a cracking in her comms unit, and a concerned voice speaks, "LT? We heard gunfire, what's happening?"
It is one of the scouts, they must have passed the Paragons and missed them completely. Her mind races with a flurry of thoughts, her tongue twisting to get the words out. "Paragons!" But before she can finish her desperate sentence, three shards burst apart the air, and Kate Morrison's head is no longer on her shoulders.
Natheus breathes again as his targets have been successfully eliminated, giving him the chance to move ahead and catch up with the other three Paragons. She had the chance to surrender, but did not take it. His conscience is clear.
As the UEU soldiers fall lifelessly through the grass, the Paragons emerge, stepping respectfully around the many limp bodies scattered over the jungle floor. Except for Boone, who morphs off his helmet just to spit on what is left of human remains.
“Welcome to the jungle, bitches,” he announces unceremoniously.
"They are with the Zodiacs, now," Natheus says, emerging last and looking down at the bodies emotionlessly.
"The Lieutenant was speaking to someone. There’s more of them out here, perhaps scouts," Mazayus exclaims, thankful that Natheus took the shot before she could finish her sentence, though knowing that whoever she was speaking to would now be alert. “Natheus, scout ahead and provide safe passage to take Kitera through. Deo, go back and get her and escort her through his path. Both of you stay in radio contact. Boone, come with me, we’re going to use these UEU communication units to tap into their network and locate their base of operations and personnel tags. They’ve deactivated the guardian station and so our satellite and star system-wide communication support. Once we’ve tapped into their network, we’ll send you two the co-ordinates of their base of operations and then attempt to contact for aid.”
He looks to Natheus and Deo, their stances rigid in preparation and heads snapped directly at him, awaiting further instructions. “Natheus, make a wide approach toward the facility and enter from the rear, don’t cause a stir. Deo, at least try not to kill anyone unless they get in your way. Boone and I will approach head-on and assault their base of operations. Use the distraction to either summon an ikamanu or commandeer a vessel.”
Next, his visor comes to rest on Boone. “Your Genesis may come in handy for this.” He watches as Boone gives a toothy, sadistic grin before morphing his helmet back up.
At once, they all comply and fall into their assigned tasks, moving with hasty purpose.
THE DIVIDE
As the sounds of gunfire cease, Kitera still remains perfectly frozen in the tall grass, not wanting to move until she knows for certain that the Paragons are victorious.
The jungle falls back to its previous silence, though the leaves are now wavering in the freshness of the light breeze, a welcome air amongst the hot temperatures.
Light footsteps sound behind her, too light to be a casually approaching Paragon, unless he is meaning to sneak up on her. Curiously, Kitera turns her head, and the sight shocks her.
A lone UEU soldier, clad in blue camouflage armour, is approaching her warily, his singular barrelled sniper rifle honed in on her, his transparent visor showing the confusion in his frown.
Kitera refrains from any movement, keeping her eyes locked on his. Not until he stops approaching and seems to be at a loss for what to do, does she decide to chance her fate with movement. Slowly, almost menacingly, she stands from the grass, her hands splayed out at her sides in surrender, but also preparation.
"Don't move!" comes the roar of the scout, lunging his rifle upward to aim at the centre of her skull. She does not react, or appear to be threatened by his demand, her eyes just remain locked to his, staring him down with strange inhuman illusions. He has never seen another woman quite like the one before him now, and something about her is off... creepy. To him, she is not a human, but an unusual creature, and this intimidates him.
"Close your eyes!" he yells at her desperately, voice cracking. "Look away!"
She continues to stare at him, undaunted, her eyes growing in luminosity, a whiteness of silver beyond belief. The air around him falls to chilling temperatures, her eyes glaze over with emptiness, and he can swear that his exhaled breathing is frosted air. Or is this all an illusion?
“Lu’na siilahk,” she hisses slowly, voice an apparition to him.
This makes his skin crawl and his nerves scream at him, switching on an overwhelming pulse through his brain and forcing his finger to tug on the trigger of his rifle and shoot this bizarre creature down, end the enchanting spell of this siren, to be rid of the demon before him.
Before his finger can fall, a daunting shadow encroaches from behind him like the flash of the grim reaper, and his hands are relieved of his rifle with a quick and alarming snatch, followed by a slamming thud to the back of his head with what could only be the rifle stock. He finds himself lurching forward but now sharply righting again, recovering quickly, due to his genetically augmented skeletal frame that all UEU soldiers receive. He attempts to throw his elbow backward to collide with whoever his attacker is, but his attempt is useless as his elbow is caught in a harsh grip and dislocated from its socket. Before he can even release a noise of pained protest fr
om his throat, the powerful and overruling hands of his attacker grasp his temples with severe firmness, alarms erupting behind his eyes like explosions of light, but his life is brought to a merciless end as his neck gives a dry crack.
Kitera stares at Deo as he stares back, his helmet morphing down and forming back behind his neck so he can behold her with clear eyes, watching her eyes fade from their vampiric intensity as the supernatural atmosphere diminishes with the return of her innocence.
The moment is of brief awe, and those fierce eyes of his now grow calm, fire quenched into liquid tenderness. She had been aware of his presence behind the UEU soldier, and she had been compelled to keep the soldier occupied while Deo approached silently, like a predator stalking his prey, ripping it apart like a lion would a baby. He had even spared her a view of bloodshed, whether it was intentional or not.
Silently, Deo offers his Cipher an outstretched hand, and she takes it reluctantly, allowing him to lead her away from the dead body and deeper into the jungle. His grip on her petite hand is surprisingly soft, hands that had just killed now guiding her under protection, and he gently but swiftly pulls her along behind him, guiding her through the safe path that Natheus is providing ahead.
Mazayus and Boone keep at a steady pace, heading where their hijacked instruments guide them. They have utilised the gear from the fallen UEU soldiers, and used it to hack into the portable UEU network, which is centred in a Spartan class warship tagged as the Marauding Exile.
With the added advantage of their datakeys, they can override the disabling frequency to the guardian station, and then use it to provide them with satellite imagery of the jungles and locate any biometric signals of UEU personnel that are tagged to the Marauding Exile. Boone is currently working on overriding the disabling signal, while Mazayus takes point, on alert for any more contacts.
"Almost there," Boone assures, not using the virtual interface of his datakey while he is running. He uses his datakey to override the signal solely with his mind, allowing him to move with haste and to multitask.
Mazayus wields his handguns in a firm grip, both morphed to submachine guns for rapid fire, best applicable for unpredictable situations. The submachine guns are larger with a wider chamber to allow for more rapid oscillation and production of shard fragments. Mazayus has an extended barrel length, stability dampeners to reduce recoil on the thicker shard types, silencers but with reduced velocity, and optional scopes with any desired optical sight.
As Mazayus spots movement up ahead, seemingly heading towards the warship, he trains his dual weaponry in that specific direction, slowing his pace slightly. "Movement," he warns Boone. Boone makes sure to lag behind slightly in response.
Speeding up again, Mazayus pulls ahead and activates his magnified vision with his optical irises, his eyes flashing yellow and mechanistic behind his visor in response. Morphing one of his weapons to a heavy pistol variant, he uses its bright blue laser sight to beam ahead and aid him in taking down his target accurately. With a magnified vision on his eyes and a laser sight on his pistol, Mazayus almost lazily fires a single lightning shard, meeting his target and taking down his kinetic shields successfully, a rare and lucky occurrence for a single lightning shard fragment to disable shields completely. With another shot, Mazayus hits his mark again, now electrocuting his target and forcing him to the ground to writhe in pain.
Satisfied, Mazayus jogs the one hundred metre distance between him and his target, and now casts his pistol on him, seeing the expected camouflage armour and the undeniable green UEU logo. A scout.
Once the man has stopped screaming in high voltage pain, Mazayus demands, "why is the UEU on Olympus?"
The scout just looks up at the visor of the faceless Paragon standing over him, and now looks up the barrel of the pistol aimed at his head.
"Speak!" Mazayus demands again, his voice slightly louder.
"We're here to fix your mistake!" answers the scout, growing braver with anger.
"What mistake?" he asks, mindful of the shard wound in the man’s shoulder, which is bleeding profusely.
"I don't know! Whatever you psychos in Serenity did to this galaxy, it's tearing it apart and killing anyone who can't run fast enough.”
“What was your mission here?”
The scout snarls up at the Paragon in a defiant silence.
Frowning, Mazayus activates the laser sight on his pistol again, letting it fall upon the scout’s forehead. “What was your mission here?” he repeats, allowing the threat to do the work rather than upping the tone of his voice.
Again, the scout does not answer, but when Mazayus fires a warning shot at the ground beside his head, he is compelled. “Alright, fuck! Our mission was to infiltrate an uninhabited Serenity military planet and access the data servers to find anything we could about these events." His drawl almost sounds rehearsed.
"What the hell are you on about?" Boone asks as he catches up to the scene, training the blade of his Phoenix on the scout, his finger poised on the rifle trigger beneath the hilt. An unnecessary move.
"Don't play dumb. This could only be because of the gods, and your Ciphers are the only ones capable of communicating with them. We're not just gonna sit back and let you use the gods to destroy our planets and get the upper hand in this war. I never thought even you could sink as low as killing civilians, you’re savages!" The scout is fuming now, his words burning off his tongue and his eyes wild with hate. "And then it backfired and now you’re in just as much shit as we are! Feels good, huh? You've killed us all! Everyone! Dumb-fucks!"
Mazayus and Boone are utterly confused, passing a glance between each other.
This new information has sent a spike of adrenaline through Mazayus, remembering Kitera's vision. She spoke of fire, and Olympus burning. If planets are truly being destroyed, then her warning may not have been exaggerated like he had initially thought. They need to leave Olympus as soon as possible.
"I will spare your life if you take us to your commanding officer. I assure you, I know nothing about these events, but I wish to discuss this with your leader once we get off the planet. It's not safe here."
"Fuck off to the Underworld, Paragon. Do I look like an idiot? I just watched one of you cyborg fucks rip apart a friend. He was a good man, just doing his duty! He had a fucking wife and kid!” His face crinkles and tears squeeze from his eyes. “Kill me if you want, but my commander knows where you’re all hiding now. All hell will break lose. You’ll all pay for sympathising with gods!" The poisonous reply comes to a halt. Before Mazayus can reply and try to convince the dramatic man that he means no threat to his superior, the scout draws a concealed pistol from somewhere at the back of his armour and prepares to fire.
Even before Mazayus can react and defend himself, a stream of golden particles penetrates the scout's armour and rips through his chest, killing him instantly as his heart is pummelled with countless needles of light. His body is disintegrated. Mazayus casts a sidelong look at Boone, who is still aiming his Phoenix blade at the dead man, the barrel beneath the blade still glowing with diffused entity.
"You're welcome," Boone utters smartly, shouldering his Phoenix.
"That was unnecessary."
"He was gonna shoot you, Maz. I just saved your ass."
"My entity could have absorbed his shots. I still had questions I wanted to ask."
Boone shrugs and mumbles something inaudible, and to that, Mazayus just sighs. "Have you overwritten the signal yet?"
"Yeah, the guardian station is coming back online now. Should only take a few minutes. I’ll try to get hold of someone outside the system so we can find out what the fuck’s going on."
"Good. It sounds like we may have quite the reception waiting for us."
They march on through the jungles, pacing themselves with weaponry primed and footfalls silent.
“So, who do you think it was?” Boone whispers hoarsely, despite the concealed sounds of their intercom.
“What?” Terse.<
br />
“Who killed the other scout. Nathy or D?”
After a moment, “do you really need to ask?”
Deo’s eyes roam the ocean of glades surrounding them, thriving with movement, teasing his keen sight, but this is a secondary focus to the primary.
What is she?
The woman behind him, slender body crimped so near to his, is an enigma to him, one that lives in his nightmares. He can still feel her pale eyes on him, waiting for any sudden movement he may make or any hint to his thoughts. He can hear her soft breaths, wisping through her nose, can feel the subtle vibration of the ground beneath each shift of her limbs, setting off a parade of movement throughout the insects that burrow in the dirt beneath them. To her, all these minuscule details will be silent and numb, undetectable, but to him, his senses are so magnified that he can hear her heartbeat, a steady thump thump thump that assures him she is real.
The most real of all these senses of her is the hand within his, so tiny in comparison that he fears he could crush it with just a squeeze. It is warm. So unexpected. If it were cold, he could just activate his vitasuit’s internal environment and lock out exterior senses, but it is warm. Human.
Why is he so conscious of her? Why is her nearness giving him a wash of warmth rather than chills like usual? Why does her every detail intrigue him?
It must have been that atmosphere she created before, to immobilize the scout in fear, or was it perhaps awe? He had certainly felt in awe, and still does right now. Is she inflicting some sort of spell into him? It would not surprise him, her and her kind, so self righteous and introverted. They expect humanity to trust them when they do not trust humanity.