by C. C. Ekeke
That was when Liliana slammed down on the ordnance consoles. The viewscreen lit up with the brilliant red flurry of a repeated plasma burst bombardment. Volley after volley; Liliana opened up more streams of green along the betelydra’s face and huge fleshy body. The mind-shorn beast swung its massive head away to avoid the torrent, but the red plasma bursts kept pecking away at its everything.
“Back! Off!” Liliana shouted, and launched three quantum missiles. A thick limey cloud erupted from the betelydra’s neck after the first missile struck, enough for the gastropod to swing away. As it fled, the massive foot batted the other two missiles right back at the Phaeton.
Liliana shrank back, her stomach dropping. The ship was helpless.
Both missiles sailed safely over the Phaeton, exploding behind it. V’Korram stirred, but didn’t wake. The detonations still rocked the ship, but by the impact, they clearly hit something else. Liliana quickly switched the mainscreen’s view to that of Phaeton’s rear to see what the missiles hit. For the briefest instant, where the two explosions struck—the outline of a huge shrouded vessel lit up.
Liliana felt the Phaeton suddenly drift freely through space. “The explosions must’ve killed the tractor beam,” she breathed and then timidly worked the helm controls. At the sound of the stellar drives’ regular humming noise, Liliana nearly sobbed with joy.
“Thank you, God of the Holy Trinity,” she clasped her hands together and then punched the throttle. The Phaeton responded readily and rocketed away from the shrouded ship, which again disappeared from sight. The doctor took a quick scan of the viewscreen and the helm console to find a clear path to Alorum.
What she saw was the disfigured betelydra, thrashing all over space in its death throes. It took all her willpower to ignore the sight. Helm sensors detected more z-bombs popping up, surrounding the Phaeton. Clearly the work of the Korvenite warship, wherever it was now, Liliana realized. She only had one option to save herself and V’Korram. Her hands trembled when she punched in the coordinates.
Liliana looked to Alorum’s pockmarked surface one last time as the stars around it blurred into one dazzling tapestry from the hyperspace slingshot jump.
She just wished she hadn’t squealed like a ten-year-old beforehand.
The situation had escalated beyond Honaa Ishliba’s worst nightmares. Khrome stood facing Marguliese’s suspended body, clenching and unclenching his massive metal fists. The Rothorid saw a venomous gleam in the Thulican’s golden eyes. Maelstrom was behind him, a tall and sinister specter.
The effects of Maelstrom’s attack were finally wearing off Habraum, who struggled to his feet. Sam was up to a knee and Tyris began stirring. Honaa couldn’t move. His body was still searing inside out, his mind dazed by the Korvenites breaching of Alorum’s Light. And how Maelssstrom even knows Marguliessse isss a Cybernarr. The Brigadiers were still in their UComm officer uniforms, now ruined by Maelstrom’s earlier assault.
“The choice is obvious, my young friend,” Maelstrom said softly. “Destroy it and free your friends.”
“Khrome, no!” Habraum cried raggedly, “Don’t let him bate you—AAAH!”
Maelstrom’s responding telepathic attack sent a convulsive shudder through Habraum, as it did to Honaa and every other Brigadier. Not unbearable memories this time, just raw pain—knifing into the Rothorid’s scaly skin, squeezing each muscle fiber, crackling through his bones like lightning. Every Star Brigadier crumpled to the floor in a fit of excruciating spasms. The Rothorid clawed at his own body, his jaws opened to scream, but even drawing breath hurt too much.
“No!” Khrome yelled, turning toward the others. Maelstrom stalled him with a raised hand.
“I asked Khromulus, not a committee.” The Korvenite turned back to the Thulican. Khrome scowled and finally cocked both fists to strike Marguliese down. His movements, however, betrayed hesitation.
Maelstrom saw this uncertainty and leaned closer to Khrome’s ear. “This Cybernarr and its kind held your homeworlds hostage for decades.” The llyriac’s tone remained at a level of casual menace. “You’ve wanted it dead since the moment you met it, Khromulus. Strike down this beast and free your comrades.”
Marguliese floated, body frozen in place. Her eyes never left Khrome’s.
“Don’t let any loyalties to him blind you.” Maelstrom stabbed a finger at a felled Habraum. “You are saving his miserable life. Now end hers!” Khrome slowly cocked his fists back again, about to strike Marguliese’s helpless form. Then he hesitated, shaking his head.
“Finish her, Khromulus,” Maelstrom hissed, losing patience.
Khrome whirled and rammed a rocket-launcher of an uppercut to Maelstrom’s jaw, sending him flying back. But the Korvenite slowed his flight, just shy of hitting the room’s far wall.
Khrome, giving Maelstrom no time to recover, hovered off the ground and barreled after the terrorist. “I do NOT negotiate with terrorists, you vile excuse for an organic!”
Honaa’s hope surged through his pain. Don’t showboat. Strike him quickly Khromulus.
Maelstrom rubbed his jaw and cracked his neck. “I felt that,” he remarked peevishly as the burly Thulican sped at him, but far too calm for Honaa’s liking.
The Korvenite glared directly at Khrome—who right then let out a caustic screech, and dropped like a stone in mid-flight. Honaa’s hope plummeted as well, knowing Maelstrom had lanced into the Thulican’s neuronet with a knife-like drill. Khrome’s physical power can’t save him now, Honaa agonized. In the realm of telepathy, Maelstrom had no peer.
Unable to control his momentum, the Thulican tumbled and scraped up the flooring, halting in a heap at Maelstrom’s feet. But the Korvenite paid him no heed, now fixated on the floating Marguliese. “Since our ‘humanized’ Thulican here couldn’t finish the job, you’ll forgive me if I end him first?”
Marguliese’s cerulean eyes were murderous. She whispered four words. “I will…kill you.”
Maelstrom chuckled. “You and what Star Brigade?” He pointed at her and several bright psionic bolts issued forth. Marguliese’s body shuddered violently, enveloped by radiant forks of psionic lightning. With a lazy flick of the wrist, the Cybernarr was thrown backward, hitting the vast viewport suddenly, savagely and slid down the fractured viewport to the floor in a lifeless heap. A messy streak of gooey amber fluids trailed her slide.
Satisfied, Maelstrom turned back to Khrome. “It pains me to see a scion of the Twin Spheres so neutered by human ways. But I have neither the patience, nor palette for your lack of vision…Thulican.”
Khrome clutched at his own head with gritted teeth. Through the haze of pain, the Thulican stubbornly rose to his feet, swinging weakly at his attacker in the process. Maelstrom calmly stepped back, drilling deeper still into Khrome’s neuronet, sending the powerhouse back down to his knees.
“Before you die, Khromulus, know that it wasn’t I who killed Star Brigade,” Maelstrom said softly, both eyes pulsating with power. “It was you…you and your droid bitch.”
Khrome’s head jerked back and he screamed loud enough to shatter viewports. But it was not a scream of pain or shock, only irrepressible hatred for his foe. Habraum awoke to the sound of it, as did the other Brigadiers, just in time to hear Maelstrom bark something harshly in Korcei.
A number of BAMF noises went off around the room, the transmat of more beings into the room. Honaa didn’t want to look, but he fought up onto one elbow anyway. At least 20 Retributionaries, covered from head to toe in golden body armor. They had him, Habraum, Sam and Tyris completely surrounded. Maelstrom looked up from his torture of Khrome and stared right at Star Brigade’s Cercidalean leader.
“This isn’t over, Maelstrom.” Habraum began. “I’ll—.” He couldn’t finish, overwhelmed by another telepathic jolt that left him wheezing.
“It was over the moment you stepped foot on Alorum’s Light,” The Korvenite smirked, not heeding the screeches from Khrome. “Even if Khromulus hadn’t caved under Union falsities, i
t wouldn’t have mattered. I’m told your vessel has left.” At first Honaa didn’t believe him. V’Korram and Liliana fled? But it quickly made sense. They had no right bringing such unproven Brigadiers into the field.
“Clearly you have failed another team, Captain Nwosu.” Honaa wasn’t even the target, but those words stung worse than any of Maelstrom’s psychic attacks. Habraum looked thoroughly stricken, deflating in both physical and emotional agony.
The Retributionaries moved in closer. The heat from their torso cannons swept over the Brigade.
Khrome was now curled up on the floor, hands clamped over his auditory nodes. Maelstrom cast one last glare at the rest of the Brigade; not a shred of mercy lived there. “[Kill the humans first,]” he commanded the Retributionaries in Korcei. “[Their stench fouls the nitrogen we breathe.]” He returned his focus back to Khrome and the Thulican’s screams started anew.
This is my doing, Honaa fretted, his mind on the supposedly successful mission of the UComm Joint Task Force from four years past. How arrogant they had all been, conducting only a cursory scan of Maelstrom’s ruined HQ, not thoroughly confirming this monster’s death. I won’t make that mistake again. Honaa crawled forward on his belly, as fast as his pain-riddled limbs would allow, close as he dared to Maelstrom. Honaa pressed both hands flat to the ground, focused his matter distorting powers with the intent to destabilize the floor just enough, and trap these murdering Korvenites within it …
Only a faint crackle of energy between his taloned fingers answered, having no effect on the floor. Disbelief splashed cold over his pain. “No!” he hissed to himself. Of all the times, not now. Fluctuation was the first sign, Honaa’s doctor had told him. His symptoms were supposed to be scarce, the affliction still in the early phases. I was supposed to have time! Yet the moment Honaa needed his maximal abilities the most, the ‘fades’ had advanced.
Two Retributionaries grabbed Habraum and Sam by the throats with metal-covered fingers to hoist them up high in the air. The arms of the Retributionaries holding Habraum and Sam coursed with psionic energy, running through the humans like a conduit, setting them alight.
One Retributionary slammed an armor-covered knee into Honaa’s back to hold him down. The Rothorid barely felt that or the forearm digging into the back of his neck, only the numbing fear of his failure. Another armored Korvenite held down Tyris, who fought with all his fading strength. Honaa’s captor sent a hundred telepathic spikes into him, making his muscles twitch and tremble. The sworn duty I’ve prided everything in…can’t end like this… beaten and weak while my teammates die.
Sam and Habraum’s bodies had gone limp, glowing impossibly bright as psychic energy consumed them. Khrome’s screams had grown too faint to hear…drowned out by a loud rumbling. Bright orange lights flooded the room through the viewports. He saw the KIF and Maelstrom arguing frantically in Korcei. Habraum and Sam had been dropped to the floor. Why were they still alive?
A second blast flared up in front of the cracked viewport. The Retributionaries cringed back. Maelstrom tried settling them with calm words in Korcei. At this point, Star Brigade wasn’t the immediate threat. Habraum crawled closer to his team with the obvious question. “What just happened?”
“An attack…via quantum missiles,” said Tyris weakly, still on his back.
Sam winced as she crept forward. “By who?”
“Cortés.” Hearing her own name, she glanced back to see V’Korram awake and propped against the wall holding his injured ribs. That glimpse was all Liliana could afford. Too much was happening at once and her fear was so enormous. If she stopped maneuvering the Phaeton’s helm controls for one moment, her resolution would fragment.
How Liliana gathered up the courage to slingshot jump into Alorum’s atmosphere, not crash and score two hits on a Protectorate base was beyond her. “I just attacked a Protectorate,” she whimpered at the viewscreen. “I’m going to get in so much trouble!”
“Cortés?” The doctor yelped. Suddenly V’Korram stood at her side. His tawny fur disheveled, ginger mane tossed back. Obvious pain and confusion crossed V’Korram’s bloodied muzzle, not his usual boorish scowl. “How did we get through Alorum’s atmosphere?” he growled.
“Cantexplaingottafly,” Liliana blurted out and didn’t look back. Straight below on the Phaeton’s viewscreen sat the black, circular structure that was Alorum’s Light, firmly nestled in its lofty nook of mountains. Liliana’s focus was on her teammates, in spite of her terror. The Phaeton still had one more quantum missiles to spare, but she had to find weak points in the base’s shielding, then transmat CT-1 off. That’s the plan, Liliana recounted, then fretted, if CT-1’s not already dead.
The Phaeton’s proximity and FFD detectors blared at out-of-control volumes, but Liliana didn’t need those to tell her there was a problem. The viewscreen showed several dots of glowing bullion pop out among the dark pinnacles surrounding the Protectorate. The many photon batteries of Alorum’s Light jutted out of rocky hideaways, a rumbling chorus of shifting rock, all targeting the Star Brigade ship. One flash after another streaked across the skies, and the mountains lit up by nonstop photon discharges.
Four photon blasts scorched forward. On instinct Liliana snaprolled the Phaeton left with a terrified squeal, way off the photon blasts’ line of attack. The abrupt maneuver sent V’Korram stumbling, but the discharges merely scorched past the Star Brigade cruiser’s belly.
More shots fired. Liliana squealed again, but still pulled up over them. Alorum’s Light loomed closer, and its barrage of photon charges intensified like a photonic hailstorm. Growing flight skill or not, Liliana couldn’t evade them all. Three discharges rocked the Phaeton’s wing and nose, but did minimal damage to the forward shields. Liliana’s gritted teeth chattered. “Don’t want to take any more of those,” she muttered, after skimming over the damage readouts.
“Have you breached the Protectorate’s shielding?” V’Korram asked.
“While dodging volleys from a previously friendly base?” she snapped. “No, I didn’t squeeze that in!” The Phaeton jarred from two more photon shots. Liliana turned back to dodging the photon fire, waiting for a reprimand. Instead, the Kintarian moved to the other end of the helm, sat down with one arm clutching his ribs and went to work.
“Focus on flying. I’ll find a…way.” V’Korram’s green-flecked eyes went wide. “By the Maker.”
Between maneuvering the ship around and checking damage reports, Liliana noticed that Alorum’s Light’s entire defensive array had stopped firing at the Phaeton. A blazing shower of photon fire erupted up into the dark clouds. Liliana looked in that direction, entirely shocked to see the sky burning bright orange. The light grew so potent, it splashed the grey mountains with a dazzling flood of radiance, the likes of which Alorum had rarely seen. Liliana and V’Korram’s confusion grew as the rising and falling rumble drowning out the photonic barrage lancing the roiling clouds. The heavens seemed to clear its throat in anticipation, the unusual brightness growing in span and intensity above the Protectorate. Liliana kept on flying toward Alorum’s Light, with one eye on this eerie display. V’Korram looked absolutely transfixed by it.
And then the Alorum skies belched out a gigantic, blazing mass, trailing miles of smoke in its wake. A meteor? An asteroid? Whatever it was, the flaming bulge plunged swiftly from the heavens, bathing Alorum’s surface in a blinding glow. The volley after volley of battery fire from Alorum’s Light reached blinding and blistering levels, scarcely even slowing the plummet.
Awe gave way to horror once Liliana grasped the ‘asteroid’s’ true nature. “V’Korram…hurry.”
“[What do you mean, it followed the Phaeton to the surface? I was told the Phaeton slew the creature and fled.]” Maelstrom asked coolly in Korcei, but his eyes betrayed fury. The asteroid’s descent from the heavens lit up the room through its fractured viewport. Honaa understood every word thanks to neuronanocytes in his brain, programmed with Korcei from four years ago.
“[The creature was too wounded to be controlled,]” a Retributionary responded, though obviously terrified. “[and followed the ship.]”
“What are they nattering on about?” Habraum whispered to Sam.
“My Korcei’s not quite conversational, but,” Sam looked pained as she crawled forward. “Its about…a ship attacking Alorum’s Light and a betelydra falling from the sky?”
“What?” Tyris’s voice like a sharp slash of wind.
“That’s what I hear—.” The rest of Sam’s reply was lost in a fit of coughing.
“Easy, Sammie,” Habraum coaxed her back to a crouched position.
“That explainsss the brightnessss.” Honaa’s gaze came to rest on Khrome, still clutching his head in fetal position and then Marguliese’s stilled body. A chill went through him.
Maelstrom glanced at his beaten adversaries. The outside radiance gleamed off his pitch-black eyes. “Are all our brethren off Alorum’s Light?” he asked another Retributionary in Standard.
“[Yes, Lord.]”
“Then kill Star Brigade.” He was about to tap on his gauntlet, most likely a transmat beacon.
“Maelssstrom.” Everyone in the room turned at the sound of Honaa’s guttural hiss. He could barely sit up properly. “You and I have unfinished busssinessss!”
The Korvenite terrorist stared back at Honaa for a long moment, his chalk-white face unreadable. “You’re right,” he decided. “Kill the Rothorid first.” On those orders, the Retributionaries lined up before the Rothorid like a firing squad.
“Honaa—,” Sam grabbed at him, and the Rothorid gave her a hard shove away from the line of fire. The Korvenites’ arms raised, torso cannons primed to fire. The fiery orange glow flooding through the viewport shimmered off their golden uniforms. Honaa struggled up to a crouch. Every iota of his pain-ridden body screamed in objection. He had no clue how to defend himself in this condition, but Honaa had failed in his duty to exterminate Maelstrom four years ago. I will die trying if I must—.