by Greg Dragon
He watched her expressions to see if she was buying it. If she so much as suggested that she knew what he was, he would have no choice but to snatch her life from her body.
Her expression softened so he continued. “My only recollection of anything was waking up on this ship to strangers and questions that were both hostile and foreign to me.”
Aurora smiled at him and pinched his cheek. She led him to her station where he placed the boxes down neatly at her feet. He made to excuse himself from her presence.
She stopped him. “Hold up, Sako. I am sorry. I have met many Phasers—some have come from the ranks of this very ship and it is a testament to our training and dedication to the cause that it has worked out like that.”
“How come you aren’t a Phaser, Captain SYN?” he asked as she plopped down into her chair and crossed her legs in the most graceful way.
She looked up at him with her large brown eyes and shook her head as if he was hopeless. “I am a navigator, not a field warrior, Sako. The Phasers are shock troops. They are in firefights, sword fights and constant violence. For this, they only recruit the top warriors that excel at combat. There is no place for map pushers and number crunchers. Once you become a Phaser, they take you away from your loved ones – even your family. You belong to their order and for that sacrifice you get all sorts of magical powers and immortality.”
“Immortality!”
“Was that a hiss?” Her eyes grew wide as she looked around. “What in the maker’s name… that was an interesting sound you made just now.” She laughed at him, then covered her mouth. “Wherever are you from?”
“I’m sorry,” Mae said quickly. “It wasn’t a hiss—I was just very surprised. So Phasers cannot die?”
“No, they can’t and this is why they are not allowed to have families, or come to see their sweet baby sister once in a thyping while.” Aurora looked down with some frustration. She shouldn’t have sworn.
She seemed annoyed and Maes surmised that a past lover or family member of hers had become a Phaser. “Do you have someone there?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about that, Sako,” Aurora said. “This was a good talk, but I have work to do. We have files on the Phasers in the ship’s library. Go do some reading – maybe they will sate your curiosity. Do not get your hopes up about joining them, though. It can become obsession and it will lead you to a very uneventful career. Trust me, I have seen it several times before with cadets. It isn’t a pretty picture.”
He thanked Aurora and walked from the bridge to the light-train, where he rode it to the library and pulled up the Phaser archives. However, the information there was either sparse or exaggerated, so they were no help. The Phasers were a mystery, but with Aurora knowing so much and having a loved one within their ranks, he knew he would have to stick close to her. The exchange they’d had earlier revealed to him just how easy she would be to break. All he would have to do was play her until she trusted him. Eventually she would crack and tell him everything he needed to know.
Memory 2
“In time, I will learn how to stay on your good side, Rhee,” Rafian joked as he poured milk into Marian’s glass.
She sat at the tall table, bouncing her right knee rapidly. She always seemed to have limitless energy and could not sit still to save her life. “Ever wonder which one of us is the most messed up?” she asked, looking up at him from her glass.
He sat next to her and rested his left hand on her leg to make her stop. “Sometimes I do, but I settle on me being the crazy one. You are just a spoiled Tyheran that never got used to the words ‘no’, ‘stop it’, or ‘behave yourself.’”
“Well, at least I learned how to love before I became an adult. I really wish I could blink back about fifteen years and make you watch a vid on coupling, companionship, or just general empathy.”
“Although you’re joking, I do hope you realize that I love you, Marian, even in my limited capacity. I do love you,” he said, squeezing her knee gently and staring into her eyes.
The sparks of light that danced around inside of her pupils were jumping around rapidly now. It was how he could tell that she was upset with him.
“I know you do, Rafian, but you and I have very different definitions of the word. Your dealings with the young girls on Helysian and whoever else has been with you has damaged you in ways you will never realize.”
“Okay, that’s enough now,” he said, snatching his hand off of her leg and furrowing his brow with frustration. He knew that she was pressing him like she always did whenever there was a spat.
“Just know that I am not crazy, Rafian VCA. I am just a woman from Tyhera who sees things differently from the marines of that ship where you grew up, okay?”
“The marines on the Helysian see eye to eye with you on matters of trust, love and infidelity, Marian. It was the Jumpers and the dark education that made me into what I am. I will never see sex the way you see it, and like it or not, that makes me a powerful weapon as a Phaser. We use everything at our disposal to get the edge. We use our knowledge, our skills, our weapons and yes, we use our willingness to have sex. This means that eventually you will find yourself in bed with a man that isn’t me, just like I will find myself with other women. Do you not remem—“
“I know what I signed up for, Raf,” she barked at him. The milk was ready to fall from the table as she gestured wildly. Her temper was flaring up but it was too late to rein it in. “Don’t repeat it to me as if I am some newborn, boomer fetus that just hopped onto a planet for the first time. I know that I will thype other men and women when it’s absolutely necessary, but gods damn it Raf, here, where we call home, I will only have sex with you. Is that so much to ask of you in return? As Phasers we own nothing, but as a show of loyalty, commitment and love—and as my chosen life-partner, I ask that you show me some respect and do the same.”
“I am sorry, Marian, how many times must I say it? Should I remove a finger to prove to you that I am finished with that nonsense, or will you be willing to drop it and start fresh with me on my oath?”
“How many women have you slept with here in the city, Raf?”
The question made him pause, since it was direct and unexpected, and as he stalled with indecision, he reminded himself that he was to be completely honest with her. She was beautiful in her black, silken robe, even with her hair wild and unkempt, but the rage that she now held in her eyes made her ugly. Rafian stared at her as he ate his eggs and he knew that lying to her would be the worst thing he could do at that moment.
Thype it all, he thought to himself as he looked up at her. Better to own it and lay it all out in the open than to keep up the lies and the hiding. Face it like a Phaser!
“Karla, Jolani, Marit, Goane, Rita and of course, Tayden. There are others, but the ones I mentioned are—were—regular bouts for me. But of course, you know this from the recruits that you had spying on me.”
Marian began to cry and it surprised Rafian so much that he dropped his eating sticks to rush over and console her. He felt guilty for hurting her with his words and he couldn’t stand to see her cry. When he got to her side, she punched him in the groin so hard that he vomited food all over her arm and collapsed to the ground, holding his crotch.
“You chased me down yesterday, took the time to remind me of a time when I would have cut an arm off just to be with you, and then you tell me this? After all that we have been through, all of what we mean to each other, you still manage to give these unproven crutas what you know is mine? Is variety all that you care about, Rafian? Or is it some strange, perverted mission that you have to thype every woman you consider pretty within your vicinity?”
She reached down and grabbed his arm and helped him to his seat before sitting back down in front of him and brushing the hair out of her face. He was about to speak, but she motioned for him to remain quiet and kept on with the scolding.
“Do you know that I will kill you if you continue to m
ake me feel low like this? Seriously kill you. Without a care for the war, the state of the human race, or whatever prophecy you are fulfilling. You are to make me, your wife—if you can remember—happy, as I am to make you, my husband, happy. Gods know that thyping you daily, joining your war and being there to hear you when you speak has not been enough to make you happy, but it is my charge to keep trying. All I ask in return is that you do the same. For me, it’s easy. All I want is your commitment beyond me wearing your ring and carrying your designated name.”
“You know, Rhee, I really, really, wish you wouldn’t resort to violence with me whenever things are not going your way,” he said as he practiced a monk’s level of patience in keeping his cool. He bit down hard and inhaled slowly. She is worth it, she is worth it, he kept repeating to himself. He looked as if he was about to pass out, and she forced herself not to look at him as the guilt began to take over her.
She got up and washed the vomit from her arm, then brought over a damp cloth to clean him up. He looked at her with fire in his eyes and held his finger up, ready to explain to her just how close he was to doing something rash. She nodded at him to let him know that she would try to control her temper and then began to wipe his face. He stiffened when she touched him, but she whispered apologies into his ear as she caressed him. She was volatile but considering everything they had gone through together, she belonged to him and he needed to forgive her. He let the rage pass and reached around behind her legs and caressed her calves.
“You know what? Don’t change.”
“What makes you say that? I need to change. I punched you in the balls pretty hard just now. That was immature and ridiculous, no matter how upset I was. You’re right about the Tyheran brat being very much a part of me still.”
“You’re a warrior, Marian. Who am I to question your fire when I upset you? I make bad decisions when it comes to women. This has been an issue since my days as a cadet. I am the classic case: a boy that had no attention, who became a man that has too much of it.”
“So do you promise to try, Rafian? Will you stop sleeping around and embarrassing me?”
“Yes. I promise.”
And with that she sat gently on his aching lap and hugged him closely. They sat like that for a long time, thinking about their relationship.
~*~*~*~
“You two been fighting again?” asked Tayden Lark after frowning at Rafian’s tardiness and observing the mechanical way he and Marian hugged each other at the door.
She was in a circular room beneath the base. A large, holographic image of Vestalia floated in the center of the room, showcasing the areas that had bases and prisons owned by the Geralos. This was where Tayden and Rafian would set up attacks and plan strategy, but on most days they used it to get away from the recruits and spend their day talking or making love.
“When aren’t we fighting lately?” Rafian replied.
“Well, if there was an award given out for bad husbands, Raf, I think you would have a case full of them. Not that I’m complaining, but you don’t even try to resist whenever we get cozy down here.”
“It’s not the same when it comes to you, Tay. You know this. What you and I have is not something we can just stop. We have the skin bond…you know as well as I do what that means.”
“Raf, you are so full of it. Just admit that you like thyping me a whole lot and that you don’t want to stop. All of that skin bond nonsense is meant for Camille YAN, since it’s a racial consequence of her Filan blood. What you and I have is just lust—well lust and something else primitive—but you know what I mean. If you want to stop, you need just say the word. I don’t want you to say the word, but at the same time, if I were your wife, I’d make you say the word, or you’d wake up with your you-know-what lopped off by my las-sword.”
“Lop it off and I’d just suicide and clone,” he said with a wink. “But let’s just get to work Tay. We have a lot to cover and the hour is almost near for us to take Soreble back from the lizards.”
Tayden smiled to herself when she noticed that Rafian had changed the subject instead of swearing off sex with her. She walked over to one of the many panels on the deck, and moved her hands around in mid-air to rotate the globe. The city of Soreble had once been the capital of technology for Vestalia, but the Geralos had converted it into a feeding plant for their psionic agents.
“You know as well as I do what lies in wait in this city, Rafian. How do you propose we move on a place whose inhabitants can see into the future and no doubt know what we have in store for them?”
“They may be able to borrow our abilities to see the future, rurit, but their ability is limited. Let me ask you this. Does seeing a future where you get killed by an unknown source change just because you can see it before it happens?”
His use of the term “rurit” bothered Tayden. It was a term of affection he had given her due to what he believed was her resemblance to the tiny, spotted, squirrel-like creatures that lived all over Meluvia. Tayden had tiny freckles all over her face, so Rafian had joked with her about her being a tiny, but deadly rurit. She had always liked the idea of being his rurit, but with his marriage to Marian and the reminder that her love was merely borrowed, the name felt cheap and dirty. She wanted him to stop using it.
“I’m no longer your ‘rurit,’ Rafian. You have a wife.” She stopped and held his perplexed glaze for a time to make sure he understood that she was being serious.
“Alright, Tayden, I won’t call you that any more. What’s wrong now? Have I offended you?”
“From now on, no pet names, okay? No spooning and no more of anything that will make me look at what we have as anything more than a thype. You got it? And, as to your question—of course the ability to see the future alters my chance of being killed. I would know to duck, dodge, or throw up shields in time when the attack begins.”
“What if it comes from all sides and you are unable to see clearly how you will be hit?”
“That sounds like I would need to call you and all of our Phasers, before evoking my last rites. Possibly for me, I would want to make sure the cloner is set to take me when it happens. It would be the end, but at least with knowing it is coming, I can prepare.”
“Exactly! That is what I wanted you to understand. We have the crystals and the Geralos don’t. We’ll kill them, and they won’t be able to stop us. We will drop a hundred Phasers on them and hold the line until our brothers and sisters can liberate the city. We jump into the center of the operation, cut the leaders down and when the boys and girls come pouring down hell from all angles, the most the lizards can do is fold up and die.”
Tayden stared at him. “The amount of fire I see in your eyes when you explain this move makes me excited, Rafian. I know that the other Phasers will be fired up, too. I think that this will be a great operation for us, but what do we do about the eventual counter? Reinforcements will come when we hit that city.”
“I thought about that, too, but it’s rather standard. Yuth Variance awaits us on Geral to supply a nice distraction during the operation. Val Tracker will be planet-side, taking his rangers into the heart of hell.” He pointed to a base outside of Soreble. “They’ll be scrambling – it is how we have always won against them. Simultaneous strikes at key points, to force them to decide on where to send help. The places that they leave open, we will burn to the ground. The lizards are terrible at defense, even more than we were when they came at us the first time and took this planet. Phasers are a weapon; there is no defense that can stop us.”
“You’ve got that right, Commander.”
“We will continue to massacre them until they voluntarily leave our home. And when they do, we will not relent. I will take our best onto the planet of Geral and turn it into a charred version of the swampy hellhole that it is right now.”
Tayden liked to hear Rafian fired up. It was the way she remembered him, before he’d jumped to the Lucan galaxy, lost his memory and returned with M
arian. After they had liberated the Jumpers from their leader and converted it into the new Phaser Agency, Rafian had become somewhat of a stifled, lovesick version of himself. She had told him this several times, but this was the first time she’d seen real glimpses of the old Raf.
“So where do we begin, Raf? What do you want me to do?”
“I’m going to call Val. I want you to make the call to Frank. We need him ready to command a fleet of fighters, with aims at crippling that destroyer. In the next month, I want us to be on our way into Soreble to liberate the humans there and to rack up a lizard body count that would make our dead ancestors proud.”
“Wait, Raf. This doesn’t feel right without Camille. Have you heard anything about her sentence, or are we to assume that she is gone for good and will not be returning to the fight?”
Rafian looked at Tayden as if she had just said the silliest thing he’d ever heard in his life.
“You know more than anyone else what Camille means to me, Tayden. Even if the military sentenced her to life in prison, or death, I would not stand by and let it happen. We aren’t a part of their rules or politics anymore.”
“You should have married her, Rafian. She joined the Jumpers with you just to remain by your side and what did you do? Huh? You brought a beautiful alien woman home from your mission and left her hanging. A part of me thinks that she’s fine, just on a ship staying far away from you.”
Rafian looked at Tayden wearily. He couldn’t believe that she would place the blame on him for Camille’s departure.
“Okay, first of all, my thyping memory was wiped. Remember? I came back with Marian because she, who I married while I was on that mission, was—I mean, is—the love of my life. I didn’t marry her to hurt Cammy. Hell, had I known… damn it, Tayden.” He wanted to walk out on her.
“I haven’t seen my friend for over a year and you haven’t mentioned her, so I asked.”
“Camille is supposedly getting treatment for her mental issues—of which I have no idea since she was perfectly sane—but the intelligence I received said that she was still being treated.”