by Greg Dragon
~*~*~*~
Rafian sat between Marian’s legs in the warm water of their bath. She touched the wet sponge to his scalp as he stared off into space, trying to remember where he was.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, Rafian, but I don’t want you doing this anymore.”
“I don’t plan to,” he said.
“Did the Makers tell you what would happen to you if you kept on doing it?”
“Makers? What ar—oh, you mean the mind thing. Yeah, they said I would die, permanently. Stuck in the planes of thought, or something like that. I was to use it only once, heh.” He grinned like a fool as Marian continued to sponge his head. He rested his forearms against her knees and watched the strange flaky residue of the soap float around him, inside of the emerald water. “I love you, Marian.”
The sponging stopped as Marian leaned into him and hugged him close. She rested her head against his back. “I love you too, Raffy.”
She wanted to say more, to scold him for risking death to perform that strange ritual, and to ask him why he had done it. But she didn’t; she chose instead to trust him in his promise that he would never do it again. She began to imagine how life without him would feel and it scared her in ways she had never felt before in the past. Why did she need him so? She tried to think of her goals and aspirations before he had come into her life and she realized they had all been superficial ones, based on the Felitian way of life. Here in Anstractor she was an honorary Vestalian, sworn to the cause of saving a planet ravaged by invaders, and in love with the man who would have them punished for it. She was his right hand and she got to see the man behind the legend, intimately and at her behest. Without him, she was just an alien, far away from home. At home she was a traitor and everything she knew had gone up in flames. She squeezed him tightly as she thought on all of this, then cleared her mind and resumed her sponging.
“I will not lose you, Rafian. Not to the Geralos and not to this mind thing. So promise me again that you will never do it again.”
“You have my word, Marian. Unless the Makers fix it so that it is no longer deadly for me to do it, I will not tempt fate again.”
They sat quietly after that, the only sound the water from the sponge being squeezed over his head. Before long, Rafian VCA was asleep. He dreamed of many things, and some seemed more than dreams as he floated through the span of space and time. There were images of Camille and two mysterious women, flying away from a Geralos battleship whose trace lasers lanced this way and that, trying in vain to pick them off. Camille showcased her masterful flying skills and stayed out of the range of the shots as she made to rendezvous with her fleet. He saw Laern, locked in a deadly gunfight alongside blurry soldiers who were dressed in green. He had a tattoo across the left side of his face written in Louine.
Rafian’s visions were a mixture of clear faces with blurred background images and it was as if he was a giant voyeur, rotating a globe of events within his hands, once in a while stooping close to peer within it, to see what was happening to the people inside. The dreams felt lucid, but try as he did, he could not control himself, or wake up. He was an aware prisoner, being made to look in on the lives of those he cared about. Little Ian materialized in front of him, screaming bloody murder as his father ran with him, cradling him as a portion of the base they were in was blown open. The blast doors quickly slammed behind them as many, blurry people were sucked out into space to die.
The father running with his child triggered another memory and before long he found himself falling towards the big blue orb of Vestalia. It was a different Vestalia, but he knew that it was her. The clouds parted as he fell to reveal ancient airplanes, exotic birds and radio signals being transmitted from space. As he drifted down in freefall, he saw tall buildings, roads crisscrossing like scattered yarn, and tiny, ant-like vehicles crawling along their length in cadence. This was Vestalia the way it was before the Geralos. He liked this vision and he closed his eyes and felt the breeze against his face. He tried to open his eyes but to no avail. When he finally could, he was a few hundred feet above the lanes of a highway and as he fell towards the ground, he suddenly began to panic.
The fall broke the coma and he sat up in bed, drenched in sweat and looking around to see if he could recognize where he was. He was in a large room and as he looked around for signs of Marian, he noticed the time. It was very late. I wonder how long I’ve been out, he thought to himself as he held his head and got up.
“Marian! “He shouted into the air.
Only silence returned and he got up and walked to the door. He opened it to a bright light and several people talking in hushed voices.
~*~*~*~
The scene was that of a party without music. There was a large living room with scattered chairs everywhere. The attendants all wore robes and seemed to be representatives of several planets. There was even a governor of Traxis in attendance and a set of beautiful blue twins from Louine. Marian was holding court with Cero and a number of his aides. When they all saw him emerge from the room, they greeted him with loud applause—it seemed like they were in a hotel and they had all been waiting for him to arise. Marian made to get up as he pulled his robe tight to cover his nakedness, but he stopped her with his hand and began to speak.
“Rhee, can these people be trusted?” he asked in Tyheran, making sure to avoid eye contact with any of the thirty pairs of amused eyes that looked upon him in awe.
“Yes Raf, I sent for them to be here. This is—“
“Leaders of the alliance, I appreciate and love my wife so much for having you here to see me. I am Seeker and the way of the visions present themselves in the most sporadic and inconvenient ways at times—but we must heed them, as they are given to us for a reason. I have learned much from my invasion of the Geralos mind and the long sight that it gave me afterwards. I would implore you to take notes, if you can, and send it to all intelligence agencies across the galaxy.”
He grabbed a chair and then placed it in front of the door as he used an arm to prop himself up, since he felt lethargic. Marian moved over to him and injected something into his arm. It seemed to help quite a bit as he felt himself grow stronger as he spoke. “The Geralos now know that we can do to them what they have been doing to us for decades. I have corrupted one of their leaders.” He looked at Marian as her sad eyes revealed disappointment with the reminder that she had almost lost him due to it. “I was able to save Cero Dillis, but I will not be doing it again. This ‘gift’ of mine was made to be used only once and I have done it twice, at the risk of my own life.”
Marian poured water into a glass and helped him drink it, soothing his parched throat.
He continued. “One of the things I want to inform the alliance of is that corruption is not a permanent curse like we believe it to be. The Geralos comes and goes into the person’s mind at will, but that person is still his or her self. They just get pushed out temporarily while the mind-stealer controls them. Due to this, I would encourage your scientists to find a way to prevent them from getting in. We need something permanent and mass produced. You can use the technology of this Louine COREX helmet as your source of study. The Louines may have stayed out of the fight, but they are geniuses. Use their tech, reverse engineer it. Find us some defense against the brain invaders.”
The room broke out in cheers as the happy attendants passed the helmet around, examining its alien design and making comments on its beauty. Rafian let them talk to one another for a time, then resumed his speech, speaking even louder above the noise.
“All of Geral isn’t bad,” he said and a few gasps followed by silence let him know that he had their attention. “That planet is ruled by an ambitious group of world conquerors, but its people are as varied and complex as we all are. I learned this—not from my visions, or my studies—but from my first mission as a cadet, when I was made to sneak amongst them and steal a vessel to leave their planet. We must not be blinded by hate if we are to win. We
need to be focused, together and relentless at putting a stop to what they are planning. They wanted to use Vestalia’s resources as a means to grow an armada, one that is human-run, corrupt and extremely effective, but we thought they took us over to eat our brains. How wrong we were! Galactic domination, ladies and gentlemen – the Geralos are more than the lizards we want them to be.
“This armada that they set out to build would take on the forces of Meluvia, Genese, Traxis and Casan. The massive flotillas of your military would be rocked and decimated. These fanatics believe that Anstractor was once a galaxy where they were the only intelligent race across all the planets. The legend they believe say that one of their scientists began to experiment with genetics and planted samples on several worlds. These samples became all of our ancestors—can you see that? They think that we are of them. The Vestalian, the Meluvian—you get my point.”
“So what do we do against them, Phaser?” asked a woman seated in the room.
“We must take the fight to Geral.”
“Are you crazy?” Cero exclaimed, his eyes wide as he looked around for reassurance from the others listening. “Rafian, my friend. My gratitude knows no bounds for you saving my life, but we cannot fight an extended war on that poisonous, jungle planet.”
“Who said anything about an extended war? We need everyone in the fight to snuff out the Geralese government. One thousand battleships deploying aces and hardened soldiers on the surface would shut down the Geralos war machine faster than we think. We must work together, or we will continue to fight defensively for several lifetimes until they take over Anstractor once and for all.”
Silence drifted across the room and Rafian knew that his words had sunk in, but he was not feeling positive that they would listen to him. He often wondered how he would save Vestalia and make it impossible for any outsiders to take the planet again. No matter how skilled and awesome his Phasers were, they would never be enough to do the job alone. But getting diplomats to risk a cushy life of war-dodging to take up arms was an impossible task on its own. The visions he had seen showed people fighting, but they were mostly Marines, star fighters from alliance ships, and of course his own Phaser agents. The allied planets had always helped Vestalia, but they had never brought the sort of force that was needed to end the Geralos, once and for all. He thought of how the rebels on Luca had tried in vain to overthrow their overlord and he wondered if his Phasers were nothing more than a mirrored version of that. The thought made him feel defeated.
“Well, I’ve said my piece and I know you won’t budge just because I asked you to. Just think on what I have said today and take it back to your leaders. Do not wait until their saucer-like drop ships are thick in your atmosphere, deploying killers and brain-biters to ravage your people and take your land. Vestalia did that and look where we are now. We must act fast, but I know you need time. The Geralos have been growing in number, improving in technology and divvying up the galaxy while we play war with their petty soldiers. Please think on my words tonight and think on what it would mean for us to do this together.”
~*~*~*~
Laern Cobo pulled the cloak tight against his face as the rain fell in sheets and doused everything it could, including his fatigues. They were on Meluvia, on the outskirts of Garse, the city of the untainted. They had landed Val’s large ‘copter in the backyard of the people’s church and if that hadn’t annoyed them, the presence of technology within their walls surely did. The soldiers were not given passage to walk through Garse and were forced to go around it—which resulted in them having no eaves to hide under as it began to rain.
Laern looked around at the short, brick buildings that made up the “city” and it impressed him that so many people could live off planted food, well water and animals. As a child he had heard about the Cynetari people: they were reclusive, mysterious and they hated Meluvians like himself who embraced technology. When he had emerged from the ‘copter next to Val, they had given him the nastiest of looks, disappointed that a Meluvian would be flying around with an outsider. Even worse was that this outsider was in a loud and frightening machine. When he saw the twisted features of the Cynetari, it had made his blood run cold. They seemed mutated, with ears at odd angles and teeth that were black and crooked. They wore rags and carried primitive, blunt instruments. Even the few women he saw were monsters and it made him glad that they weren’t hospitable. Better to soak in the rain than be under the same roof with those creatures.
He had come along with Val Tracker at the big man’s behest, and it was some welcome action after days of inactivity. After the talk he’d had with Rafian, Tayden Lark had stopped using him for missions and he wondered if this was coincidence, or whether the lead Phaser had instructed her not to do so. He was trying his best not to be resentful of Rafian. The man was a hero, a legend and any number of other labels used to praise one of his qualities, but he had been less than supportive of Laern’s ambitions. He tried not to think about it and fall into the abyss of guessing at his commander’s moods, choosing instead to walk over to Val “The Vin’yn” to see if the bronzed giant had any words of wisdom for him.
“Gimme a good reason why you’ve left your post soldier,” Val barked at him and it made Laern stop in his tracks until Val broke out laughing at the expression that was on his face. “Boy, you look scared as schtill! I thought you Phasers were not allowed to nut up like this. What would old Rafian think?”
“He’d probably agree, being that he thinks I am a failure who is unworthy of the black and red.”
“Don’t start with the whining, leaf-mane. It isn’t very manly.”
“No, no whining from me, Colonel. Just telling the truth, is all. What are we out here doing, anyway? We must have marched through ten miles of sheer bush to get here.”
Val Tracker looked at Laern Cobo with a hint of pity. It meant a lot for a soldier to be chosen as a Phaser agent, but it meant even more to be cosigned by the big three: Rafian, Tayden and Camille—in that order. If Laern thought that Rafian was disappointed, it meant that he probably was. How lucky for him that of all the skilled Phasers on the planet, he would be stuck with a black sheep – probably so void of confidence, that he would become a liability.
“Listen to me, Phaser. Let’s leave Rafian be, alright? We’re out here to do recon and all I need you to do is keep your head up and your thyping eyes open.”
As if on cue, a rustling came from in front of them and a beast of many legs came rushing at them. One shot of Val’s plasma pistol stopped it short. The loud gunshot caused the curious Cynetari to gasp at the audacity of an outsider brandishing a firearm on their land and wasting an animal that would normally mean days of eating for their tribe. They could not stand for it and before long, a mob of people rushed at them to collect the beast and take it back to the town square.
“Okay, I don’t know how much more of these dirty people I can take, Colonel. We Meluvians are extremely disciplined people when it comes to cleanliness and I feel like I want to throw up.”
“Really? What if I told you that part of the mission is to intermingle with these people? Eat their broiled beast feet, sleep with their whores and sit in a circle on their soil, throwing up prayers to their gods. Are you going to not play along because it isn’t ‘clean’?”
“I—didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that… Maker’s fist man, I have never seen Meluvians this disgusting in all my life!”
“We’re supposed to help these people,” Val said dryly.
Laern looked at him as if he wanted to cry. “Help them, how? It’s only the two of us.”
“I didn’t want to alarm you, boy, but that big city you see up there? It’s about to get rocked, and down here in the world of the untouchables, we have the advantage of preparing a counter-attack that could save lives. Drop that crystal I asked you to bring and once my demons start pouring out of that magical hole it makes, you go back into that city and you find a way to get those people to understa
nd that it’s about to get real.”
Laern was shocked at what Val was saying to him, but he obeyed and opened the tear so that the Phasers who were ready could walk through, accompanied by Val’s marines. As this began to happen, the Cynetari became agitated and he ran back to them, waving his arms and trying to explain that they were there to protect them. The leader of the Cynetari told the men above the wall of the city to open the gates as soon as Laern approached them. He walked out to meet the Phaser, accompanied by guards brandishing bows and arrows.
“This is almost comical,” Laern said under his breath, and then waited for the leader to approach him and begin talking.
The man’s breath stunk and it was all Laern could do not to turn around and let the dirty wretch suffer whatever fate had in store for him.
“Why are you here, outsider who looks like us?”
“We are here to help the Cynetari people.”
“Our village does not bother you people of the skies. We do not ask anything, nor do we interfere with your affairs. We have only a few acres of Meluvia for ourselves and I ask that you honor the peace that you promised us when we seceded from this country.”
“Oh, you think me a government official, or—no, no, no, I am a Phaser – a protector of Anstractor. I am here because you are in danger. I don’t want your land, or to disrupt your way of life. But in a few days this place is going to—“
As soon as he said this, Laern was knocked down on his face without warning. He picked himself up from the mud to see who had attacked him, and realized that a bomb had gone off. Half of the village was embroiled in flames. The city of Dystalis that once stood like a crystal crown above the stone buildings of Garse was now crumbling slowly down from the cliffs, into the sewage lake that separated the two. The bomb had been large and lethal and when Laern looked to the area where Val Tracker had met his men, there were gunshots and plasma cannons crisscrossing back and forth between them and the Geralos within the city. He grabbed the leader of the Cynetari and pointed towards a cave that sat a few hundred yards from their location, telling him to get his people there as soon as possible. The frail man obeyed and Laern snapped back to focus, angry and unsure of what to do and how to stop whatever was attacking the people.