by Greg Dragon
When she agreed to accompany Marian on the mission to save her city, she didn’t realize how much her every muscle would miss him. The thoughts of his arms holding her close consumed her every thought and made the mission harder. She was no longer the young Casanian beauty running and killing to escape her mind, but an older, seasoned assassin who missed her man and the things he did that would send her purring into the night.
She looked down at the trooper’s station from the top of the wall, and watched to see if the guard at the entrance would turn his back. It was hours after midnight and Talula was high, and though her splendid silhouette made an extra bump on a wall that was not meant to be climbed, the citizens of Veece were too drunk, too high, or too tired to notice. Below her in the neighborhood around the station, the lights were off and the people were fast asleep.
A Primian prostitute—perhaps one of Delyi’s former co-workers—sauntered down the road past the entrance to the station, and the officer on watch became hypnotized by her pert backside. Seeing her chance, Marika jumped down and dashed behind him into the station. All of the lights were dim but there was a man at the desk, and she threw her knife into his forehead before he could ask her why she was there.
She unclipped “Little Bit” and cat-walked to one of the far doors, then punched in ‘32788’ on the pad. The door slid open and Marika peered in. She saw that there was a hallway with two guards at the far end, and a series of passages blocked by yellow force fields. She slid back up into the main lobby and went behind the desk. There she recovered her knife from the bald man’s forehead and lay him gently on the floor. She then ran back to the keypad and punched in ‘32788’ again.
This time, she didn’t hesitate and fired the plasma pistol two times, killing the guards who were too busy chatting to see her enter. She ran up to them and searched their gear, then pulled out their cards and examined them. She stripped the smaller guard of his armor and clothes, then tried them on over her black 3B suit. The fit was loose, but good enough, so she pulled on the helmet to complete the disguise. She then pulled the naked man to one of the consoles and taped his hand with the card face down on the reading panel. The system beeped, then announced loudly:
“IMPROPER SECURITY PROCEDURE DETECTED, PLEASE TRY AGAIN”
She ran over to the next panel and slammed the second card down on its face. The panels flashed from red to yellow and stayed flashing rapidly before taking on a cobalt color. The voice returned, announcing:
“WELCOME VISITOR, TO THE VEECE DETENTION CENTER”
Marika heard running footsteps as the guards inside sprinted to see which visitor would have access to the prison hours after lockdown. She sensed that there would be close quarters combat, so she hooked “Little Bit” into her trooper’s gunbelt and drew out the las-sword from her pack. She powered it on and the single edge of the short sword hummed and became white, laser light. The first guard that ran through the open force field was slashed across the chest, and Marika stepped across him, swinging the sword and opening his stomach with another cut.
She stood at the doorway, waiting for the rest, but nobody came out to meet her reckoning. She chanced a look and a shot flew past her head, but she saw that the shooter was within arm’s reach. Dashing across the doorway to draw his fire, Marika spun on the ball of her foot and entered, diving forward like a freshly shot arrow. The hot lastech edge cut through armor, flesh and bone, and the second guard slumped down dead as Marika collected herself and looked around.
She was on the top balcony of five floors of cells, each of them having a number of cells with shimmering light from the force field’s lasers obscuring the inhabitant’s features. Marika glanced down and was almost shot by one of the guards on the lower level. She backed away from the railing and looked back at the entrance. She glanced to the other side and saw that there were stairs leading down to the next level.
“They can only get to me from there,” she whispered, then skipped past the cell blocks to see if she could find the panel that would trigger the release. She saw nothing like it, so she ran along the wall, and when the first guard popped his head up from the stairs to see where she was, she put a shot near his face that sent pieces of stone exploding everywhere. Two troopers went down screaming from the plasma explosion, and Marika picked up her pace, firing down at the others trying to take her out.
It was all-out warfare inside of the Veece prison, and though the prisoners couldn’t be heard from where she stood firing, Marika could see that they were cheering her on. From the shots and their movements, Marika counted five troopers on the floors below her. She scurried back to the entrance and put away the MCPT-90 which was beeping at her to let it regenerate as the number of shots had caused it to overheat.
During times like her current situation, she wished she had packed a different bundle of goodies before making the jump to Luca with Marian. Marika considered her arsenal: she had a las-sword which was useless in a firefight, an overheated gun that was a bit too overpowered anyway, her carf knife, and the clumsy handgun that came with the outfit she had taken off the trooper.
She waited to see if any of them would come up the stairs after her. She knew that they carried comms and would radio for help, so she had to kill them quickly and get the prisoners out before more troopers came in to ruin her night. There was a crunching noise as one of them gained the top floor and walked slowly towards the entrance with his gun in front of him.
Marika lay prone on the ground. She crept to the corner of the entrance and fired several times with the pistol. The laser rounds were slower and the aim was a bit off, but two of the shots connected, and the man fell forward while depressing his trigger. It fired in her direction but struck a wall. Another man came up the stairs, firing blindly. He was trying to suppress her in order to close the gap, but Marika was a tiny target in the corner of the door’s entrance, and with those inaccurate guns, his chances were little to none. She aimed down the sights and shot him twice in the chest. Then she heard a strange new sound from a few floors below.
“Okay, we give up,” a young man announced, and then another agreed.
“We’re coming up, so don’t shoot,” the third said, but Marika shouted for them to be quiet.
The trooper that had been watching the front door must have gotten curious and come inside, but as soon as he rounded the corner to investigate, Marika hit him in the face, then the chest with two fluid shots that killed him before he was on the floor.
“Listen up. I’m tired of killing you ill-trained, pup scouts,” she said. “I want the rebels on the bottom floor released. ALL OF THEM. And I want you to remain where you are while they come up here to me. I want no funny business from any of you or I will kill every last one of you. Do you hear me?”
“YES!” one of the men screamed, and he sounded as if he was crying.
“If you obey my demands you will live to see tomorrow, but if I see your faces, any of you, or if any of those rebels are hurt before they reach me, I will throw down a grenade and incinerate the lot of you. I’ve been trying to avoid doing that but I will if you leave me no choice. Now I am going to count to three, and I want to hear those cells opening.”
“One … Two…” Marika began to count and then she was interrupted by the sound of cell doors opening, followed by a loud roar and a bone crunching thud. The rebels had been released but they spared no time in exacting revenge upon their captors. After a few minutes, the large, muscular Blu ran up the stairs, followed by seven men of varying age and species. They all looked weak from lack of food and water, but they regarded her proudly when they got to the top of the stairs.
“Marian VCA hired me to get you boys out. I am from Rafian’s world, so don’t hurt yourself staring at me for too long. Pick up the weapons from the guards and get ready to fight. Chances are there is an army waiting outside for us and we’ll need to shoot our way out of here,” Marika said.
Blu walked forward and hugged her tightly and the movement was so sudd
en that she would have cut him. But something stopped her before the tragic mistake and she realized that she felt sorry for the giant warrior.
“Lady Raf did not forget us,” he said in a loud booming voice. “FOR THE ALLIANCE!” he screamed and they echoed the battle cry and charged out the door. When they got to the top floor, a shot from a sniper brought down the Daltak named Corea. He was the same man that had given Marian a hard time, back when they’d had their meeting in Blu’s cave home.
As soon as he went down, the other rebels took cover behind the desk and pillars inside of the trooper station. There were twenty officers outside, armed and angry, but Marika was determined to see her plan through. She dashed into an office, then ran up to the window to see if any troopers were outside watching.
“OVER HERE!” Marika screamed, and the six rebels ran over and stood behind her, waiting to see what she had in mind. “When I start to move, put fire on those two guards over there and cover my escape. I will cover you once I am on the ground, and then we will run towards the stream on the far side of town.”
Blu nodded at her. Marika pulled her carf knife, then ran, jumped, tucked into a ball, and crashed through the window. Once she was past the glass, she opened up her flight to fling the knife into the neck of one of the guards. The other guard was torn to shreds by Blu’s twin pistols, and Marika pushed three drunken citizens out of the way to move on the entrance to the police station.
She knelt near a bench and fired “Little Bit” into the crowd of troopers, causing several of them to fall dead, torn to shreds by her plasma blast. Her rebel friends joined her and they slaughtered the survivors. Then she turned and dashed, pushing people out of the way and pulling her las-sword free. The rebels joined her in her sprint and like a bulky snake of ill intent, they wormed their way through the buildings towards the stream that sat near Veece’s outer wall.
Several cruisers were in the air, and spotlights illuminated Marika’s run, followed by laser fire and kinetic payload. But Marika was a trained escape artist, and she slipped inside of buildings and then out of others, took to covered rooftops, and doubled back when she needed to.
“Perhaps we should split up,” said another Daltak.
Marika shouted, “Stay together, and follow me. They won’t shoot at the buildings with those missiles.”
They were sprinting through the capital’s market and their path took them upstairs and onto a covered bridge that spanned the very stream they wanted to escape in. A daring cruiser floated dangerously close to where they ran and released a barrage of laser shots into the area. Most of them missed, but one slipped through an arch, killing another rebel instantly. This one was a Tyheran young man named Walker, and his best friend Luc had to be pulled away from his corpse by Blu.
The thinning group of escapees jumped from the side of the bridge once Walker was shot, and Luc began his hysterics. “Dive and follow me!” Marika screamed, and they did just that as she took them into the familiar, icy cold rapids, which washed them down towards the waterfall.
Marika fought to gain the shore as the cruisers followed, and most of the resistance fighters made it out to follow her. One of the rebels that didn’t make it was a Primian by the name of Jodie who toppled over the waterfall, struck the rocks at the bottom, and was killed. Marika pushed through the trees where the cruisers couldn’t follow and led the men as high into the mountains as she could.
“A few hours more and you all will be free,” she said and amidst cries of loss and pain, they grunted their approval and followed her through the jungle. She brought out the comm that she had taken from the lead trooper and called up the surviving trooper in her employ. “Listen,” she said to him when he woke up to answer. “Wake up, get that thing in the air, and meet me at these coordinates. Fly low so that the other cruisers don’t see you up here. You’re going to have to land that thing on an area of about twenty yards.”
They picked up the pace in a long steady run while the troopers of Veece looked everywhere for their bodies. One of the cruisers saw the corpse in the waterfall, so the majority of them flew over there to see if they all had suffered the same fate. Marika kept her company to the deepest parts of the woods, shooting anything that dared to threaten them and watching the skies until they reached the cave where she and Delyi had set up camp.
“Wait here,” she whispered and snuck to the side of the cave entrance. She was careful not to trigger the traps, and powered down the detectors that she had set up earlier.
“Dee?” she called out. “Dee?”
A tiny voice inside replied with, “I’m here.”
She came outside and hugged Marika, and as they were about to make introductions, a cruiser settled down on a mountain of dirt off to the side of the cave. Marika told the company to hold their fire and then crossed over to the cruiser by herself.
She grabbed the man by the arm and pulled him out. “You did well,” she said to him.
She reached behind his ear and removed the earring. It made her ticklish inside to know that the old suicide bomb bluff still worked.
“Once we lift off, just tell them I held you captive during the whole ordeal,” she said to him and touched his cheek. “You chose life over honor. I am not familiar with men like you, but it means you are a danger to anyone who would call you a friend. I am supposed to kill you; that is what smart Phasers do, but you earned your freedom, so run back to Veece. Tell your superiors that the next time a Casanian issues a threat, they would do well to respect it.”
The man turned around and sprinted in the direction of the city. Blu watched him go and then threw Marika a questioning glance, but he dropped it after a time when he realized she was just honoring her promise.
“I would have shot him,” he said to her as he got into the back seat of the sleek, eight-seat cruiser. “Felitians are vicious. It may come back to bite you in the rear.”
Marika puffed and twisted her black lips into a smirk. “He did what I asked him to do. The code is very firm on us keeping our word, big man. Plus, he’s the lone survivor of a troop of soldiers that included his commander. Do you think he’ll be reporting any of this to anybody? He just helped us to escape!”
“If you say so, but if we seem him again, he’s dead. My code says that Fels are the devil, and my code has kept me around for a very long time,” Blu replied.
“You know, Marian speaks very highly of you, big man. She never told me that you had such a penchant for whining, though,” she said to him and Delyi—who sat next to Marika—looked back at him to wink. “You fought like a Phaser though, Blu, so we’re okay.”
She lifted the cruiser and skimmed the treetops, then flew it north for an hour. Once she was sure that no Felitians had followed, she took them up into the sky and then slowed the engines so they could talk.
Marika spun around in her chair and said, “Here’s the scoop. Marian is on Talula. She’s meeting with some badasses from Lochte, I think. She’s going to need things ready down here for when they do their thing. Where can I take you to get fed and cleaned up? I mean, no offense, but I’m assuming that sewage and water were as scarce a commodity in the Veece cells as was food?”
“Ravela is an allied city, Marika,” Blu said evenly. “I have friends there that can take care of us. The mayor is with the resistance, and he will keep the Felitians off of our trail. Just land this thing a mile or so outside of town, and I will get him to send a car to pick us up.”
“Sounds good,” Marika said. “And I hope you all know that I am merely telling jokes to lighten the mood. What you all have been through isn’t easy for anyone, and I want you to know that they will pay for the friends we lost tonight.”
“Marian is very lucky to have a friend like you,” Blu said to her as the engines revved and they shot out towards Ravela. “I am very afraid of your world.”
“What makes you say that?” Marika asked.
“I have seen what Rafian can do, and now I have seen you. The two of you are from a pl
ace that is filled with war and produces warriors such as yourself. A place like that is the thing of nightmares, and we Deijen are a peaceful people,” Blu said, then looked out the window as if in deep thought. “Thank you, for rescuing us, Marika, friend of Lady Raf.”
“You’re quite welcome, Blu, my Deijen friend.”
Memory 16
Jemi was a small town built on the outskirts of Talula’s untamed wilderness. The family that founded the island on which it was built was said to have first traveled there by way of a two-hour swim. The beasts of the wilderness had devoured their young son, so the mother, daughter and father escaped towards the milky, pink waters of Lake Ayrila and swam for their lives, hoping to gain the other side. What they found instead was a piece of land that was large enough to hold a city. They built a house, and called their friends, and after a hundred years, there was a tiny island city accessible only by way of an expansive bridge.
Marian thought the story was nonsense. She believed that rich investors had funded its construction even before the time of Palus Felitious. Jemi was probably a lover’s paradise where wealthy senators would spend weekends with their lusty Primian mistresses. I can see my cheating husband here, she thought to herself with a bit of a smirk as she regarded the tall buildings and the numerous red flowers that seemed to be everywhere.
The familiar buzzing in her ear forced her to uncross her long legs and look about to make sure she was alone. The city seemed all but deserted, but of the few people that were milling about, none of them were near enough to overhear her conversation.
“Marika, please tell me you have good news,” she said as soon as the buzzing had stopped.
“I have great news. Your friend is out, and I am in a warm mud bath, soaking my limbs,” Marika said.
“Murder and luxury, that’s my girl,” Marian joked, and then brought up her hand as if she were using a comm when a grinning older man shuffled over to see if she wanted some company.