Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3)

by C. C. Ekeke

  The Cybernarr shook her head. “The exotic energy from Ghuj’aega interferes with— Khromulus.” Khal turned to see the Cybernarr’s sapphire-blue eyes wide with shock.

  The reminder of his dead teammate left an acid taste in Khal’s mouth. “What…does Khrome…have—”

  The Cybernarr regained her impassive poise. “About-face, Vertex. Now.” Not a request, a demand.

  His legs quivered with burning fatigue as Khal did as ordered. A swirl of nauseating, silent color flooded his vision, nearly making Khal vomit. But the earthborn managed to turn around without succumbing to the black hole’s pull. Khal gasped to catch his breath and saw a silvery comet hurtling for them from behind the singularity. He recognized him on sight, as well as a crackling mass of black lightning just over his returned teammate.

  “Khrome? How?” Delirious from surprise and pain, Khal turned to Marguliese to confirm.

  But the Cybernarr had honed in on Ghuj’aega, raising her silvery arm, which shifted shape as if made of liquid metal. A heartbeat later, the business end of a modified tube-shaped cannon had replaced her entire forearm. Khal looked on in awe. What couldn’t Marguliese do?

  “Found his spatial frequency.” Marguliese aimed—and fired, the weapon’s kick nearly knocking Khal off balance and closer to the spiraling black hole…

  Two blazing green flashes issued forth from Marguliese’s makeshift cannon, striking Ghuj’aega’s gaping chest wound and forehead. The latter blast snapped his head back with a pained cry. And the black lightning cluster dissipated.

  Right on cue, Khrome was a silver blur racing in sideways, ramming Ghuj’aega. The impact was a bomb detonation of force, exploding the rim wall behind Ghuj’aega into sprays of pebbles and mud. Khrome pulled up and righted himself in midair, landing with authority.

  No way Ghuj’aega survived that, Khal surmised.

  With the Ghebrekh terrorist down, the black hole shrank and winked out of existence. Water, rock debris, and Ghebrekh corpses about to be sucked into its maw hung for an instant, then dropped with a collective thud. With nothing pulling Khal’s exhausted body, he and Marguliese collapsed in an ungainly heap. He lay on his back, fatigue bleeding through every inch of his body, even his eyeballs. But I’m alive.

  Khal turned his head, wincing as he did. There stood that squat wall of metallic muscle, Khrome, with steam curling off his head and shoulders.

  Khal didn’t think he’d ever be so happy to see him again—until now. He noticed how quiet everything had gotten as the Ttaunz ships stopped firing.

  Khrome glanced over his shoulder. “Target down. Thanks for the setup.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Marguliese replied, her voice fading…

  Khal must have blacked out for a moment, as the next thing he knew, Khrome and Marguliese were in the midst of a new conversation.

  “We can broach the subject once the remnants of our group have gathered,” Marguliese said. Her mechanized voice sounded startlingly close. “Vertex.” The Cybernarr spoke his codename with whiplash sharpness. He looked up at her face…that ridiculous, stupidly perfect face. She was crouching over him in that black sleeveless catsuit, wet and stringy red curtains of hair spilling down her neck and shoulders.

  “Heeey Marguliese,” he cooed as her face came into focus. “You alright?”

  “Unharmed,” Marguliese replied as her metal arm shifted back to a normal limb. “Yourself?”

  Khal did a quick self-physical check. Everything ached, but nothing felt broken. “Ten fingers and ten toes. So I’m good.” He grabbed for something firm to pull up into a seated position.

  “That can be modified swiftly if your hands remain on my behind,” Marguliese added curtly.

  Khal jerked his hands off the Cybernarr’s perfectly formed butt. Marguliese pursed her lips and rose, pulling Khal up by the collar. Marguliese tossed her unbound hair back and studied him with a knife-like glare. She had half an inch or so on him. Khal’s heart froze. Did she suspect what I almost did?

  Then she gave Khal a terse nod, a wordless “Thank you.” The telekinetic was surprised how much this pleased him. Looking up, Khal saw Herope’s cherry glow saturating the skies again. It felt like that battle with the Ghebrekh had gone for half a day. But according to his wristcom’s chronometer, less than half an orv had passed.

  Zojje, Taorr, and Mhir’ujiid emerged from behind their massive boulder cover, each properly stunned. “That just…happened?” Taorr gaped about the wreckage.

  “Yes,” Marguliese answered flatly, despite his question’s rhetorical nature.

  Khrome snorted. “You okay?” he asked Taorr and the others.

  As the civilians confirmed their well-being, Tyris approached through the dense fog with the massive V’Korram trailing behind him. The heat had nearly melted down Tyris’s spiky countenance. He appeared so much slimmer and less menacing to Khal without all those sharpened icicles jutting off him. V’Korram stopped to pull something out of his lower abdomen—flinty shrapnel of some kind. The Kintarian tossed the piece aside with a brief grimace and kept walking. That’s one tough bastard, Khal noted respectfully.

  The whole time, he had one eye on the remaining Ttaunz air raiders high above the scene.

  “They are discussing whether or not to take Ghuj’aega’s body by force without reinforcements,” Marguliese whispered in his ear, confirming Khal’s suspicions of the ships’ internal discussions.

  “Fiyan?” Tyris called into his wristcom.

  “Fiyan here…” the Nnaxan replied, no energy behind her words. “We lost Vaas to the singularity.”

  “No!” Mhir’ujiid cried. Her neon-green mohawk was plastered to her squashed face.

  Khal staggered, finding the rim wall as support. Not another one.

  “I saw him get sucked in as I was flying in,” Khrome confirmed. Sadness washed away his noseless features. “I wasn’t close enough to reach him.”

  “Meet us at the rim wall’s southern edge, Sergeant,” Tyris said, unable to hide his sorrow.

  “Copy that,” Fiyan replied, ending the call. Khal would never forget how lifeless she sounded.

  “I am so sorry,” Taorr apologized to the group. “I should have done more—”

  Tyris cut him off with a terse hand swipe. “Don’t apologize for your father’s mistakes.”

  Khrome moved closer to survey his handiwork, but continued glancing about for something or someone. Khal winced, already knowing whom. Captain Nwosu and Liliana, gone? The reality weighed heavily on his shoulders. He opened his mouth to tell Khrome what had happened, but still didn’t know how to verbalize it.

  Before anyone could speak, Khrome’s scan fell upon Ghuj’aega’s remains. “Oh, come ON!” he howled. For a nanoclic, Khal thought the Thulican would stamp his foot in indignation.

  “What?” V’Korram raced to the scene, daggers drawn. The rest of Star Brigade joined Khrome by the gaping hole of the rim wall where Ghuj’aega’s body lay. The Ghebrekh terrorist was splayed in gruesome attitudes half-buried under shit-brown mud and rubble. At first glance, his body was a pancaked corpse. Mission accomplished.

  Then Khal, Tyris, V’Korram, and Marguliese saw what had set Khrome off. Mhir’ujiid peeked over the Thulican’s hulking shoulder and backed away at comical speeds.

  Maybe it was the shallow up-and-down heaving of his mangled torso, or the twitching of mangled appendages slowly knitting back together. For Khal, the tipoff was how Ghuj’aega’s violet eyes raked over his enemies with rejuvenated hatred.

  Zojje scanned the Ghebrekh’s ruined carcass telepathically. His nod confirmed Star Brigade’s fears.

  “Ghuj’aega still lives,” the Kudoban announced in calm, tripled tones, “and is healing quickly.”

  Marguliese lifted her metallic arm silently, shifting it into a rifle-like weapon—and her weapon barked four times. Two pencil-thin bursts pierced Ghuj’aega’s chest, another bursting through his right eye. The last shot blew a hole through his forehead.

&nb
sp; Taorr and Zojje jumped. Mhir’ujiid didn’t, nor did any of the Star Brigadiers.

  Blood oozed from the Ghebrekh’s new wounds in thick black rivulets. Ghuj’aega stopped breathing. His one good eye dulled, losing its violet glow. Ghuj’aega looked dead.

  Not ten nanoclics later, the holes began shrinking and Ghuj’aega’s chest commenced its rise and fall from breathing. The Ghebrekh terrorist blinked both glowing eyes, opening his mangled jaw with an appalling noise that must have been laughter. V’Korram yipped in shock. Khal went wide-eyed.

  Marguliese cocked her head to one side. “This is unexpected.”

  “This is a problem.” Khrome gritted his teeth. “Now he has unkillability?”

  Tyris frowned at him. “‘Unkillability’ isn’t a word.”

  “Says who?” Khrome bit back.

  “Says me, ‘genius,’” the Tanoeen countered with air quotes.

  Their back-and-forth banter, so normal, didn’t faze Khrome. But Tyris stared at his best friend thoughtfully. Khal, taking in a solid appraisal of the Tanoeen, knew he needed out of this climate. His crystalline body, dripping in oozing puddles, could only withstand so much.

  “Glad you’re not dead,” Tyris murmured.

  “I didn’t DIE!” Khrome snapped. “And where are Reign and Crescendo?”

  Ghuj’aega let out another hacking excuse for a laugh, stronger now as he continued healing.

  “Gone,” Khal answered, and slumped against the rim wall. His muscles were sluggish. Even thinking sent throbs of pain through his jaw. “Cortes got sucked into…the singularity. Nwosu jumped after her.”

  “By the Twin Spheres!” Khrome rubbed at the back of his head. “That…sounds like something our fearless leader would do.”

  A bright yellow flash interrupted his thoughts, Marguliese’s double-bladed saber blazing into existence. “I will attempt decapitation and dismemberment.” The energy weapon glinted off the Cybernarr’s golden visage as she marched into the rim wall’s hole.

  “She’s determined,” Zojje noted, watching her.

  “That’s our girl,” Khal replied uneasily. Sam thought I could kill THAT? He shuddered, realizing how thoroughly his superior’s down south had messed with his head up north.

  Hovering overhead, the hum of the Ttaunz interceptors’ weapons drew everyone’s attention. “See that?” Khal nodded at the two ships’ weapon banks reigniting with a bright gold burn.

  Tyris looked less than concerned. “And?”

  Khrome grinned. “We can take ‘em.”

  “Let’s not,” Khal objected, lurching to his feet.

  Taorr pushed forward to take charge. “Mhir’ujiid, Zojje, get behind Star Brigade,” he ordered. The young Ttaunz mustered all his poise and authority. “Please. Star Brigade has a standing kill-order on—”

  “I don’t care what their mission is!” barked one Ttaunz from the lead interceptor. “Star Brigade. Relinquish the target now!”

  There was a feral roar as V’Korram broke into a mad dash, bounding toward the interceptor ships. To roar at them? Or lunge at them, Khal realized, horrified.

  Tyris uttered a command and Marguliese shut off her energy blade. In a heartbeat, she had darted off, overtaking V’Korram with startlingly quick strides and hauling him back by the scruff of his neck.

  Fiyan backpedaled behind them, keeping her repeater trained on the interceptors. Khrome glowered at Khal for his minimal involvement.

  “What?” the exhausted telekinetic wheezed out, annoyed by the judgement. “I couldn’t lift even a cotton ball right now.” Khal kept his eyes on Ghuj’aega, who continued healing far too fast for his liking.

  “Can your nanocyte restraints contain Ghuj’aega’s powers?” Tyris asked Khrome.

  “Do I really need to answer that question?” snapped Khrome with a look of mock insult.

  “Yes,” replied Tyris evenly, clearly in no mood for jokes.

  Khrome sighed. “The nanocytes can hold Ghuj’aega’s powers in check.” He walked forward, fishing around in his utility belt to pull out a cylindrical injector. Injecting into Ghuj’aega’s chest, not taking care to be gentle, the Thulican squeezed the injector to release the nanocyte payload into the Ghebrekh’s body. Ghuj’aega gasped and shuddered violently. His healing slowed, leaving the Ghebrekh alive yet still crippled.

  Flying overhead, the interceptors’ weapons banks burned brighter. “Final warning, Star Brigade. Relinquish Ghuj’aega into our custody.”

  Khal, without a word of complaint, fashioned a tight telekinetic shield around Star Brigade and the beings they had just rescued. Khrome floated into the fray, positioning himself between the Ttaunz and his team. Tyris nodded at Marguliese. “Get into those ships again.”

  “That will not be necessary.” Marguliese turned her attention skyward.

  V’Korram’s ears pricked up, a sneer tugging at his muzzle. “She’s right.”

  “Why?” Khal’s eyes darted about, his limited human senses leaving him clueless.

  Another set of shadows cast a patchwork blanket over Akkabe Plateau. Khrome gazed up, his smile stretching from ear to ear. The Phaeton, Star Brigade’s military cruiser, arrived with its own weapons banks alight. Flanking the Brigade ship were four medium-sized UComm battle cruisers, all running their weapons hot. The quintet of ships held position directly above Star Brigade.

  “Ttaunz Defense Force,” boomed a sonoramped female voice from one UComm vessel. “Power down your weapons and evacuate from this vicinity.”

  “Or what?” the lead interceptor fired back petulantly.

  “You don’t want the answer to that question,” V’Korram growled through bared fangs. The Kintarian’s leonine frame twitched, longing to pounce at something.

  “This is OUR planet! You get our brethren killed—”

  “Actually, their incapacity to obey orders got their counterparts killed,” Marguliese pointed out.

  “Your Viceroy disobeyed an order to stay out of this skirmish,” a mellow female voice addressed the Ttaunz—Star Brigade pilot Solrao Xiahl on the Phaeton. “Ya really want to escalate his stupidity and oppose the Union Command Armada?”

  “We’re not leaving without Taorr the Lesser,” he retorted, pleased to have some leverage.

  Taorr could not have appeared any more disgusted by this. “I’m returning with Star Brigade, so no thank you.” He draped an arm around Mhir’ujiid’s shoulders and pulled her close.

  Another long silence followed. Now the Ttaunz had nothing to counter with.

  “HAW!” howled Khrome, pointing at the ships. “Know your role and run along.”

  As the two Ttaunz air interceptors wheeled around and zipped off toward the east, Marguliese turned to Khrome with an arched eyebrow. “Was your display necessary?”

  “Course it was.” The Thulican beamed.

  With that, Marguliese allowed a hint of a grin to tug at her lips, almost like a tease.

  Once the Ttaunz had vanished, Tyris looked up at the Phaeton with a twinkle in his eyes. “Solrao!” he addressed her over the Brigade’s private comm channel. “My hero!”

  “Hey, Arcturus,” she replied. “After the UComm and TDF received Star Brigade’s message from Qiidr Old-Chaeda, I saw these interceptors heading out. Something told me it wasn’t to catch some rays.”

  Finally, Fiyan perked up. “Thanks for the backup.”

  The pilot’s voice sobered. “Khrome-daddy, not sure who you pissed off, but you are in some galaxy-sized trouble with UComm’s higher-ups!”

  Khrome cringed. “Long story,” he replied to his teammates’ puzzled stares.

  “Always is,” chuckled their pilot. “Where are Reign, Crescendo and Specialist Vaas?”

  The reminder hit Khal like a physical blow, chilling everyone’s relief.

  “Another long story,” Tyris uttered darkly. “I’ll download you on the trip back to Magnasterium. You got the info about Corporal Uyull?”

  Fiyan blinked and turned away. The wound was still fresh.
“A ship picked up his body outside Quud territory.”

  “Perfect,” said Tyris, “transmat down a prisoner-containment tube.”

  “Can do,” Solrao cooed. A bluish-white shimmer later and a copper containment tube sized for an above-average-sized humanoid materialized before Tyris.

  “For Ghuj’aega,” he explained. “We’re taking him back to Magnasterium…alive.” He typed in a few codes and the tube’s slim door slid open mutely.

  Khal wasn’t liking this change in orders. A glance around CT-1 revealed he was not alone. But Tyris was ranking officer, so Khrome readily gathered up Ghuj’aega’s crushed body and dumped it in the containment tube. Marguliese had no interest in obedience. “That is not our directive, Arcturus.”

  “I’m aware, but things change.” Tyris kept watch as Khrome secured the Ghebrekh into the containment tube. A few clicks and Ghuj’aega was completely restrained in forcefield bands. The Thulican slid the tube door closed to seal in its contents. As the containment tube beeped shrilly to confirm a subject inside, Marguliese marched right up to Tyris’s face. “Why?” she demanded, her glare just as piercing as her tone.

  Tyris remained steadfast. “In Captain Nwosu’s absence, I’m in charge.” His high, cold voice carried a new authority Khal had never heard before. “Meaning you will do as ordered.”

  Marguliese’s eyes narrowed into azure slits. For a long, tense moment, she said nothing. Khrome moved forward, fists clenched, in case this didn’t end well.

  “Understood,” she nodded in succinct acknowledgment, taking a few steps back. “You still did not answer my inquiry. Why keep Ghuj’aega alive?”

  “We need to figure out how to kill him.” Tyris pointed to Ghuj’aega, but his eyes stayed on Marguliese. “And I’d rather not stay out in this heat to do it.” The Tanoeen gestured at the nearly melted spikes on his head. “In the meantime,” he gestured at Khrome, “if Khrome’s alive, then Reign, Crescendo, and Vaas may also be.”

  “Khrome’s survival could have been a lucky break,” Fiyan said. Her craniowhisks trembled in hostility. “The others might not be as fortunate.”

  Tyris placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “We have to explore if Ghuj’aega knows where to find Reign, Crescendo, and Vaas.”