StarFlight: The Prism Baronies (Beyond the Outer Rim Book 2)

by Reiter

  With the compliment of training received at The Campus, Danatra had indeed become incredibly proficient in many of the Mental Arts. It was a point of great pride that Danatra found she excelled in two disciplines: telekinesis and pain manipulation. Though she normally applied the latter of the two mostly to her ability to absorb great amounts of punishment and continue to function, the excitement of the pain centers of the brain was something that came to her with artistic ease and poetic power. It was the head of an illusion she had grasped, but it was the minds of the three assassins that screamed as they phased through the walls.

  “Campus, defend me!”

  “Yes Mistress!” the Campus responded, and she could feel the Energies engage around the facility. A quick and powerful telepathic sweep disgusted Danatra who wished she possessed such skill. She gave the command for the Beta Forms to awaken and resume their duties.

  Looking back at her three targets, Danatra shook her head. The unit projecting the illusion of the body was quickly crushed by her talent, and she put her fists on her hips.

  “What the hell just happened?” Beta-Alphexeous asked as he stepped over one of the assassins. “And who are these wannabes?”

  “A doppelganger has breached the grounds,” Danatra explained. “Once we are secured, I will have the signature of my body shifted so that whatever sample the Savanté have cannot be used again.”

  “Did you catch your man?” Felrus said as he walked onto the corridor, dressed in his battle armour, carrying his helmet.

  “No,” Danatra admitted, wanting to strike something in frustration. “We captured three, but the Savanté made off with Tolandria. We have only managed to lose ground.”

  “That all depends on what we can pry from these crying fools,” Beta-Alphexeous pointed out.

  “Then I shall leave it in the capable hands of my beloved Soul-Fighter,” Danatra said as Felrus came and took hold of her arm and walked her away from the scene.

  “I received word from Prince SonBa,” Felrus reported, and Danatra stepped away from him.

  “By the Stars, no!”

  “No,” Felrus said in an effort to comfort his woman. “Well, yes, but like the attack mounted against the Queen, this one too was unsuccessful… much in part due to the Queen’s arrival.”

  “Her arrival?”

  “I suppose she had to go somewhere after the fanatic destroyed herself with a bomb while trying to kill the Queen,” Felrus remarked. “She only managed to kill a light projection, but the Queen foresaw the worst and arrived in time to keep the Prince from perishing.”

  “Then we survived their attack,” Danatra said, sighing in relief.

  “Unfortunately, it would seem that the three of you are the only ones who can make that claim,” Felrus stated. “Reports are still coming in, but persons of power and influence within all three races have been killed. I get the feeling that those who survived will be among those we should not trust.”

  “And how do we express that distrust without alienating others?” Danatra posed. “Right now there are those of our people who are torn between our old ways and the new. If we do as you say, if we do what is sound in judgment, we will all but push the undecided to the Savanté.”

  “Then what is the correct response?” Felrus asked.

  “That I do not know, my love,” Danatra whispered before she was brought into an embrace. “We are on the brink of a war with our own people, and it seems that every option only changes how many of our kind we will face.”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  “It was my understanding that meetings such as these would take place at the Stick & Rudder,” Hanvashi said before putting down his empty shot glass.

  “I am no longer welcome there,” Alistair said, re-filling Baron Zoll’s glass. “Once it gets out that you have been dismissed from the ranks of the Star-Wing Corps, that particular clientele would prefer for you to not come around. Besides, I thought you were looking for discretion.”

  “I am a man in search of many things,” Hanvashi replied. “A waste of my time, however, is not one of them.”

  “Then I’ll come to the point,” Alistair smiled, lifting his glass from the table. Halfway to his mouth the glass stopped and the man frowned. His grip on the glass changed as it was moved to the center of his palm.

  “It’s obvious you were never truly among the higher echelon of the Corps,” Hanvashi commented, a slight white light shining in his hands. “You don’t even understand when you’re in the vicinity of a power you couldn’t hope to contain. The very will of Xaythra flows through my veins, foolish man. If you are not in service of her, you are not in service to me, and therefore a waste!”

  “I can get you an army!” Alistair Codges stressed as he felt an invisible hand take hold of his torso. “An unbeatable army numbering in the hundreds of thousands!”

  “That is quite a claim to make,” Hanvashi said calmly. “I am disinclined to believe you.”

  “I swear it!” Codges strained as the hand squeezed, locking his body into place. He screamed in in pain as his hand was made to crush the shot glass. “It’s in Gulmar! I know who owns them!”

  “Owns them?”

  “They’re slaves!” Alistair claimed. “Born and bred to be warriors! And not just with archaics. They know how to use technology too!”

  “Isn’t that a bit difficult to do in Gulmar?” Hanvashi said. The hand began to squeeze harder and Calamity struggled against focused gravity.

  “They’re owned by a Governess in Gulmar! She controls one-fifth of Redmoon!” Hanvashi rubbed his hand and thought for a moment.

  “Kigalori Stoneblade,” Hanvashi recalled. “Governess of Keepstone. Yes, I am familiar with the woman. I did not know she possess an army. To even begin that conversation, I would need money, and that is where I am sorely wanting. So you see, you are still a wa–”

  “I have a cache!” Codges cried.

  “My, you are resourceful!” Hanvashi admitted. “Where and how much?” Alistair looked at the man who held his body in his power, and Baron Zoll grinned as the pressure of the gravity increased. “Are you seriously looking for leverage here?”

  “K’Shurki Fields!” Alistair strained to inform. “Millions… in the hull… of mothballed ships.”

  “The yield of the adventures of a Star-Wing mercenary, no doubt,” Hanvashi said, getting up from the table. “I was told by your precious Swan that no such thing existed.”

  “There are at least six of us!” Alistair argued and the gravity field released him. The man collapsed to the table and breathed in pain and relief that he was no longer dying.

  “Call them. Advise them to meet us at the mothballed fleet,” Hanvashi ordered. “And do come along, Commander.”

  “Commander?” Alistair said, looking up at the Baron.

  “Would you prefer Air Marshal?”

  “I would, my Baron,” Alistair smiled as he reached for his wrist-com. He sent the message and dropped to the floor with his back broken in three places. He could not move, he could not scream, and he could not breathe. Before his skull was crushed he saw Baron Zoll waving goodbye over his shoulder.

  “We wouldn’t want to make a liar out of Swan, would we?” Hanvashi walked out of the bar after he left everyone in the same condition he had put upon Alistair Codges. He then crushed the establishment down to the size of a beach ball and set it rolling down one of the streets of Black Gate.

  Alarms sounded and the godling used his KaA to create a portal that took him to his ship which had launched an hour prior to his meeting with Alistair. Just beyond the control sector of Black Gate, Hanvashi materialized inside his chambers, feeling the building of tracing energies beginning to surround his body.

  “Shields!” Hanvashi commanded as he worked to destroy the forming tendrils of energy that sought to take him back to Black Gate. He was nearly at a struggling effort when the shields finally formed around his ship and the wards of Xaythra protected him. “Engage engines!”


  “Sire, we are already underway,” the deck officer reported. “Black Gate has launched five ships that are already moving faster than us.”

  “Not for much longer,” Hanvashi said as he closed his eyes. A gravity well formed around his ship and swallowed it, sending it to another point of space outside the sector. “And now?”

  “Blessed Goddess,” the officer whispered before reporting, “All screens and scans are clear, sire!”

  “Good. Set a course for the K’Shurki Fields. We will need several teams at the ready to scan ships and recover credits that have been stowed away!”

  “By your will, my Baron!”

  “Yes… by my will!”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  The Star Lark cried in triumph. She had overshot her destination; the distance off, cosmically speaking, was negligible, and in that she took a short breath of relief… but her instincts told her the moment would not be long and she set herself to the task.

  She had expected to see the cosmic version of a wasteland, a planet nearly blackened if not broken, and barely remaining with its orbital path of the yellow sun. No, Tolarra was not allowed to remain too positive. What she saw quickly quelled her jubilation and for an instant she pondered if such an instance of disappointment was commonplace to Freund. With remnants of life still clinging to it, looking upon the dead Earth filled the woman with sadness.

  “But that’s not what I’m here to do,” she whispered as she started reading light. “No, this isn’t going to work. I need old light. But the old light has come and gone… unless it was stored!” Streaking away from Earth, Tolarra landed on Mars and searched half an hour before she found an underground vein of water. In the riverbed there were crystalized rock formations, and inside those crystals were the annals of history she needed. Her eyes poured over the recorded time until she could at last see the arrival of Baron Nomed and his attack on the Earth. It was an event that was recorded in the minds of many humans, but their memories were slanted. They saw what they wanted to see and heard what they wanted to hear.

  Tolarra set off from Mars and was quickly up to her best speed as she set herself to the task of creating another wormhole to get her back to the Rims. She had to get to the Guardian before the start of the game. Death had not lied to Freund… she simply had not told him all of the truth.

  “Nomed didn’t declare war on humanity!” she thought. “He declared war on the Binadamu!” It was an ancient word, Binadamu. In some places the people that word referred to were called the Q’uor-Kwynn. “He promised to destroy everything that walks on two legs!”

  – Fini –

  For the Eager Reader, look for the in-between action in the Bridge Novel

  Birth of the Strides

  Beyond the Outer Rim will continue in Starborne: The Freedom Road

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  This may be the end of the book, but there is much more to discover

  BEYOND THE OUTER RIM

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