by Greg Dragon
“Stow that schtill,” he whispered. “You trying to get me killed? Not even as a joke, man. Don’t repeat that schtill.”
Val threw up his hands in surrender and made a gesture that represented him sealing his lips.
“So, anyway,” Rafian continued, “I was on Traxis and I found this huge desert with ships buried all throughout it. The place was a ship graveyard, and it seemed odd to have them all in one place like that. So I asked Jinay, you know, if she had any idea why those ships were out there and she said that the Geralos had crashed them into the planet and wiped out over a million people. Are you with me, Val? The lizards, who were losing the fight in space, used their ships to suicide into the planet’s surface and wiped out enough Traxians to make them rethink joining our war.”
“Ships?” Val whispered, understanding finally.
“Yeah, everything we learned as cadets is true about the Geralos cruiser-style starships. It is a technique they tried on Meluvia in the Sixth Expanse but Aqnaqak obliterated the low-altitude battleship before she could break the atmosphere to become a lethal bomb. I can see them trying it here when we get the upper hand on the fighting, or even on Louine where the buildings would just collide into one another and wipe out half the planet.”
“Raf, this is heavy schtill, brother. Who else have you told this to?”
“A week ago I had a meeting with all of the captains of the Alliance. I told them what I learned on Traxis and most of them already knew about the volatility of Geralos ships. So it’s no secret, not at all. They are all trained to trace ships into oblivion when they get near Alliance planets. The good thing is that the Geralos love life just like we do, so to get a suicidal crew together is a feat in and of itself.”
“So Serylusk, that’s your plan? To fly it into Geral? You still have the issue of fuel and a crew to help you get there,” Val said. “You’re talking about the impossible, Raf.”
“Not impossible. Not for a Phaser.”
25 | Cross Counter
BLACK CLOUDS rolled above the Geralese landscape, broken only by the occasional bolt of lightning which revealed the numerous ships hovering above the capital. Word had come in from the high priests that something was about to happen, something big that involved the Phasers, but that was all that they could gather.
The Geralos had tapped into the minds of enough high-ranking Alliance members to know where the major strikes would occur, but the Phasers were always a mystery since they kept their intel cryptic. One brain-biter had learned that the Supreme Leader had returned. He had met with and discussed war strategy with the heads of all the starships, and had promised them that he would 'force the lizards to respect Alliance power.'
This was a threat to be taken seriously since it was the same Rafian VCA that had destroyed the war base, Zynec Prime, and planted his own city and barracks in the ashes of the soldiers that operated there.
His Phasers had gone on to reclaim several other Vestalian cities, and while they had fought back to reclaim these zones, the Phaser city had proven to be an impervious fortress to any Geralos foolish enough to try.
What was Rafian doing? This question led to numerous speculations ranging from realistic all the way up to the absurd. Some believed that he had corrupted one of the high priests and had ordered Ari Groatrath to take his Crak-Ti and eliminate other Geralos troops. The tragedy at Gariland was thus credited to the Phasers and they worried for their soldiers that something similar was about to happen in the capital.
The Geralos governing body put down an order that any suspicious citizen—no matter their position—was to be turned in for questioning to the local authorities. Corrupted Geralos were to be executed on the spot, and routine checks were to be given to all officers in the military.
Some said Rafian was beyond human and invading minds was but one of the things he was capable of. They worried about him sneaking into the capital city, executing all of their leaders, and then ordering the military to turn on the citizens.
Others said that he was already on Geral with a massive army that would march on the capital within the month. But despite their varying suppositions, they all agreed that the capital was in danger and required fortification.
They erected tall towers to hold a force field that protected the holy temple and the homes that belonged to the seven council members. Thousands of troops were stationed throughout the city, and in the air they parked twenty massive sky carriers with hundreds of zip ships ready to deploy.
So when the crimson sky began to turn dark during what constituted the middle of the day, the Geralos leaders grew nervous, and they hunkered down and told their troops to do the same because something sinister was brewing.
Then a tear appeared, and a whyte slipped through, followed by several more, including a phantom. More tears opened up and even more Alliance ships and the Geralos zip ships rocketed off to meet the invaders. In a matter of seconds the sky was on fire from the hundreds of ships that began to exchange blows.
The sky turned bright and a laser broke through, tracing a line through the city and leveling several buildings before bouncing harmlessly off the force field. The Geralos replied immediately, firing up into space from heavy ground cannons and forcing the Aqnaqak to move. Then a number of cruisers jumped in from deep space, and Aqnaqak along with Helysian were forced to defend against the deadly Geralos fleet.
Despite the intelligence breech and the preparations, the Geralos were not ready for an attack of this size. They had the numbers to win but they were spread too thin with ships engaged in battle over Louine and half of their forces fighting to hold Vestalia.
The death toll was obnoxious as more ships jumped in, and the Geralos were forced to call in reinforcements to protect the capital city. Not since the Sixth Expanse had there been a fight like this, and the monks in the temple formed a meditation circle and invaded the minds of several Alliance pilots.
Chaos ensued when Alliance ships started firing on friendlies, but this did not slow the assault. The human pilots had dealt with Geralos double agents for over 100 years, so they countered the invasion with quick precision and returned their focus to wiping out the Geralos sky carriers.
* * *
On the far side of Anstractor above Vestalia, Rafian VCA stood in deep resignation on the bridge of the Geralos ship, Serylusk. He wore his COREX mask with his 3B suit but no las-sword, and his crimson cloak, draped over his shoulders, which was the ultimate sign of his station. He dressed in this manner not because he expected an audience but because his plans could seal the fate of his Phasers.
It wasn't easy carrying the weight of so many on his shoulders, and he thought about the implications as he stood on that alien floor, staring ahead with his arms crossed defiantly.
It would be so easy to chalk up his decisions to being the result of ‘having no other choice,’ or ‘someone has to do it so let it be me.’ He knew it was, indeed, a choice to make the decisions he was making and to decide the fate of the galaxy.
Millions would die, millions of innocents, Geralos citizens without blood on their hands. The ones who survived would remember him as a terrorist, the most vicious and evil human to have ever lived.
Would he be okay with that record? Would he be okay with the hate? They would fear him; everyone would. Some for what he was about to do, but others would fear him for what he was capable of. After the run on Zynec Prime where Zallus was developed, the leaders of the Alliance had tried to get him to commit to some sort of station. Alliance Ambassador, they had dubbed it, but he had seen the puppet strings they intended for his limbs.
Then they had tried to muscle in on Zallus as their territory, all so they could spy on him to make sure that his ambitions aligned with theirs.
As a world destroyer what would they think? Would they move to kill him immediately or would they remain silent while they plotted on him secretly? With great power comes great responsibility and daggers at your back, he thought. It will only get harder, the Geral
os is only the beginning for me.
"Ready when you are, Commander," a female voice said with a vocal fry that exposed its owner as Constance ITO.
"Let me raise her shields first, Connie," he replied, and stepped forward to place his hands on the ship's alien console. The panels felt cold and eerily organic, a surface that wasn't meant for human hands. The 3B suit kept him safe but translated the temperature to his skin, and he closed his eyes and focused on the ship's inner core. "Connie, do me a favor. Don't contact me until I contact you. What I am about to do will take my full concentration and we have fighters on Geral whose lives will depend on me making it there on time."
"You got it, Commander. ITO out," Connie said, and Rafian forced his mind into a state of deep silence. He felt the ship, the complex machination that comprised its bulk, and he reached into the engines and willed the shields to come back online.
His time on Genese when he invaded the Geralos leader's mind had gifted him with knowledge of their language and various technologies like piloting their ships. The Serylusk was a true mothership, one that required a connection to its captain. The controls, like most early builds of Geralos cruisers, were 100% organic and meant to be linked to a Geralos brain. Rafian fooled the ship into thinking that he was of Geral, and coaxed her into tapping the reserves. The HUD flared on with life, and the thrusters fumed, pulling hard against the Rendron's tether as the shields began the process of repairing themselves.
Rafian focused on the tether and forced the Serylusk to ignore them. He calmed the thrusters, repaired the damage to the hull, and killed the connection to the Geralos command. In a matter of minutes the vessel was his, and he expelled all of the reserve resources into the shields and repairs.
By the time he was a ready an hour had passed, and he felt thirsty and exhausted from the mental exercise. Cranking up the gravity on the interior, he opened his eyes and turned around to look at the giant black crystal that he had mounted on the captain’s chair.
This was the future of the Phaser agency and he was about to burn it out. There were a lot of crystals, some bigger than others, but only this, the one they affectionately called “Big Black,” could produce more crystals for their everyday use. Once Black was gone they would eventually lose the ability to jump and Marian’s galaxy would be unattainable to her forever. This latter thought was what gave him pause; he hadn’t the heart to tell her.
Maybe this won’t kill Big Black, he thought. Maybe it will drain him but he will regain his power. He crossed the plates and gripped the chair, then ran his hand across the surface of the crystal. “I am sorry, Big Black. It was from you that I gained my power, and I swore to protect you from the Geralos.” He sighed. “Ready, Connie. Break the lines,” he spoke into his comm.
The tethers from the Rendron were removed from Serylusk and the ship drifted towards Vestalia from the planet’s gravitational pull. It was moving faster than he anticipated, and he inhaled steadily to calm his nerves. He put both palms on Big Black and planted his feet, then closed his eyes to enter the Mera-Ku meditation.
Chunks of the Serylusk flew off and burned up into the atmosphere as it entered Vestalia like a blazing comet. Rafian willed the ship to throw up her shields and the vessel started to repair itself as the exterior cooled. Slowly but surely they were falling to the surface, but Rafian was deep into another reality. The gravity failed as the ship pulled resources from everything inside, but he stood where he was, hands on the crystal as if he were bolted to it and the deck.
“Thank you, Connie,” he finally said, and as she made to answer him the massive battleship Serylusk vanished from her radar.
* * *
Though the majority of the troops were in full retreat from the planet Geral, you would not have known this if you looked up into the sky during the assault. Whytes, phantoms, zip ships, and every variety of fighter were weaving into each other, launching missiles, scattering gunfire, and shooting trace lasers where they could.
It was one of the most impressive displays of aerial warfare anyone had seen during the galactic war. It appeared as if every Geralos Ace was in attendance, along with every legendary pilot in the Alliance. Tayden Lark, who had barely recovered from her recent cloning, was in her phantom leading a troop of her old rangers. Camille YAN came in with twenty Phaser recruits who had volunteered to help on this particular day. Other Aces from Louine, Casan, and Meluvia were also there, making for a formidable fleet of skillful warriors whose goal was to clear the skies for Rafian’s big surprise.
Upon breaking the atmosphere to dip down towards the capital, they had been met with opposition immediately. Camille’s mind went to treachery, believing one of their number had been compromised by Geralos intelligence.
“Good thing Rafian didn’t give us details,” she said through her comm to Tayden, who was already shouting out expletives at the fact that the Geralos were in the know.
They flew together, the two Phaser commanders, sending fire into the midst of the ships before all hell broke loose. When the Geralos countered they sent them running and it became all about survival. They could see the force field above the key structures and the long, grassy stretch of Mees, capital city in the country of Quin.
This was where the major brain biters plotted world domination and empowered the military to do the things they had done. It was from this city that the order came down to take the planet Vestalia, enslave the humans, and bite into the heads of the seeker females. Rafian had learned this when he invaded the mind of their leader and had made it his purpose to find the temple and destroy it in order to bring an end to the war.
Now with the threat of the Phasers coming to their doors, the Geralos had fortified their core position. If Camille was able to take the time to glance at what was going on below, she would have seen the hundreds of regiments ready to fight anyone that would dare come close to the capital. But it was the sky that was her concern and she flew in the way that she had been trained to fly so many years ago on the Helysian.
Camille had seen portals open and close for many years after becoming a Person in the Jumper organization. She had come through portals, she had produced portals, and she had taught the newer members how to do it themselves. But the size of the portal that appeared above them was so frightening that she almost collided with one of the other Phaser pilots.
She had seen the ripples in the atmosphere that warned of the incoming tear, but for one as big as she was now seeing, she began to question her sanity. “Okay, Phasers,” Tayden shouted. “We need to move. I don’t like the look of the clouds up there. Camille, do you have any idea what that thing is?”
“It looks like a crystal tear, Tay, but that doesn’t make any sense, does it?” she said but then her mind went to Rafian. He had wanted her to get the crystals out of the city so there was no chance that the Geralos could get them. But she had always known that he wasn’t telling her everything. The single black crystal that had always been mysterious—
“Raf, you wouldn’t,” she said out loud, and everyone grew quiet, as if they were waiting for her to finish.
“Wouldn’t what, Cammy?” Tayden said finally and then Frank came on.
“Camille, do you know what that is?” he asked. “The Geralos seem to be flying away from it.”
Camille said, “Something tells me that Rafian used Big Black to jump something that isn’t really meant to be jumped. He seemed pretty convinced that it would destroy the capital, and if that’s the case, I don’t want to be anywhere near it.” She sent out a signal to sync all of their fighters, and punched in the coordinates to an airspace far outside of Quin.
The Phasers accepted her coordinates and their vessels picked up altitude, then shot away from the tear. Camille maxed her thrusters and took security precautions as they gained a speed that took them away from the zip ships and the Alliance pilots.
Tayden radioed back on the Alliance general comm and told the fighters to get out of the area. The Phasers cut across the land
scape and dipped behind mountains, but the dark clouds seemed to be an endless canopy and it took some time to escape them.
When they were far enough out from below the tear, Camille checked her rear cameras and the battleship Serylusk was suddenly there, falling towards its doom. “Maker!” she shouted. “Do you see that? Rafian jumped a thyping battleship!”
26 | A New Beginning
THE SERYLUSK hit the top of the force field and the impact powered down its towers. This killed the shields as well as the force field, and the weight of the ship plus the velocity from the thrusters drove it into the tops of the buildings.
First was the capital building, where the leaders of Geral huddled to watch in horror as their best aces were toyed with and killed by the superior Phaser pilots. The Serylusk’s hull was torn open as it crushed them all and bored into the soft earth, which tore open its reactor and expelled the nitron into the air. Pressure and sparks led to a miniature explosion which reacted with the nitron and sent out a shockwave that leveled every building within 1,000 yards.
This impact killed every Geralos within the capital but a second explosion resulted from the fusion reactor and the atmosphere took hold. The buildings, trees, and thick forestry of Geral became food for the radiation as the fires spread. Quick and all-consuming was this circle of fiery death, which shot out rapidly from the fireball that was once the Serylusk.
Ships in the water were vaporized instantly, and anything living within 30 miles of the capital was melted down to molt and ash as the hungry flames ran away from the center. From the vantage of Helysian and the warship Aqnaqak, it looked like a growing sore on the surface of the planet.
A bright light flashed and another wave of death was sent out. This time it mushroomed up and caught the ships that were too close, smashing them into one another and melting others into nothing. The fires continued to catch on throughout the forests of Geral, and the destruction spread even when the reaction had cooled.