“I know,” he responded. “I memorized your profile. Prime Minister Trall made you required reading after you, your twin brother and your friend Colonel Khai ruined his plans.”
It wasn’t his name, but it was a good start. “Then you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know your name.”
“Six,” he said.
“Okay, Six. That’s a start. What about your birth name?”
“Gav’Vin Garmin. Gav for short.”
“Gav,” Dah nodded with a slight smile. Dah took a step closer and extended his hand. The boy recoiled so much that he stepped backward off the ledge of the roof. “No!” Dah cried, lunging forward and grabbing Gav’s hand. Dah was more than strong enough to pull the boy back up to safety, but as Gav dangled there, his eyes kind of glazed over and his face took on a haunted expression. His lips moved as if he was talking to himself and reached behind his back.
“At any cost…” the boy murmured. He pulled himself closer to Dah and brandished a polished knife. Gav swung the knife at the exposed man, who was his lifeline at the moment. The knife sunk three inches into the soft tissue just behind his collarbone.
Out of pure reflexes alone, Dah jerked back with a grunt. He instantly lost his grip on the boy’s hand and he fell, screaming, all the way to his death. “No!” Dah cried. No! No! NO! It was too late, he was dead. That poor haunted kid was dead. At least now Trall can’t hurt him anymore.
The Kit’ra was broken and Kay was on the move, rolling out of the way of the girl’s next attack. Kay sprung to her feet from her back and spun kicked the girl’s sword away and located hers at the same time. Once armed again, she pressed the attack. She attacked the boy with a high, horizontal attack with her sword and as anticipated, the boy ducked under it. Kay kept her momentum spinning and swiped her foot low to floor wiping the boy’s feet out from under him. She went to drive the killing blow into his chest when she was bashed in the side of the head with a brick of crete.
Kay stumbled back and that gave the boy enough time to get to his feet. The girl took an attack of opportunity on Kay, dazed from the blow to her head. Kay barely ducked under the fast blow. The blade cut through her hair still suspended in air. Just before Kay could really recover, the girl attacked again, this time low. Kay jumped over the blade as it cut through a heating exhaust pipe behind her. During the jump, Kay spun and swung her foot around catching the girl Agent in the face and sending her spinning to the ground. Her victory was short lived, though. As she landed, the boy kicked her into a network of ducts for the building’s ventilation system.
She emerged from the wreckage to find both of them ready for her. She sighed, rolled her eyes and waded through the broken ducts. Once she was out, she saw what appeared to be two large explosions on a rooftop adjacent to her. Dah! Kay though immediately. Then she realized that the others were also looking in that direction. Kay moved quickly. She lunged forward and connected with a bone-jarring kick to the side of the boy’s face. He crumbled to the floor. The girl responded quicker than Kay had thought she was going to and swiped her sword down at Kay’s exposed leg. Kay kicked her leg down fast enough to avoid it getting cut clean off, but it left a deep wound across her thigh. Kay refused to let it slow her down. She dug deep and found that inner strength to survive. She pressed the attack, a barrage of rage-fueled attacks, high and low, vertical, horizontal and diagonal. The boy recovered.
The two were backpedaling as fast as they could, batting away the attacks. Then, at once, they turned the tables with a coordinated flurry of attacks meant to overwhelm their attacker. It worked. Kay made a fatal error and thrust her sword forward to run the defenseless boy through, but left her right arm exposed to the girl with the sword. Kay knew it was a calculated risk, but if she could dispose of at least one of them, her chances of survival increased exponentially. Her gamble, unfortunately, did not pay off. They were baiting her to attack, and when she did, the girl chopped down on Kay wrist. The only thing that kept the blade from slicing her hand completely off was her quick reflexes. She jerked her hand away, but had to drop her sword.
She took several steps back, trying to put some distance between her and her attackers. The boy picked up her sword and together they attacked. Using every ounce of strength, constitution and heart she had, she defended herself knowing full well that if she failed, her family’s fate was sealed… and it would be a brutal and painful death. The thought of her brothers and mother and father being tortured to death gave her even more strength.
“Give it up, Agent Thirteen!” the boy yelled as he swiped the sword at her.
“Never!” she cried as she kicked the blade the away.
“We promise your family a quick death if you surrender,” the girl said, her sword swooping down diagonally at Kay.
“I can’t!” Kay snapped, dancing out of the way of the attack. “I love them!”
Blood was gushing from the open wound in her leg. She needed to end this now before she lost the ability to defend herself. She heard a faint scream and risked a glance over to where she saw the explosions. It appeared to be an Agent falling to his death. Maybe Dah—if that’s who it really was—had come out on the winning side. She decided to find out.
“Dah!” a girl’s voice called out from a building over. “If that is you out there, I could really use some help!”
Dah looked up and saw her fending off those same two Agents.
She was in bad shape.
Dah found his sniper rifle and zoomed in on her. She had lost her sword and was batting the others’ swords away with her hands and feet, bobbing and weaving away from attacks. She was bleeding from a large gash across the front of her thigh, her right wrist and her nose. Dah zoomed out a bit and focused on the two Agents. He took a couple deep breaths to slow his heart rate down and then held it as he lined up his shot. The bullet fired from his gun hit the sword hand of the boy and pulverized it. Only a bloody, twitching stump remained. The boy cried, clutching and staring at the spurting stump of bone and mangled flesh. In shock, he started futilely to pick up the piece of his hand to try to reattach it somehow.
Kay used the distraction as an opportunity to attack. She pivoted on her left foot and struck the girl in the face with her roundhouse kick and followed up with a spinning back kick. The girl stumbled back and tried to bring her sword to bear on Kay, but Kay was too fast. Performing the same attack as before only starting with the other foot and the first kick was meant to knock the sword out of her hand. The attack did exactly as it was designed to do and the follow-up back kick connected with the girl’s now-bloody face, snapping her head back.
Moving faster than Dah could track with his scope, Kay rushed forward and flipped over the girl Agent as she fell backward into a back handspring. The end result was Kay standing just behind the girl. When the girl straightened up, Kay grabbed her by the hair and jerked her backward off her feet. On the Agent’s way down, Kay chopped her in the throat crushing her windpipe. The Agent spent the last moments of her wasted life writhing on the floor, grasping at her throat and gasping for air. Kay watched with detached satisfaction as she took her last breath.
Dah slumped as the fight ended. As the adrenaline wore off, the pain of the knife still stuck in him overtook him. He stumbled backward and slid down a short wall to his backside. He tried to pull the weapon out, but every time he even touched it, he cried out. The awareness of his surroundings was starting to fade. The last thing he saw, or maybe hallucinated, was Kay kneeling down into his face and kissing him.
Chapter Fifteen
As Khai’s ship drifted through dead space, he slept. His injuries were grievous, and the sheer shock of traveling through a closing black hole overloaded his nervous system. Though his body was broken, his mind still wandered in the form of a dream. His mind’s eye saw many things, travesties, miracles and horrors no man should ever experience. One dream in particular caused him much distress as he slept. When he was young lieutenant in the SCGF, he and his division were deplo
yed to Planet 276. The planet itself was a gas giant, completely uninhabitable, but it contained a precious gas that Seryysans used to power their vehicles. Litha’no’gen was a combustible gas only found on three planets within safe range of the Seryys System, P-276 was the biggest by ten times and seemed to provide an almost unlimited supply of the gas. It had special properties that, when passed through the catalyst chamber of a ship’s exhaust ports, produced no harmful byproducts during atmospheric flying. Once in space that was less of an issue as there was no atmosphere to damage.
P-276 had several moons, ten to be exact. Seven of them were dead rocks of useless minerals. One was a smaller gas-based moon, speculated to be a fragment that broke off of P-276 and settled into orbit like a moon. The remaining two moons were habitable; one had an indigenous species that lived there. They were humanoid, short, slender, frail, covered in black or brown fur and highly primitive. When Seryys discovered this species—which they named Furrans for their fuzzy appearance—and made first contact, they developed a bond with the people of Seryys. By all intents and purposes, they were “cute” little creatures, sentient, but not developed.
They lived off the land, hunting and gathering; they lived in small huts made of earth and wood; and they worshiped the Seryysans as gods. Upon first contact, the representatives of Seryys refused to be treated as gods and only wanted to befriend them. They mostly communicated with a series of clicks and whistles. It took one of Seryys’ leading anthropologists over a year to learn their language and develop a translation device that made communication with them possible. In time, they were able to convince the Furrans that they were just mere mortals who only possessed higher technology. They were a peaceful race, friendly and trusting. Even Khai had grown a liking to them with their pleasing nature. And the moon itself was breathtaking. Khai had visited the Furran Moon a few times for shore leave. The moon was probably much like what Seryys might have looked like thousands of years earlier, before the Founders colonized it.
Due to their frail and peaceful nature… and to protect their interests, the Seryysans couldn’t leave them to be dominated by another species like the Vyysarri—and they certainly couldn’t lose the valuable resources contained within that planet they orbited—so they set up an outpost on the Furrans’ sister moon to monitor the system.
When the fleet to which Khai was assigned emerged from their black holes, they found what was left of the defense fleet. Broken, flickering hulks that were once Seryys capital ships tumbled aimlessly through the vacuum of space above the Furrans’ home and its sister moon where the outpost was located. Accompanying the flaming pieces of Seryys ships were the broken hulls of Vyysarri ships.
“Sensors indicate a substantial lack of radioactive isotopes in the immediate area. I would say that this battle took place about twelve hours ago, maybe more,” a young tactical officer said.
“Scan the surface of both moons,” Fleet Admiral Takkir ordered, his forehead creasing with stress above his bushy, white eyebrows. “See if there are any survivors.”
“Right away, sir!” the young man said, working the console like a prodigy instrumentalist.
“Lieutenant Khail,” the elderly man, wise beyond even his years, turned to face him.
“Sir?” Khai straightened to attention.
“Prepare your men. You’re going down to reconnoiter. Check on the Furrans first, then move on to the outpost on the other moon. There will be another unit there already, you will assist them upon your arrival.”
“Sir. Yes, sir,” Khail saluted, spun on his heel and marched off to the lift at the back of the bridge.
“Life signs are minimal, sir,” Khai heard the young officer announce. “I’m reading, Seryysan, Furran and… Vyysarri.”
“Did you hear that lieutenant?” Takkir called after Khai.
“I did, sir,” Khai stopped to say, grinning over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that, sir.”
“And, Lieutenant?”
“Sir?”
“Remember. No prisoners, per order of the Prime Minister. Understood?”
“Perfectly, sir. Just means less paperwork.”
The lift doors opened into the hanger where troops were assembling and ships were being loaded up. Captain Dremyyl was prepping his Shark-Class Interceptor for a solo flight around the immediate area for remaining ships from either side.
“You going out?” Khai asked him.
“Yeah,” Dremyyl said, wiping his hands off with a rag. “Admiral Takkir wants to know what’s out there.”
“Be careful, Cap’,” Khai said, slapping him on the back. “Those Raptors are pretty fast.”
“Not faster than her,” he said, nodding his head back at his ship with a cocky grin. “I’ll outrun ‘em all.”
“I believe it!” Khai laughed. “Just watch your tail rudder, okay?”
“Is that an order?”
“Oh, I can’t order you around, Captain,” Khai chided. “I’m just a lowly grunt still.”
“Well, congratulations on your promotion, Lieutenant,” Dremyyl said with a crisp salute. “And good luck. You’re gonna need it.”
“I make my own luck, Cap’!” Khai said, walking away. “But thanks for the gesture!”
His unit was made up of twenty-five soldiers. Many of them had been working with Khai for the last eight years of his career. Most of them had outranked him at one point or another, but his hard work, ferocious soldiery, bravery and unwavering loyalty to Seryys and his men catapulted him up the military ladder very quickly. They were all geared up in their armor and armed.
“Ten-hut!” Sergeant Baccar shouted over the chaos and chatter of the bustling hanger.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Khai said to his friend. “At ease.” They relaxed. “We are the first wave. Our job is to assess the damage and engage any remaining resistance. I am under orders from the Admiral to show no quarter to any injured. Just put ‘em outta their misery. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted in sync.
“Good,” Khai said, shouldering his machine gun. “Move out!”
They loaded onto a troop drop ship and it left the hanger, breaking through the invisible barrier between the hanger and space. The ship bucked and shuddered the whole way down into the atmosphere of the small moon. As they dropped into the lower skies above the forested moon, they could see smoke billowing up from small Furran villages that now burned. The drop ship touched down on its landing struts and the ramp dropped to the ground.
Khai led his men out into the forest. The sight that greeted them was something Khai would never forget. They had landed within the capital village and, as far as they could tell, everyone was dead. The little Furrans were literally torn to pieces. Arms and legs were everywhere, decapitated heads sat on spikes and many of them had been bled dry. And not just the men were killed; the women and children were treated equally.
Rage boiled up like bile to the back of Khai’s throat; at that moment Khai was glad that Takkir had given the order to take no prisoners.
“What kind of monster does this?” Baccar asked, his voice haunted and almost distant.
The sound of rustling drew their attention to a large hut off to their right. They all pointed their guns at it. A pasty-white hand reached out from beyond the door. That hand dug into the ground and pulled a white body out from the innards of the hut. It was a wounded Vyysarri. Khai noticed right away that the debriefing he received was correct; Vyysarri could survive in the twilight of P-276’s sun. The moon didn’t spin and took the same amount of time to orbit P-276 as the gas giant took to orbit the sun. This meant that the Furran Moon was in a constant state of twilight, never experiencing complete day or total darkness.
The whole unit moved in to kill him.
“No!” Khai shouted the order. “This is one is mine.”
He stalked up to the Vyysarri and glowered down at him. He had several arrows in his chest and a short spear-like weapon stuck through its leg. Khai looked inside and th
ere were several frightened Furrans, shaking and whimpering.
Khai looked down at the Vyysarri. “Why?”
The question prompted a gurgled laugh. “Anyone who aids the Seryysans deserves to die!”
“Where are the rest of your buddies?”
“They left already. We did what we came to do and left.”
“Then why are you still here?” Khai growled, grabbing the Vyysarri by the collar of his tunic.
“Stupid boy!” he laughed. “Vyysarri always leave their wounded, they are weak.”
“So that would be you,” Khai pointed out, shoving the Vyysarrri back down to the ground.
“So it would seem.” The Vyysarri sat up against the wall of the hut.
“These beings were defenseless! They had no technology!” Khai’s rage boiled over.
“Made for an easy kill,” the Vyysarri mumbled.
“You piece of shit!” Khai grabbed the Vyysarri by the throat and slowly pushed one of the arrows deeper into his stomach. He growled in pain, but refused to give Khai the satisfaction of crying out. Once that arrow was punched all the way through, he moved onto next one.
“Yessss!” the Vyysarri hissed, spitting up blood. “Give me an honorable death, young one.”
To Khai’s pleasure, the Vyysarri still lived. After all the arrows were pushed all the way through, Khai moved onto the spear through Vyysarri’s leg. He picked the Vyysarri up by the spear and got what he was looking for… a cry of pain. That set Khai off. He dragged the Vyysarri out of the hut and swung him around by the spear, throwing him to the ground.
The Vyysarri tried to stand, but Khai wouldn’t let him. He straddled the Vyysarri and pounded his face in with a rock. The body bucked and twitched as the Vyysarri’s face caved in from the blows. Eventually, Khai stopped. His men all stared at him with horror in their eyes. He was covered in black-red blood when he stood, staring down at the Vyysarri in the death throes of his final minutes.
The Seryys Chronicles: Death Wish Page 22