The Seryys Chronicles: Death Wish

by Joseph Nicholson

  Khai took the small glass and quickly downed the green liquid. The burning that followed took Khai completely by surprise. He nearly spat it out and started coughing profusely.

  “Good, yes?”

  “I’ve had worse, that’s for sure.”

  “Would you like another?”

  “Absolutely!”

  Sibrex signaled for someone to come over and assist them. The person who came to serve them nearly took Khai’s breath away. She was beautiful! Even the pale white of her skin was attractive! She was just about Khai’s height, her white hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore tight-fitting black pants that shimmered in the light and her shirt was cut off just above the belly button and sat low enough to show her busty cleavage.

  “What can I get you, gentlemen?”

  “Four more of these, please,” Sibrex asked.

  “Right away,” she said in flirty tone, eyeing Khai.

  “I think she is taken with you,” Sibrex said playfully.

  “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look,” Khai said with a laugh.

  “She is fine a woman,” Sibrex agreed.

  The ridiculously attractive woman retuned with four more of… whatever it was, and smiled at Khai.

  “Thanks,” Khai said, doing everything he could to keep his eyes on her eyes.

  “Anytime,” she said with a smile.

  Sibrex held up his glass. “To the future of our peoples.”

  Khai reciprocated. “May they leave each other the hell alone!”

  “Well put!” Sibrex said.

  They both downed their drinks.

  “Ah! Whew. What the hell is this stuff?”

  “We call it Broshia. It is very popular.”

  “I can see why!” They both laughed.

  Khai went to take his next drink and a piece of paper fell off the bottom of the glass. He unfolded the paper and read it aloud.

  “Brindee’Lyyn Brook. Com unit identification: 3387? Did she just give me her Com-Ident?”

  “I believe she has. Will you call her?”

  “I… don’t know,” Khai admitted, shaking his head. “She’s very beautiful, but…”

  “But what?” Sibrex seemed puzzled.

  “She won’t… you know… uh… bite me. Will she? I mean, I’ve been bit and I did not like it at all!”

  “No,” Sibrex answered definitively. “For us, feeding is no longer a pleasurable experience. There are those, especially those who fight your kind, who take pleasure in feeding on you, but they are an anomaly.”

  “Interesting…” Khai said, thumbing his chin.

  “We have rallied more people to our cause,” Kay told Dah. “Within four days, more Agents will be answering the call.”

  “More Agents?” Dah sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Yes,” Kay said. “After hearing our story about Trall coming after our parents, actually carrying out what we were threatened with, they have also changed sides. Though this strengthens our numbers, it also raises the stakes. We must be successful. If Trall lives, their families die.”

  “That is exactly why he won’t,” Dah insisted as he reassembled his gun.

  “Do you promise?” Kay asked from her hospital bed.

  “I will complete the mission, or die trying. You have my word.”

  “I wish I was coming with you.”

  “You need to recover from your injuries. Your bravery came at a steep price.”

  “I had to save them. Again…”

  Dah nodded. “Again. But now they’re safe and you’re with them at last.”

  Kay nodded. It was a bittersweet reunion for the families of the Agents.

  There was a heated argument that included virtually everyone else in the next room. The parents were refusing to let their children go into the bunker to most likely die. Both sides had compelling arguments. Before the argument started, Dah made it abundantly clear that any Agents who did not want to go would not be seen as cowards, that it was their choice to make. But their parents, despite the fact that some of them hadn’t seen their children in almost ten years, still seemed to think that they knew what was best for them. Most of the parents were in denial that their children were trained as cold-blooded killers and that their programming was still mostly intact. They were compelled to engage in combat like a compulsion.

  The argument was getting heated. The voices escalated into full-on shouts from both sides. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, all fighting for what they believed to be the right course of action. Dah eventually heard individual voices shouting above the rest.

  Dah stood, slapping the magazine into his gun. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To stop a fight.”

  Dah stalked into the room. The consistent roar made Dah’s ears ring.

  “Enough!” he shouted, but was drowned out by the constant bickering of over forty voices. Losing his patience, he fired a shot into the ceiling, which, after Dah was disarmed, punched in the face and lying on his back, was probably a bad idea in a room full of Agents trained to react violently to just such events.

  “I’m sorry,” the boy said, offering a hand up. “I didn’t even think…”

  “It’s okay, son. I know.” Dah stood and looked at everyone in the room, blood trickling from his nose. “Now that I have your attention, I wanted to share a couple things with you.”

  “Like what?” an angry father spat out. Clearly, his voice was one of the voices that Dah heard stand out from the other room.

  “You’re still not safe,” Dah simply put. “Trall will find you here. You will be tracked wherever you go and I can’t continue to find safe havens for you every couple of weeks. Your children have been taken from you, and wrongfully so. But they are killers… cold, calculating, relentless killers. They have been conditioned to carry out gruesome things. Though they may be standing right beside you, the people who you call your children died a long time ago. These kids are what’s left. Now, you can forbid them to go, reduce our chances of success and be on the run for the rest of your lives, or you can let them go and let them make a difference. If we succeed, Puar will be reinstated as Prime Minister and you will be safe to go about your lives with your children.”

  “How can you say that?” the same father asked. “You’re not the government. Who’s to say Puar won’t take them from us again and put them back to work?”

  “My brother would never do that!” Puar shouted. “He’s a good man!”

  “Nonetheless,” the father said. “He is only one man and the senate has to approve any major changes like that. Who’s to say that he hasn’t already tried and failed?”

  “It’s entirely possible. But don’t you think that’s worth the risk? If Trall lives, I can guarantee you that you will eventually be killed… all of you. I’ve seen firsthand what Trall is capable of, and it scared me.”

  “Do you know who you’re talking too?” the father asked.

  “No,” Dah said, refusing to be baited.

  “I own three casinos in the RLD. I have more resources than all of you combined. I appreciate your help, Captain Dah, but I’ll take my chances.”

  “You’ll take your chances with your son?” Dah asked angrily.

  “Yes!” he snapped. “He… is… my… son! I know what’s best for him, not you!”

  “Is this what you want, son?” Dah asked the boy. “To be on the run for the rest of your life?”

  “I want to be with my family,” he said.

  “Fine,” Dah said. “Go. Be safe. I won’t, and can’t, keep you here.”

  “You’re damn right, you can’t!” the father growled, gathering his things and corralling his family. “Now, where can I buy a ship off this rock?”

  “There’s a ship dealer about five blocks from here. Tell him you know Joon and he’ll give you a deal on good ship,” Joon answered.

  “Good.”

  He stormed out the door with his
family in tail.

  “No one else is required to stay,” Dah pointed out.

  Several more families packed up and left, following that fool’s lead. Only one family remained… Kay’s. Dah sauntered back into the recovery room where Kay and her family waited.

  “They all left?”

  “Yeah,” Dah said, deflated.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “You said in a couple days we would have some more numbers, right?”

  “Yes,” Kay said with confidence. “And these Agents have no families to tie them down… well, at least that aren’t in direct danger.”

  “Then at least we have that…”

  Two days later, Dah was watching the Net’Vyyd when a breaking news story showed a witness’s recording of a ship crashing into a casino in the RLD. The footage showed the ship rolling as if its hoverpads on the starboard side malfunctioned. The ship nosedived straight into the building prompting several explosions that soon engulfed the whole area in flames.

  Dah watched sadly, knowing exactly what happened. The SCIIA most likely tracked the purchase, waited for a ship matching that description to come out of a black hole and opened fire, targeting the hoverpads so it looked like a malfunction to the general public. Stupid bastards! Dah seethed. He warned them—no, he had promised them—this would happen.

  “So much death…” Kay whispered from her bed.

  “Unnecessary death, at that,” Dah added ruefully.

  “Maybe the others saw this before making the trip home,” Joon remarked, but with very little hope in her voice.

  “We can only pray to the Founders that they did…” Dah murmured.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Khai awoke, his eyes lazily opening. He looked over to his left and found her right where he left her. Brindee’Lyyn Brook was indeed beautiful. It was now day five and they had spent almost every hour of the last three days together. He never thought in a million years that he could feel this away about anyone, much less after only three days and despite the fact that she was a Vyysarri. But she was indeed an intriguing woman. She was fifty years old, but didn’t look a day past thirty.

  Khai thought maybe the fact that she was a Vyysarri added to her allure. Physically, she was as strong as Khai and possessed comparable stamina, which he found out very quickly. But the connection they made in such a short time was uncanny. She was funny, attractive, strong, everything Khai could hope for in a woman. She stirred, rolling over to look at Khai, her curiously beautiful reds gazing at him.

  “Good morning,” Khai said, with a smile.

  “Good morning, to you,” she responded both in speech and smile.

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Like the dead. How about you?”

  “It was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years.”

  “You must have been tired,” she chided. “Did I wear you out?”

  “A little,” Khai admitted. “It’s been even longer since I… you know.”

  “I could tell,” she said warmly. “But it was still amazing.”

  “You’re right. It’s just…”

  “What? What’s wrong? Was it not good for you?” she asked, a hint of insecurity seeping into her voice.

  “N-no… I mean, yes. It was amazing. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I’m just… I don’t know…”

  “Khai, talk to me. Something else you will learn about me, I am a good listener.”

  “You’re a Vyysarri, and I… It’s been ingrained into my head to hate you and your kind. And now that I’m here, now that I’ve met you and Sibrex, and several others, I-I…” He sighed sharply. “I can’t hate you anymore.”

  “Sounds terrible,” Brindee said sarcastically, almost hurt.

  “I knew you wouldn’t understand…” Khai said, sitting up and burying his face in his hands.

  Brindee sat up and scooted to sit behind him. She wrapped her arms around him, laid her head on his back and played with his chest hair, their naked bodies touching. Her touch was surprisingly warm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after a few moments. “I know this must be difficult for you.”

  “That’s the understatement of the century!” Khai scoffed. “I mean, doesn’t it bother you that I’ve killed literally thousands of your kind in my life?”

  “Sure it does,” she said honestly. “But I can also tell you that those who fight the Seryysans do not share my views of life—none of ours, for that matter. In this drifting colony, we were schooled in the truth and that we need to accept our Seryysan brothers and sisters. A good number of us desire peace between our people. What better way to start that than to fall in love with a Seryysan?”

  “How can you know this is love?” Khai asked, hoping for the right answer.

  “You said it yourself that you haven’t felt this way about anyone, right?”

  “Well yeah…”

  “And you I can assure you that I would have never bedded anyone for whom I didn’t care… deeply.”

  “You’re not just saying that?” Khai asked.

  “Look at me.” Khai turned to sit on the bed cross-legged and faced her. She sat there, unclothed. At no other point in someone’s life were they ever that vulnerable, that exposed and she was beautiful. “I’ve never slept with anyone I didn’t love,” she reiterated. “What I gave you last night was something only a handful of people have experienced. And the last time was almost twenty years ago.”

  That struck Khai like a shuttle falling from orbit. She hadn’t felt the warmth of another in her bed for twenty years. Well, technically it was his bed, but still, was it possible to fall in love in only three days? He had never felt true love as it applied here. He truly loved his dad, he loved Sergeant Moon as father and mentor, but the truth was, he never felt he had time to have a relationship. And when he got out of the military, he figured he was damaged goods. What woman would want a man who killed for a living, especially a man who exclusively killed her kind? Maybe she did love him. Maybe it was possible to fall in love in such a short time. Maybe it was possible to love someone from a race of people he was conditioned to hate.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked at length.

  “That I may have found something I’ve been looking for… for years.”

  “Someone to love?”

  “Something, well, someone to live for,” he said. “And direction for the rest of my life.”

  “You discovered all that just now?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “Over the last three days.”

  Tears welled up in Brindee’s eyes. They embraced with a long kiss that led to Khai pulling her down onto the bed…

  “I love you,” Khai whispered into her ear.

  “And I you…” she whispered back.

  Dah sat at a bar in Joon’s house, drowning his sorrow with a particularly strong drink from an unlabeled bottle he found in a locked cabinet under the bar. He picked the lock and had poured himself his third shot when Joon walked in.

  She sat next to him and reached over the counter, producing another shot glass. She poured herself a shot and downed it, making a sour face.

  “My late husband’s homebrew,” she remarked. “Thought I locked it up.”

  “You did,” Dah said from his barstool.

  “Hmph!” Joon nodded and poured herself another shot. “So, what brings you down here alone to kill brain cells with my husband’s engine degreaser?”

  Dah actually laughed a genuine laugh. “Really? This is engine degreaser?”

  “It has... many applications. But don’t change the subject.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he slurred with a mock salute. “Honestly, I wanted to be alone to feel sorry for myself.”

  “Why? What do you have to feel sorry about?”

  “I tried so hard to save those families. I risked everything, my career, my life, my future… all for nothing. They still ran off and died.”

  “Listen here, you
ngling. You can’t possibly control people’s thoughts, right? If they chose to leave, they chose to put their own lives at risk.”

  “But I could’ve made them stay!” he snapped, slamming his shot glass down on the bar.

  “Holding them prisoner wouldn’t have made you any better than those who were trying to kill them. You know that. That’s why you let them leave,” Joon said downing another shot.

  “Yeah, and now they’re dead. And so will several others within the next day or so. So now what?”

  “Actually, that’s why I came here looking for you,” Joon said.

  Damn it! He knew the others would follow that arrogant asshole to their deaths. But he would play along for now. “What about them? Have they come back?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Actually, yes.”

  “What?” Now he was surprised.

  “Yeah. They must’ve seen the report on the Net’Vyyd and turned around. Two have already arrived and the others have asked for clearance to land.”

  “Really?” Dah breathed.

  “Mm-hm, and the others will be here the day after tomorrow.”

  “How many, total?”

  “Well, you saved seven families, six of them survived. Kay told me that she was able to recruit fifteen more Agents.”

  “So we have twenty-one Agents, sixteen officers—if they’re willing, me, Puar, Brix and Naad.”

  “I spoke to one of the officers just before coming down here. He seemed encouraged by the fact that we have so many Agents on our side. It would appear that they’re all in.”

  “Well, that’s something. This might actually work.”

  “It should,” Joon agreed. “You’ve got the element of surprise, good intel and some of the best fighters this system has to offer. I’d say your chances are better than average.”

  “I would have to agree with you.”

  “Now that was the most positive thing you’ve said since you got here. Did it hurt?”

  Dah laughed again. “No. I suppose it didn’t.”

  “Good. ‘Cause I want to hear more of that.”

  “Yes, ma’am! Now, how about one more shot?”

  “I’ll drink to that,” she smiled warmly.