The Exiled Earthborn

by Paul Tassi

  1124.32[959]

  He broke free today, and they couldn’t hold him in the facility. He’s grown massive, sprouted enormous claws and, stranger still, wings. The unexpected mutations allow him great power, but his mind is lost. During his escape he slaughtered half the research team and another dozen guards once he made his way to the surface. They were finally able to subdue him, and his new holding chamber is an impenetrable vault. Constant, blinding light holds him at bay.

  The Council wants him exterminated, but I will not let them. I will work with him, reforge his mind into sanity. Imagine if his power could be harnessed! We may fight side by side yet.

  The Desecrator was Omicron’s son. No wonder he had been chosen to hunt them down. It was a more than a mission. It was revenge. Lucas looked over at Alpha to confirm and found he was already nodding. He continued reading.

  1124.33[1003]

  After weeks of therapy and progress, everything collapsed today. With those damnable wings, he burst through the ceiling of the training chamber and flew toward the nearest village. By the time I reached him, he had slaughtered most of them. Men, women, children, by the hundreds. We tried to contain the event, but whispers spread outward regardless. The locals won’t even set foot in the village anymore, superstitious fools declaring it unholy ground. They’re calling the fire-eyed beast that did it the “Desecrator.” That is what my son has become.

  1124.33[1022]

  The Council has made their ruling, and he is to be killed. Regardless of such a thing being impossible due to his immense power, I will not allow them to make the attempt. He has been improving as of late. Coherent. Able to understand and follow my instructions. I see a glimpse of the son I once knew buried inside him. I will help him escape one last time. Escape from Xala entirely.

  Makari. It is the place for him. He can hunt to his heart’s content in those jungles, and they will never find him. I will claim no knowledge of his whereabouts, and may have to feign injury to assure them I was overpowered.

  I believe in time they will realize his power, they will understand that he is a weapon to be wielded, not destroyed. But until then, he must be far away from here.

  1124.33[1029]

  It is done. And once more, I find myself alone.

  “Damn …” Lucas said as the file closed itself. “As if we needed to consider him even more dangerous.”

  “Perhaps,” Alpha said. “Though this could be of some use to us.”

  Alpha reopened the file and tapped a particular line.

  “Constant, blinding light holds him at bay.”

  Lucas had been so shocked at the family connection that he’d missed that entirely. He was reminded how the creature had been disoriented by nearby grenade blasts when they’d fought him on Makari.

  “That could be useful,” he said. “But he did end up escaping and murdering a whole bunch of people in spite of that.”

  “Still,” Alpha said. “It is more than we knew before.”

  Alpha, forever the knowledge seeker. Hopefully the morsel would be of some use should they encounter the creature again. Would they really call him back to Xala?

  The two-week voyage felt like an eternity at the time, but once it was nearly over, it seemed like it had gone by in a flash. They were set to arrive in the rim system in a matter of hours, and all parties were making final preparations for phase two of the plan. Maston was currently taking up most of the main viewscreen, telling them what was about to happen.

  “You’ll arrive in the system, and I can’t imagine the Xalans will be there more than a few minutes after that. The bastards are quite punctual.”

  Lucas knew that to be the case from their last run-in with Omicron.

  “As soon as they show up, I’ll take the Valiance out of the asteroid belt masking our signal. We’ll shut their comms down and disable their ship. They may have already crippled your vessel to prepare for boarding, but it won’t matter. As long as we get there before they breach, all should go according to plan.”

  “And then we knock them all out?” Asha said skeptically. Lucas was similarly unsure of the next stage. Alpha spoke.

  “If we arrive on Xala with a ship full of Soran lifeforms and only two Xalans, they will be suspicious. We need to keep most of them alive, give or take a few that may have been killed in an imagined ensuing struggle during capture.”

  “That’s where we come in,” said Maston. “We’ll flood their ship with gas, and then board and stun whoever’s left. Then it’s to Xala we go.”

  The entire crux of the plan relied on Alpha and Maston’s ability to coordinate. There was also a certain amount of luck involved. The Xalans could get spooked and jet away before the ship could be captured, or they could be on a kill mission and blow them away on first contact. That’s not what Zeta’s spies had relayed, but who knew? And above all else, god forbid someone gave the Desecrator a spaceship.

  When they arrived, they found themselves in yet another unfamiliar system. The rim world they were meant to be escaping to had barely fifty thousand residents and was a frosty little planet they would likely never even see, if all went smoothly. In the distance hung a dull reddish sun obscuring the diagonal stripe of the Milky Way.

  They’d already been waiting twenty minutes or so as they shuffled toward the ice world, waiting to be attacked. The interceptor was coming, that much they knew, so where was it? Lucas felt naked without power armor, but it was part of the ruse, as they weren’t supposed to be anticipating an attack. Comms were silent; they didn’t want to give away the fact that Maston was nearby in the Valiance.

  “Maybe we’re not so special after all,” Asha finally said at the half-hour mark. The ice planet would be in sight soon.

  “Speak for yourself,” Lucas shot back.

  The silence was eerie. The recycled air in the cruiser was starting to feel thin, though Lucas thought he was probably just in the early stages of hyperventilation. Again, fear never did seem to want to leave him for good. Though perhaps it was part of what had kept him alive so far.

  And then they appeared.

  “Readings indicate a mid-range [garbled] interceptor craft. Fifty, no, sixty Xalan lifeforms are onboard. They are closing fast.” Alpha rattled off the information quickly, sifting through the ship’s data displays.

  “Jesus, they brought the whole cavalry, huh?” Lucas said. It was hard to fault them after what had happened aboard the Ark.

  “Punch it!” ordered Asha to Lucas who was seated in a captain’s chair far too tiny for a Xalan to pilot effectively. He raised engine power output to dangerous levels as they rocketed through space toward the asteroid field. They had to make it look convincing.

  But it was already too late. An energy pulse washed over them like a tidal wave, and Lucas felt his hair stand on end as it passed through the ship. The lights went off, then kicked into emergency mode, bathing everything in a dull blue.

  “Incoming,” Alpha said, and within seconds the entire ship shook as something latched onto the hull. Time to break radio silence.

  “Maston?” Lucas yelled into the comm. No answer.

  They had to gas the interceptor before they breached the airlock seal or—

  A flashing readout indicated they were already inside.

  “Goddamnit!” Asha yelled. “Defensive positions!”

  The four of them grabbed their weapons and took cover behind the myriad of consoles scattered throughout the room. Visuals within the ship were offline. The only indicator someone was coming was the light clink of claws on the metal floor. It reminded Lucas of their last stand aboard the Ark, though this time they had no power armor and they weren’t going out the viewscreen as a last resort.

  “We’re here,” Maston said finally through the comm. “We took a hit from a rock, slowed us down.”

  “They’re already onboard!” Lucas shouted.

  “Shit,” Maston said. “Hang on, we’re disabling.”

  The Valiance could be seen out of the view
screen wheeling around toward them after emerging from the asteroid belt with a large new gash in its hull. Alarms were surely sounding on the Xalan ship as the enormous SDI vessel came into view. Would they retreat?

  A round metal object landed next to Lucas. The second it took him to process what it was almost cost him dearly. He lashed out with a kick and sent the grenade flying toward the opposite end of the room. It erupted with a flash and seared his eyes, but if it had blown next to him, it might very well have rendered him permanently blind.

  Asha poked her head up and put a round through the skull of the first Xalan who dared to enter the room. Alpha cut down another with his energy pistol. Lucas recognized their sleek black armor and the symbol on them. Paragons. Xala’s most deadly. He shouldn’t have expected any less.

  Another flash and this time they couldn’t react. Xalans swarmed into the room and by the time Lucas’s vision came back, there was one right in front of him, swinging a large metal pole toward him that cracked with electricity. It seemed capture, not kill, was their order. Despite both sides being committed to nonlethal tactics, Lucas knew they had a few bodies to spare.

  He cut the soldier in half with Natalie’s shotgun spray and turned to watch Asha disarm a nearby Xalan by slicing off both his arms with her sword.

  Another flash and Lucas was on the ground, searing pain shooting through his eyes. The Xalans wore tinted visors and weren’t affected by the devices. Lucas’s eyes cleared and he saw Zeta and Alpha being set upon by troops. He managed to get a shot off at one on top of Zeta, and the soldier went tumbling off her. Unfortunately, two immediately took his place.

  Asha had been backed into a corner and was slicing through stun batons, which were no match for the razor edge of her sword. Suddenly, a blast of light connected with her head and she went down, instantly unconscious, but hopefully not dead. Lucas struggled to his feet.

  “Maston!” he screamed into the comm.

  “It’s too late for containment,” came the reply. “We have to gas both ships.”

  Lucas raced over to Asha and rammed his knife into a crack in the plating of a trooper attempting to lift her. Something shoved him from behind and he crashed headfirst into the wall. As he crumpled to the ground, he found himself staring at a ventilation duct. Yellow steam began to pour out of it and Lucas was starting to fade within seconds. He couldn’t feel the Xalans raining down blows on him, but soon they fell next to him.

  22

  Lucas woke with a sharp pain in his arm. Glancing over, he saw Kiati pulling a needle out of his shoulder. He burst into an uncontrollable spasm of coughing.

  “Rise and shine,” she said as she stood up and bent down again a few feet over from him. Lucas rolled over and saw she was injecting Asha with a similar cocktail. She sprang to life and started coughing up a fit. Lucas’s lungs were burning and could feel a host of fresh bruises covering his upper body.

  He sat up and looked around the room and recognized the architecture immediately. They were onboard the Xalan vessel. Nearby, Guardians were dragging limp Xalan bodies stripped of their Paragon armor out into the hallway.

  “What’s goin’ on?” he asked groggily. Asha was still coughing.

  Kiati extended her arm and helped him to his feet.

  “We had to leave you out for a while before waking you up from the gas. Too soon and it’ll fry your nervous system.”

  Lucas’s nervous system felt frayed, but intact, so it appeared they had waited the correct amount of time.

  “Where are you taking them?” he asked, motioning to the bodies being carried out of the room. They were in some sort of storage bay it seemed.

  “Time to put them all to sleep for the duration of our flight. They’re loading them in the cryopods upstairs. They’ll be alive, but unconscious, for as long as we’re here. We’ll execute them once we reach Xala.”

  Asha had finally caught her breath.

  “So everything’s good then, even with you guys showing up late?”

  “Don’t blame us,” Kiati said curtly. “You try being on time when a rogue asteroid takes out one of your engines.”

  Alpha entered the room, apparently already having been revived. He too had a fair amount of bruising, some of it across his face.

  “I broadcasted a forged transmission indicating our ‘success’ from the communications bay. They believe the mission to be complete and that we are en route back to Xala. Zeta relayed what has actually transpired to her agents on the homeworld who will be the ones helping facilitate infiltration once we arrive.”

  Lucas lightly kicked a downed Paragon.

  “What are the numbers then?”

  Alpha checked a readout. “Five Xalans killed during their capture attempt. Acceptable. Believable.”

  He tapped a few more keys.

  “In addition to you and Asha, we will depart with four Guardian troops, including Commander Maston.”

  “And including me,” Kiati said. She was tending to a raised knot on Lucas’s head.

  “Only four?” Asha asked, finally able to catch her breath. “We have a whole ship full on the Valiance.” She motioned toward a porthole where the SDI cruiser could be seen.

  “Four could mean you were accompanied by a small escort in your escape who were also captured. More than that would draw suspicion. This infiltration is meant to be tactical, not an outright assault, which would surely fail.”

  Eight of them, then. Against all of Xala. Lucas shook his head, much to Kiati’s annoyance. He looked into her stern bluish-green eyes as she sealed a cut on his forehead with gel.

  “You volunteered?” he asked.

  “Best case, I’m a hero,” she replied. “Worst case, I’ll see an old friend again.”

  Before Lucas could respond, Maston broke through on the comm.

  “Get down here now,” he said. “There’s something you need to see.”

  “Holy shit,” Lucas said as he looked down at the creature lying on the floor of the CIC. He was wearing light plated armor and clutched a fearsome-looking pistol. His skin was as black as the void of space outside.

  “I should have anticipated they would send a Shadow,” Alpha mused. “They likely wanted to leave nothing to chance.”

  Asha pulled out her Magnum and stood over him, pointing the barrel at its exposed head.

  “We can’t take any chances with this thing,” she said.

  A panicked Alpha rushed forward and swatted her pistol sideways with his metal claw. She glared at him.

  “You cannot. I already relayed the casualty count back to Xala.”

  He tapped a few controls at the nearby holotable.

  “In addition, this ship bears his signature. He is the operator. If we kill him now, they will know that somehow a Shadow captain has died despite the prisoners being allegedly secured and unconscious on a ship full of Paragons. They will not believe such a thing is possible without foul play involved. We must secure him like the others.”

  Maston looked at Alpha.

  “I hate to say it, but he’s right.”

  Asha reluctantly lowered her weapon.

  “You’re sure you can keep this thing chained up and out cold for our entire flight? What if sleeping beauty wakes up because you don’t know the proper gas dosage to keep him under?”

  “We have little choice in the matter, but I will monitor his state at all times to ensure he does not regain consciousness.”

  “Someone help me with this damn thing,” Maston said as he bent over the creature. Lucas did the same and two soldiers raised his legs on the other end. It must have weighed four hundred pounds, and Lucas was the only one not wearing strength enhancing power armor. Looking down, Lucas was a bit unnerved to see its pupils moving back and forth under its eyelids. What did Shadows dream about?

  This was it, then: one final voyage toward nearly certain death. The Valiance had departed, its crew with it. Only the eight of them remained to roam around the cramped Xalan interceptor as they prepared for w
hat lay ahead.

  Lucas sat on an ammo box in the armory as he cleaned Natalie for the twentieth time. In addition to every Xalan weapon they had here, the Valiance had loaded them up with everything they needed to infiltrate Xalan central command. More guns than they could carry. A stealth suit and a spare for each of them. Odd devices that Lucas hadn’t covered during his Guardian training.

  Across from him, the two lucky souls other than Kiati and Maston who had joined their assault team sat shifting through their potential loadouts. There were still weeks to go until they reached Xala, but they’d likely spend every day preparing.

  One of them was named Reyes, a young, brown-skinned woman with her right temple shaved to the scalp and voluminous black curls everywhere else. She was a custom-engineered tactical assassin who had been flown in specially for the mission. She boasted about targets she’d killed across Sora and in deep space. One time, she claimed, she put down the entire crew of a Xalan scouting vessel before they even knew she was onboard. After that, they started calling her “Whisper.”

  The other was a lanky bald man named Kovaks. He looked far skinnier than most male Guardians, but he was recruited for his infiltration prowess. He’d been a master thief before he was caught and forcibly enlisted in the SDI, where they taught him to kill instead of steal. He was one of the few Guardians who wasn’t tank-bred. Additionally, he also had been one of the few to make it back from the Makari mission alive. If there was a dead Xalan in a dark corner during the spaceport assault, chances are he was responsible, he’d told Lucas.

  Kovaks and Reyes were quite competitive when it came to recounting their past kills. It was soon revealed that both had lost family in the war: Kovaks a brother, Reyes her parents. Both had happily leapt at the opportunity to join the mission when they realized its significance.

  Lucas finished his maintenance on Natalie and headed down a level to go back to his quarters. He heard footsteps from down the hall and decided to investigate.

  He made his way to the sleeping deck where the bodies of fifty-odd Xalans lay on ice. Maston was staring at one pod in particular. As Lucas approached, he knew which one.