by Kyle Mata
The settlement was ruined—only two buildings stood unharmed, several were smashed into sections, a few were melted down entirely. About twenty Coalition survivors emerged from the wreckage once the fighting had ended, only two of whom were Defenders. Karr saw at least one person with universal medic markings performing triage, but there weren’t many wounded. The twin green suns began to rise.
“Thank you, stranger,” one of the Defenders said, his name tag read Traylor. “We’d all be dead if you hadn’t shown up.” Karr turned toward the man, the Shadowri towered over everyone in the camp; he wasn’t abnormally tall, but the armor made him stand at two-hundred and twenty-three centimeters.
“You’re a Shadowri, aren’t you?” The other Defender, Staal, according to her name tag, asked. She had emerald eyes and dark red hair that hung long out of the back of her helmet, which must have been out of regulation. “You must be—you people are legends. I have never seen a Shadowri fight in person before.” She continued without waiting for an answer. “You were incredible.”
“Oh…um thank you.” Karr said sheepishly.
“Did the Coalition send you to help us?” Traylor asked.
“No, I was hired by the Mason’s Guild. I did not know the Coalition was already here.” Karr replied.
“We just dropped in a day ago,” Staal said, looking around at the wreckage, “but I think we should go.”
“I thought the Nomen weren’t supposed to have any intelligent life?” Traylor said.
“None have yet, so I guess this might be the first one.” Staal said thoughtfully.
“Does that mean these are the first intelligent aliens humanity has encountered since the Legnorr in the Expansion Wars?”
The Expansion Wars happened shortly after the Exodus from Earth. Humanity only had a handful of planets settled when they first encountered the Legnorr, an alien species that had very similar needs to humans, such as oxygen and water. They were slightly more technologically advanced than the human race. The bloody and costly war went on for almost one hundred years until the Legnorr were wiped out entirely.
“I don’t know if I’d call them intelligent,” Staal said, nudging one of the scorpion tree spears with her boot, “but we can call them hostile… and deadly.”
Karr felt as though he had been forgotten about. He figured he would just leave. Then, he felt a tug on is arm; it was Staal.
“Wait just a minute, won’t you?” She asked.
Karr just stopped where he was.
“Governor Swedo? Governor Swedo? Are you still alive?” Traylor was calling out.
“Yes, I am.” The governor coughed and emerged from some rubble. He was an elderly man, covered in soot, and his arm was bleeding. “Our radios are either destroyed or inoperable due to the atmosphere. We won’t be able to leave until the next ship comes into orbit next week.”
“But, we are leaving?” Traylor clarified.
“Of course, we’re leaving! We’ll let the Nyrotsi have it if they wish to battle the natives for this wretched planet.” The Governor said, gesturing toward Karr.
“Oh sir, he’s not Nightfang. He’s a Shadowri, working for the Mason’s. He’s the reason any of us are still alive.” Staal explained.
“A Shadowri helped us? I didn’t think the Shadowri were the type to help anyone out of the goodness of their hearts. What do we owe you? You can see we haven’t got much to spare.” The Governor said bitterly.
“Sir! He saved our lives, your life. You could show some gratitude!” Traylor stepped up.
“More than half of our settlement is dead or dying, excuse me if I am not exactly in a thankful mood! For all we know, he provoked the creatures into attacking us to get us to leave.” Governor Swedo barked.
“Then why would he come and save us? They would have completely wiped us out if he hadn’t shown up!” Staal retorted. She was visibly irritated.
“I don’t know, there could be some twisted reason.” Swedo replied. There was silence for a moment. It was clear that the Defenders did not know what to say—at the end of the day, the Governor was still their boss.
Karr turned to leave again without a word. The Defenders turned and walked with him on either side like a royal escort. The Governor stalked off toward the triage line, clutching his injured arm.
“Sorry about him.” Staal said. Karr looked down at her face but continued to walk on without a word.
“You know you Shadowri don’t exactly have a reputation to go out of your way to save others… I mean, no offense, but everyone knows what happened on Vir and Tique.” Traylor said.
“I know.” Karr replied.
“You don’t say much, do you? What’s your name?” Staal asked. She felt like she was watching their only chance of survival walk off—and the worst part was she couldn’t blame him.
“Karr.” He said as he stepped through the gate in the webbing. A pair of engineers were working to get the entire electro-web net system up and running again.
“I’m Daena Staal. Thank you, Karr. We hate to see you go…”
Karr began to walk off. He could see in his HUD both of the Defenders had stayed and watched him go, as though he were sentencing them to death. He stopped and turned.
“Um… Give me your comm code?” He asked.
“Oh!” Daena replied, pleasantly surprised. She bumped her communicator with the computer attached to his forearm, syncing contact information. She confirmed it had worked. “Got it.” He continued to walk off.
“Did you just get a Shadowri’s info?” Traylor asked.
“Yeah… I… I did.”
“That may just be the greatest friend you’ve ever made, aside from me of course.” He chuckled to himself, but Daena remained quiet.
“Hey, Bo… Do you see Karr?” She asked.
“Yes? He’s kinda hard to miss.” Traylor replied, confused by her question.
“Do you see where he’s walking?”
“North. So what?”
“He’s following the native’s footsteps.”
“Oh… you think your new boyfriend has a death wish?”
“I don’t know.” Daena punched him in the arm.
“Oww!” Bo Traylor cried out. “What was that for?”
“The boyfriend comment. I don’t think even a Shadowri could handle me.”
The hostiles approached the Coalition settlement from a section of Scorpion that was practically a desert. The ground was the same light gray color as everywhere else but there were no trees or bushes whatsoever, just gray coarse sand and gravel. As Karr followed the footsteps, the carties continued to float about and map the terrain.
His HUD beeped with a notification on his vitals, which his armor actively read. He saw that his blood sugar had just dipped too low and pulled a meal capsule out of a belt pouch. He slid his faceplate up. He could have eaten it without opening his helmet, a feature that allowed Shadowri to eat in uninhabitable environments or in the vacuum of space. But he wanted to get a breath of Scorpion. He wanted to get to know the bizarre Nomen on another level, a human level.
The air smelled like that of a standard desert—dry, salty, and sandy. At first it reminded him of the dunes on the planet Muadeeb. But as he swallowed the capsule, providing his body with all the sustenance it required, he smelled something more, a pungent after-odor that stung his nostrils slightly, not enough to annoy, but enough to notice. He slid his faceplate back down; it sealed with the sound of the nano-hydraulics he knew well and confirmed through his HUD reading.
The footsteps he had been following were barely visible; they were becoming more and more windswept, but he had a good idea of where he was going without them. In the distance were several pyramid structures of light gray stone, too smooth and precise to be naturally occurring.
Karr got closer and found a hidden vantage point to observe the pyramid complex, atop a dune. He laid prone and increased magnification on his HUD. There were thousands of creatures crawling about, including the six-legged beast
s which were lugging large rocks and pallets of tools. A new pyramid was being constructed. Karr saw two large figures in solid gold attire. One had a man’s body but the head of a cobra. The other had a man’s body with the head of a fox. They were sitting on a grand overlook, overseeing the construction like supervisors. As Karr continued his reconnaissance, he noted that there were several of these golden figures all around the area—some were on hover-sleds, others were on mag-chariots being pulled by six of the serpentine six-legged monsters. All seemed to be in supervisory roles, for they were outnumbered by the other creatures thousands to one. The worker creatures, which had attacked the settlement, appeared to be slaves.
Karr zoomed back to the fox and cobra headed figures who he deduced were high leadership. His HUD could analyze the movements of their mouths and motions along with an advanced radar audio pick-up to give him a feed of what they were saying. After listening to the deep growl-clicks of their language for approximately seven minutes his helmet could translate the language in real time to text for him. Twelve minutes later the language began to translate with sound, that was the longest time it had ever taken, meaning this language was very abnormal.
Words began to scroll as the fox began to speak to the cobra.
“Ardall, the new pyramid is coming along ahead of schedule.”
“Yes Krixen, these Rakju slaves and their Sserten beasts are most useful minions, much better than the last species we enslaved, and they think less than those others, if at all.” Ardall replied.
“It was only half a century before we killed the Toddiels off, much shorter than the last two extinct species indeed.” Krixen said. They both made a strange growl that Karr could only guess was laughter.
A figure in gold attire with a cat head approached the other two. It bowed, gave an odd two-handed salute then began to speak without making eye contact with Krixen and Ardall.
“Sires, the assault party we sent after the human settlement was defeated. Shall I send another?”
“The humans managed to defeat the Rakju? This is most unexpected. Is it not, Ardall?”
“It is, Krixen. Perhaps they will be worthy slaves after all.”
“Affirmative. We may get a century or two out of them, our projections notwithstanding. Despite their frail compositions, they can be quite innovative; they did surprise us with their defeat of the Legnorr.” Krixen said, before turning his attention toward the messenger. “Send another party, double size, and you lead it. Bring one or two back alive if you can.”
“Yes, Sire. Power to the Rae!”
“Power to the Rae,” Krixen and Ardall echoed. The messenger left.
Karr switched his MAGE rifle to sniper mode and put the Fox head of Krixen into his crosshair. He could probably put the thing down, but then he would have thousands of Rakju overrunning him in seconds. They seemed rather serious about enslaving humanity. But if he left now, he could get the drop on the raiding party headed for the Coalition settlement. His finger rested on the rifle trigger with uncertainty. Would his round even kill the Rae? They were talking about being alive for quite a long time. Karr took in a deep breath. He did not want to look back one day and say he had a chance to kill these two before they started enslaving the human race and didn’t take it.
Muffled impacts were suddenly heard. Missiles began to rain down on the Rae complex, but the explosions dissipated harmlessly on a dome shield that was previously invisible and undetected even by Karr’s advanced helmet sensors. Karr figured the powers that be answered his question for him, and he took his finger off the trigger. Nyrotsi Nightfang ships began landing troopers and continued firing at the Rae pyramids, but that dome shield was far more powerful than any human shield of a similar size. Lasers bolts began to fly up through the dome and Nightfang ships began to explode in the sky. Then Rae fighters flew up to intercept the Nightfang airships and Rakju and Sserten warriors ran out of the shield to engage the Nightfang’s ground forces. Karr took advantage of the chaos and took off running toward the Coalition settlement.
He received an incoming message from Daena as he ran. He opened the secure connection through his HUD.
“Karr? We need your help! The Nyrotsi are here. When they saw we were already weakened they began to lay siege to our settlement.” She said. He heard explosions in the background.
“I am on the way.” He told her and closed the connection. He could have warned her about the Rae forces that were also headed her way, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. He continued to sprint across the gray desert sand toward the settlement.
CHAPTER 2
THE COMMANDER
Lieutenant Commander Thomas Winchester looked out the viewscreen of the bridge on his Ripper-class frigate the NRS Red Drake. He didn’t much care for the ship; it was clunky in atmosphere and often outgunned by similar ships in other factions. That being said, it did have more armor than most of the newer ships, which were more dependent on speed and shielding, rather than thick hulls. The Ripper-class frigates became obsolete with the introduction of the Crusher-class during the Outer Belt War. But it was his ship, and having been promoted just last week, he was in no position to complain. The frigate was the first he’d ever had command of, and he had a good crew and a full complement of Nightfang aboard that were loyal to him.
Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Winchester was born in the heart of the Nyrotsi capital world Fortshione. The Winchester family had been one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful families in the Nyrotsi faction. For hundreds of years, the Winchesters were tycoons of various precious metals and other desirable elements. Thomas could have taken over one of the family businesses and attended a prestigious universollege, but instead he went to the Nyrotsi Military Academy. He attended the academy with intentions of becoming a Nightfang infantry officer. When he told his parents this, they panicked. After a year of training, though, he found that the strategy and maneuvers of space combat were where he flourished once he had developed the paradigm of ‘there is no up.’ He graduated as a dropship pilot a few months before the Outer Belt War ended. He saw one battle, at Grendell, and it was very one-sided in his favor. He was a twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant when he served as first officer aboard the battlecruiser NRS Lady Hades. Now, he was twenty-nine and in command of a Nyrotsi battle group.
His frigate was accompanied by two smaller Stingray-class corvettes and four Piranha-class gunboats. Together, they comprised the third of three battle groups orbiting RV-100342-324, Scorpion. Three battle groups together were the minimum requirement for an invasion fleet according to Nyrotsi Naval doctrine. It was for this reason that a battlecruiser or command carrier should arrive to take command of the invasion fleet, at any minute.
“Where is that cruiser?” Thomas said under his breath, growing impatient after waiting for two hours. He stared at the gray planet through the live feed on his command console.
With the invention of the Shimada warp-reactor nearly eight-hundred years ago (with research derived from studying captured Legnorr vessels) space travel had improved greatly. The Shimada warp-reactor essentially made it possible for ships to travel instantly through the emptiness of space, utilizing cold fission and dark matter. As important as the reactor itself is, the Urdaneta navigation software is of even greater importance. Before the creation of the Urdaneta software the Shimada reactor’s first tests nearly always slammed ships into other objects with gravitational pulls—usually stars—at unfathomable speeds. The time a ship spends in a warp-jump is actually the time it takes the navi-computer to safely move the ship through emptiness around other gravity inducing objects. If point A and B truly had nothing between them, then the ship would travel in the short amount of time it takes to accelerate and decelerate, which is nearly instantaneous. Knowing this, a two-hour delay is not due to navigational complications, but more likely political complications in this day and age. Thomas’s train of thought led him to wonder how slow the Exodus must have been without Shimada warp-reactors. Using o
nly ancient Near-Light Thrusters must have been dreadful.
“Sir? Battle groups one and two are hailing you.” The communications officer said, pulling Thomas back from his musings.
“Thank you, Petty Officer Williams. Please put them on screen.”
Lieutenant Commander Reichert from battle group one appeared on the left side of the screen, while Lieutenant Commander Olds appeared on the right side.
“Gentlemen, are all invasion sequences initiated?” Reichert asked.
“My men are prepped and ready.” Olds answered.
“My landing craft are fully loaded and awaiting fleet orders.” Thomas said.
“Very good. I have received word from command that Mega-Cruiser NRS Osiris is on the way. We will be designated Second Fleet.” Reichert explained.
Second Fleet… that means Admiral Tavington will be commanding the invasion. Tavington was known for ruthless tactics and if he couldn’t capture a planet, then nobody else would. Thomas thought.
“Understood.” Olds said.
“Understood. Commander Reichert, my scan team picked up a Mason’s Guild rocket transport leaving atmosphere earlier today, they did not pick us up due to interference from the ionic clouds of the planet. It could not have carried more than two people aboard it,” Thomas said.
“Well, the Guild did claim this Nomen first,” Reichert replied.
“Right, but they missed the deadline to send representatives to the surface so they lost claim of it…then the Coalition claimed it…so why exactly are we invading?” Thomas asked.
“Command says RV-100342-324 is worth it.”
“Worth a war?”
This was a question Thomas thought twice about asking in front of his men. He did not want to give off the impression that the three Battle Group commanders were not in agreement in front of his troops, but if he had the question, the men and women aboard his ship probably did, too.