by Kyle Mata
Karr, feeling awkward and not knowing what to do, loosed his cartographer probes and set them to a range of fifty meters and let them map while they also added a layer of security to their camp. He laid down on the opposite side of the fire and went to sleep.
After nearly thirty minutes of sobbing and attempting to grasp what had happened before she ended up in the forest, she realized her Shadowri companion was actually sleeping. She found it unnerving—even appalling that mere minutes ago everyone she had grown to know and work with for the past few months was now dead, brutally murdered—and this man was able to sleep soundly. Daena could not imagine herself sleeping for days, let alone minutes after witnessing such a tragedy. She wondered what sort of creature this Shadowri really was. Had she not seen his face, his handsome being, she would have believed him to be a machine. She wished she were a machine right now; she wished she didn’t feel this pain and loss in her heart, in her soul. She slowly went from being sad to angry, angry at the monsters who did this to her.
Precisely two hours later, Karr woke up. The fire was still burning brightly, and Daena was sipping from a canteen. Her expression was that of fury, the fire danced in her emerald eyes, adding to her aura of rage. Karr sat up and tossed a meal capsule into his mouth and chewed it, nodding to Daena as he offered her one without a word.
“I’ve got plenty, thanks,” She said quietly. He returned the capsule to his belt pouch. “Karr?” Karr looked up at her, as he saw her emerald eyes glowing with intensity. Karr wasn’t sure if it was due to the glimmer of the fire or pure emotion; it almost seemed unnatural. “I want to go kill the Rae. I want to find the group that murdered my colony and I want to kill them—all of them,” Daena said, as she stood up and cradled her rifle. “I want revenge.”
Karr looked at her for a moment and cocked his head to one side. The rifle Daena held appeared unnatural in her arms, but it fit her just the same. To Karr, the rifle fit there, but never belonged there in the first place. It was as though Daena were either meant to be a princess, or a warrior, but never both.
“Okay,” Karr said, standing up to match her level. He pulled his helmet on and checked the power charge and ammo level on his MAGE rifle and LT sidearm. He turned and began trekking toward the Rae compound. The carties chirped merrily at the opportunity to map new terrain. Daena’s eyes grew wide and she hurried to keep up with him.
CHAPTER 4
AN UNWANTED WAR PATH
“You’re okay with this?” Daena asked, doing her best to hide her surprise.
“Yes,” Karr replied evenly.
Daena had expected to give her little ‘revenge’ suggestion and then allow cooler heads to prevail. She figured she’d let her anger leak out into her words and Karr would talk her out of it, point out how crazy it was, and simply let her vent, maybe provide a shoulder to cry on. The idea was crazy, obviously. A lesser force from the Rae took out all but two Defenders in the entire colony; the other force took out the entire colony itself. Had Bo been there he would have calmed her down, like he always did. But he wasn’t there. Karr was, and Karr was no ordinary human. She was too prideful to back out now, but she was certainly getting cold feet.
She watched as the armored man strode forward with determined purpose. A real Shadowri was here, helping her; Karr was the real deal. He had saved her life twice within just a few hours of meeting her; his actions certainly didn’t match the stereotypes she had learned about the Shadowri people in her cultures classes in universollege.
She was taught that the Shadowri were an isolationist group of warriors who kept to themselves and were identifiable by their very iconic battle armor. Their planet Shadowri’tira was ruled uninhabitable during the original Exodus, but one mega-colony ship crash landed there and the survivors set up their colony and became the Shadowri. The two things most outsiders found interesting about the Shadowri was their Tirium fuel and their Kesbar metal, an iron alloy forged in a particular way to make the toughest metal in the known galaxy. No other group has ever been able to recreate the Shadowri metallurgy techniques, and the Shadowri refused to share or sell it. Most of what was known about the Shadowri was hearsay and rumor.
Coalition scholars have estimated their population numbers could range anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of millions. It is generally accepted that they have a clan system and a caste system but how they work is largely unknown. Of the few Shadowri that traveled the galaxy; usually as mercenaries, planetary rangers, or bounty hunters and didn’t answer questions about their culture or their planet. They were known to be a tightlipped people who kept to themselves. Seeing a Shadowri was quite an occasion, seeing a pair of Shadowri was extremely rare, and a group of three or more Shadowri was unheard of. Most humans would never even speak to them if they did make contact with one.
But the biggest thing she remembered about the Shadowri from her lessons was that they were so isolationist that they refused to go out of their way to aid those in need. They protected only themselves and had a reputation of leaving others to peril, prioritizing their own survival. They were often referred to as a heartless culture. She had heard the story of Vir and Tique, everyone had, but her entire paradigm of the Shadowri people was shaken by Karr. He showed up to aid the colony completely of his own volition. He even came back to her rescue after he knew what he was up against. If the stories of the heartless Shadowri were true, had she found the only one with a heart?
Karr stopped at the edge of the forest. Following his lead, Daena stopped as well, assuming there was trouble ahead. Karr began peeling thick pieces of bark, or exoskeleton, off the trees. He took one particularly large piece and tossed it into the air and shot it three times with his pistol, but the bullets did not penetrate. He tossed a different piece higher and shot it with his rifle, successfully punching right through the bark. He had proven that it was tough, but not impenetrable. He took a small bottle of adhesive from his belt, normally used for quick armor seal repairs in the field, and approached Daena. Without a word of explanation, he began sticking several pieces of tree exoskeleton to her breastplate. She just stood there for a second, unsure of what to do. It was when he started going for her thigh plates that she stopped him.
“Whoa palbert, I’ll take it from here.” Daena removed the larger pieces of her light armor and continued gluing the exoskeleton to it, as Karr fashioned a large shield from the exoskeleton and used the adhesive to make bands for his arm to slip into. When Daena was satisfied with her handiwork, she watched Karr swing his new shield around, adjusting to the weight and balance of his new armament. Watching him swing it around in conjunction with his glowing katana reminded her of the Knights of the Order of the Nebula, from the planet Vurumon.
When he was done constructing and adjusting his shield, he looked back to see Daena ready and the two continued their trek toward the Rae pyramids.
“You really don’t talk much, do you?” Daena asked while walking beside him. She was doing her best to maintain his stride.
“I never know what to say to that,” Karr replied. She noticed how different his voice sounded through his helmet’s external speakers compared to his real voice. It was like an androbot’s voice output.
“Are all the Shadowri quiet?” Daena asked.
“No.” Karr responded.
“Do you know any who talk a lot?” Daena continued, doing her best to carry a conversation with the man.
“My sister does.”
“Oh, you have a sister? What’s her name?”
“Arbenn.” He replied as he continued to walk. They came up over a dune and Karr stopped and quickly knelt low. He signaled with his shielded arm for Daena to do the same, so she immediately followed suit and crawled up next to him. About a kilometer away was a Nyrotsi escape pod about to be cut open by a rabbit-headed Rae and a pair of Rakju. A few kilometers beyond the escape pod was the crashed frigate.
“I’ll go for the Rae, you take out the other two.” Karr said flatly.
“What? H
ow? I can’t hit them from here.” Daena began in hesitation as Karr sprinted off toward the escape pod. “Karr, wait! Karr!” She whisper-yelled, wanting to express her anger while still being careful enough not to give away his surprise attack. She swore to herself, regretting, once again, ever saying she wanted revenge.
I’m a politician, not a fighter. She thought during her slight hesitation, and then she ran off after him. He was a lot faster than he looked.
Karr was just meters away from the Rae when the rabbit head suddenly turned one ear and the scythe came swinging at the Commando. Karr dodged the scythe and grabbed it with one free hand. Daena began sporadically firing at the group; her spray managed to down one of the Rakju, while the other hid behind the pod. The las-rounds from her rifle pinged harmlessly off a shield on the Rae like none other she had ever seen. It seemed that if an object was moving too fast, it could not penetrate the shield, which was unlike anything of humankind.
The Rae swung again, making Karr lose his grip and, he flipped back into the gray sand. Karr pulled out his katana, and it ignited with a dull silver glow. Holding the hilt with two hands, the two warriors became a blur of parries, swipes, and jabs. They were so fast that Daena could hardly keep up. She was so mesmerized by the melee battle that she had not noticed the Rakju running right for her until it was almost too late. She fired at it, but her magazine clicked empty. The beast was down on all fours, snarling for her blood as she nervously fumbled for another magazine. All she could think of was how many of her own the Rakju had already torn apart. The beast lunged and landed on top of her, its weight bringing her to the ground. It began scratching at her chest piece; she had seen a Rakju’s claws tear through a fellow Defender’s duriluminum metal armor hours earlier, but thanks to the scorpion tree modifications, she fared better than her companions—at least for the moment. The magazine clicked into place. In a panic, Daena shoved the barrel of her rifle into the grotesque mouth of the monster.
She squeezed the trigger, unleashing the full force of her Defender standard-issue rifle.
With her eyes closed, she emptied the entire magazine of her rifle. She felt the sludge of the creature’s guts spray her face; Daena thought about how useful it’d be to have a helmet like Karr’s right now. The headless body of the creature fell on top of her; it was heavier than she imagined. She had one free arm and managed to wipe her face and watch the battle between Karr and the Rae.
The Rae swung high and Karr ducked. As the Rae swung for his torso, Karr swiftly stepped back, but Daena noticed that in the two opportunities he had to strike back, Karr decided not to. The Rae swung low and Karr jumped up onto the flat side of the scythe, and as the weight of his armor pulled the Rae forward, Karr took one decisive swing, and then stepped carefully off the scythe. The rabbit head of the Rae tumbled off the gold armor of the monster as it fell to its knees.
Karr jogged over to Daena and yanked the Rakju carcass off her with ease and gave her a hand up. She wiped her face again and flung the sludge onto the ground with disgust. They approached the escape pod. The top two navigational fins were charred, either from battle damage or atmospheric entry. Seeing this, Daena feared for the occupants. Karr found the release lever and the door opened with a hiss as the sealed atmosphere escaped. Seven people in Nyrotsi navy uniforms were inside, including four women, two men and an unidentifiable pilot. All were clamped into their seats, and none were moving.
“Unconscious?” Daena asked, looking at Karr. Karr just stared at them for a moment while putting the shield on his back. She figured his helmet was scanning the Nyrotsi; if his helmet had such technology, she didn’t know.
Karr pointed to a girl toward the front of the pod. “She is.” The girl Karr was pointing to had blonde hair with a streak of black in the front.
“Did the others die on impact?” Daena asked.
Karr shrugged and stepped into the pod. Daena stepped in behind him, and closed the eyes of a young man who looked petrified, hopefully offering his soul some peace. Karr carefully removed the harness from the woman and picked her up carefully. He placed her on the ground and ran his armored palm a few centimeters over her. Daena assumed his armor had diagnostic sensors in the suit and he wasn’t performing some voodoo magic, but then again, she had seen some things she hadn’t believed in the last day, so what did she know?
“She will be okay,” He said. Then he stood up and took a step toward the downed frigate.
“Karr!” Daena cried in protest. “We can’t just leave her here; she’ll get taken by those monsters—or worse.” Karr turned around and picked up the unconscious woman and continued walking toward the frigate without debate. Satisfied that they at least weren’t leaving the poor girl, Daena did her best to walk beside him.
CHAPTER 5
GATHERING OF FOES
The Commando and the Defender stood dwarfed before the massive Nyrotsi Ripper-class frigate. There were scorched red letters along a section of hull that read NRS Red Drake. Sections of the crashed ship were still aflame.
“You never really told me what we were doing here,” Daena said, looking over the hull.
“Armory inside will have some useful heavy weapons,” Karr replied. He found an airlock and tried the button to open it; surprisingly, it worked. The airlock slid open, revealing a second door leading to the inner passages of the ship. They stepped inside, emergency tertiary power was powering red lights along the walls, giving the entire ship an eerie aura.
“Convenient the ship crashed right side up,” Daena noted.
“Not convenience. The ship was crash landed; it came down in a nose-up final attitude,” Karr said, pressing into the innards of the ship, still carrying the unconscious Ensign.
“That means it was piloted, do you think they survived?”
“Probably.”
“Powa! Well, why don’t we head to the bridge?” Daena suggested. She got no response from Karr as he kept walking, so she figured she might need to appeal to a more logical and warrior side of the Shadowri. “A survivor could point us toward the armory and anything else useful,” she continued.
“Okay,” Karr said, as he began heading up toward the bridge. Daena thought she heard the scratches of nails on the metal behind them.
Thomas woke up suddenly. He was very confused as to where he was. His headache began to ease up a bit, and he remembered he was on the bridge of his ship, his ship that had just crashed. The only lights on were dim red floor lights that led to the escape pods. The forward viewscreen which usually displayed the front of the ship in real-time, was blank. He had never seen one blank before and had forgotten they weren’t really smart-windows.
There was a massive thud at the passageway to the bridge. The emergency airlocks had sealed during the crash protocol, and it would take quite a strong force to break through them.
There was a crash and half of the titanium air locked door went clattering into the bridge. Thomas fumbled for his sidearm, a standard issue N7 Talon pistol. He ducked behind the pilot console and watched as a massive figure in armor stepped through carrying a woman in his arms, a woman he recognized as Ensign Madelle.
Another woman stepped onto his bridge, wearing the armor of a Coalition Defender with curious alterations. “Hello?” She said. “Anyone home?”
Thomas popped up. Figuring this was a hostage situation, he aimed his sidearm at the armored figure.
“Who are you?” Thomas asked.
“I’m Daena Staal, Coalition of Freed Planets, Defender. And this is Karr, a Shadowri Commando.”
“A Shadowri?” Thomas had gone to the academy with two people who were killed by a Shadowri during the Outer Belt War. “Put the Ensign down or I’ll shoot.”
“Whoa pal, you’ve got it all wrong. We want to help you get out of here alive. We are not your enemy,” Daena explained.
“Then put the Ensign down, slowly, and step away from her. If she’s okay, we can talk.”
Daena and Karr exchanged looks and Daena nodded. K
arr knelt and carefully placed Ensign Madelle on the deck. There were sounds of movement down the corridor.
“What was that?” Thomas pointed his Talon toward the door.
“Rae forces,” Karr said matter-of-factly.
“Rae?”
“The same Rae who shot down your ship,” Daena continued. “They’re aliens who want to enslave all of humanity. Do you see why we aren’t your enemy anymore?”
Thomas examined Ensign Madelle; she was unconscious, but alive. Karr suddenly turned and strode out the door. There were shots fired, followed by the sounds of a melee battle. Several minutes later, the Shadowri came back onto the bridge, dragging a large figure in gold armor. It appeared to have the body of a man, but the head of a cat. He tossed it before Thomas.
“That’s a Rae,” Daena stated.
“Well, then.” Thomas said, standing and dusting off his uniform, pretending to not be shaken by this alien foe’s corpse. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. What is the status of the Nightfang land forces?”
“Eliminated,” Karr said evenly.
“The only other human survivor we’ve come across is the girl there,” Daena said as she pointed to the Ensign.
Thomas was in shock. Three entire battle groups worth of ships and men, all wiped clean off the battlefield. Seeing firsthand what the Rae were capable of in space combat led him to actually believe they were just as successful on the ground—a realization that made him feel sick to his stomach. He felt cold again.
“Do you have a plan?” Thomas asked.
“Where is the armory?” Karr answered Thomas’s question with another question.
“And who are you?” Daena did the same.
“I am Lieutenant Commander Thomas Winchester, Nyrotsi Royal Naval Forces.”
“Nice to meet you, Thomas.” Daena said politely. Thomas wondered what kind of undisciplined military the Coalition was running these days if this was one of their Defenders.