by Greg Dragon
The long night passed in celebration as a wounded Rafian VCA and his fellow freedom fighters drank in victory to another successful defense of Cally. A few eager freedom fighters from Hammerhead had decided to take the fight back to the Felitians in Veece. This was typical activity for post-defense morale, and it made Rafian sad that he couldn’t join them. For Rafian, the aches were severe and his head throbbed, but it felt good to be alive. The dancers were being extra friendly, drinks were on the house, and the lovely Dawna paid him a visit with promises of extra “attention” when he could get out of bed again. How was that for motivation?
The wounded freedom fighter decided to get out of recovery early and call it a night so Dawna could make good on her promise. He took her into his home and made love to her passionately. She was his first since crashing on the planet, and for the first time in months, Rhiya was a distant Memory.
* * *
It was late evening in the city of Cally, in the country of Apun, on the planet of Tyhera, and the streets were bustling with activity. It was the norm at this hour, being that many people shuttled in late to take in the nightly experiences for which it was famous. Casinos and saloons were jumping, Felitians were at bay, and there was always the chance of seeing a fight with as many thugs as the city held. In a room high above the streets, Rafian VCA sat with Lucci Vadosh—a Ranalos war hero and fellow Mera Ku martial arts master—and a host of other freedom fighters. Lucci was a legendary leader in the underground movement and was responsible for the freedom fighters’ success on old Talula. He had met Rafian one day while selling rare cyber-knives, and when Rafian met him with their fellowship’s bow, he gave him his deadliest knife for free.
Lucci took Rafian in as an apprentice in the Mera Ku arts and became his comrade in military affairs. They had become quick friends and fought alongside each other in many skirmishes across the city of Veece. The Ranalos master was invincible in Rafian’s eyes, and Rafian yearned to have the skill and cunning to match his friend. Lucci had the healing—a gift mastered by only the best of Mera Ku practitioners—and he was a warrior of humility.
The discussion in progress was on the affairs of Talula. It seemed that Lucci needed help on the old moon. The plan was for a small mobile unit to move upon one of the Felitians’ primary training camps. The tactics were to stick and move, killing stray units while moving slowly on the camp. Looking over at Rafian, Lucci pointed at him and said, “This will be our leader for the expedition.”
Not knowing why he was selected for the job, Rafian reluctantly accepted but quickly explained his “wanted” status on Talula.
“That’s quite fine, my friend,” the Ranalos said with his gravelly voice that sounded like stones trapped in an old ship’s circuits. He looked at Rafian and continued.
“You worry for your name on Talula, but you must realize that your reputation has spread from beyond the confines of Talula AND Tyhera. You are on the list now, brother. You are an enemy of the Felitians, and it is very well known. We will hit Dearin, Talula, covertly and then run the lands towards the Fel camp. No worries about thugs and reputations. Gorda fears the resistance. The only thing you need to worry about is bringing us victory.”
Ranalos eyes always glossed over with an odd light, and that was how they blinked, due to having no eyelids on their large, orb-like eyes. Rafian was still not used to seeing it, but he watched it flicker several times on Lucci’s face before nodding.
Leaning back in his chair, Rafian looked off into the distance and sighed. He had not been back to Talula since his escape with Riyah. It brought up painful memories, and he wished he could completely forget about her. Maybe this was fated, he thought.
The next day, Lucci provided him with a false ID card, and they boarded a shuttle that was heading towards Talula. It was a small shuttle, and thanks to Lucci’s well-planned disguises and change of identity, they sat next to a couple of Felitian troopers, who were unaware of them as resistance members. For Rafian, it was odd being so close to Felitian troopers without fighting them, and the trip seemed to last forever. When they finally touched down, he was all too eager to be away from the starport and away from the soldiers he had grown to hate.
The two monks checked out of the large lobby and were met by a shady fellow who was heavily armed under a closed trench coat. Glancing for a second at Rafian, the fellow greeted Lucci warmly and motioned them to enter a car. Lucci’s friend seemed very dangerous and was dressed as if he were meant to take on the Fels by himself. Every item on his person was black, even the five or six guns he had strapped to his body, and he bore the tattoo of the Bounty Hunter Guild—a mark to be feared by anyone who knew about them. He mostly spoke in a whisper and was so quiet that Rafian wondered if Lucci was hearing everything he was saying to him as they drove.
“Rafian, this is Eagle,” Lucci finally said. “He’s my best friend and probably the galaxy’s most dangerous bounty hunter. He says we are going to rendezvous with a man named Kael for the raid.”
Rafian took in the lush Talulan landscape at a glance and thought deeply as he nodded. It was a sunny day, and the wind smelled of Vendris, the native blue flowers that Riyah used to love. Eagle was extremely unfriendly, but that was always the nature of bounty hunters in Rafian’s experience. This made sense to him, as they regarded everyone as a couple hundred credits away from being a potential mark for their bombs, nets, and gunplay.
When they made it to the landing zone where they were supposed to meet Kael, it turned out to be a bushy expanse of field that was bordered on three sides by dense forest. Kael DAL was a dark-skinned man like Rafian, but he had long gray hair that flowed down his back, and the spikey bones that jutted from his jaw revealed that he was part Daltak. He was a noble-looking freedom fighter, but this wasn’t reflected in his speech as he stumbled over the plans for the night to follow. Rafian listened and relayed his own thoughts, instructing Kael’s group of six to scout the main Felitian headquarters inside the town. They would rendezvous later, communicating by old radio—a technique that the resistance used to stay off of the airwaves of the Felitian spies.
Shunning all covert tricks while in the bush, Rafian quickly dressed himself partly in plasteel armor—stolen from the Felitian museum—and partly in a Mera Ku robe. He had grown more serious about the training and was slowly converting into the spiritual side of things. The armor and robes had become his trademark look, with the mustard-colored breastplate, white shoulder pads, matching bracers, red Mera Ku Hakama, and metallic resistance-issue steel-toed boots to complete the ensemble.
His weapon for today was his newly acquired war staff. As part of a swordsman’s training, this was a weapon of choice due to its enormous heft and the incredible discipline required to master it. It was also devastating in close combat—especially devastating towards blast-resistant machine-types. Lucci and Eagle seemed to be at home in the bush, floating through the tall grass and trees like panthers. Rafian stuck close to them as they crawled, and after two hours of tracking, they made motion to camp and take a break.
Pointing east, Lucci spoke. “The Fels are just over that hill about a mile away. We camp here until night, and then we’ll move.”
Calming his nerves to slow his heart, Rafian carefully stared east as if to visualize the upcoming battle. This was very different from the raids he had become accustomed to.
“Look alive, all; we have company,” he announced, and the others filed forward to see for themselves.
“Yup, that’s a troop coming!” Lucci said. He motioned for his two trained Ro-cats to come over. The cats were part of Lucci’s legend because they loved Felitian flesh as much as their master did. They were huge feline droids formed from scrap metal, and their demeanor made Rafian uncomfortable. The cats were always quiet, and they had cloaking technology—the ultimate predators. Rafian always wondered how Lucci could acquire one, let alone two.
“That thicket of aplopes over yonder can conceal us,” Rafian said, suggesting the old freedom
fighter trick of hiding among aplope bushes to avoid body-heat detection by Felitian scanners. The smell was never pleasant, but the reward of stealth was always worth it. The trio of men scurried over to the bushes, and while it was hot to the touch, they hunkered down and waited while Lucci petted the wiry manes of the two killer cats. The troop neared their position, and they could make out three cadets and an instructor.
“Sha!” Lucci whispered to the cats, and instantly they broke from the aplope bush, sprinting towards the troop. The poor fools could not react fast enough, and one fell from having his throat torn out. In the confusion, they barely noticed the three rebels approaching them, but when they did, they began firing, some to hold back the cats, while others aimed at the freedom fighters. Gunshots flew a bit too closely past Rafian as the troop leader suddenly caught fire and went down screaming. Eagle had sealed his fate with a cruel gun that held explosive rounds, and the man’s face melted as if it were plastic. Finishing off the others in a barrage of kicks and staff blows, the small party proceeded to the north and pounced on another unexpected troop. The ambush games went on like this for the three freedom fighters until they heard an alarm, which meant that there would be reinforcements. Worried about his reconnaissance people, Rafian radioed Kael to get an update.
“Hey, Kael, what’s going on?” he whispered.
It was quite evident that Kael was out of breath, as he could barely speak. “I’m so sorry, sir. We’ve been detected. I couldn’t control the men! One guy ran in recklessly, and now we have Fel troopers combing the area.”
Frustrated, Rafian relayed the message to Lucci.
“We need to leave fast!” he said, and then the ground began shaking.
“What the hell is that?” Rafian asked, and then he saw it.
An air-to-ground mechanized drone was coming for them. It was one of the large floating tanks that the Felitians used for mass destruction. As a single unit, they began running. It had become desperate. Laser fire was everywhere, and their lives were on the line. Before they could make it to the car, Lucci stopped Rafian short.
“Rafian, Eagle and I are going to go back.”
This didn’t make sense to Rafian, and he inquired why.
“We aren’t finished with these Fels, Rafian. This is what Eagle and I do all the time. Trust me. Get off of Talula, and I’ll radio you the details later.”
Nodding in spite of himself, Rafian wished his friend good luck and started back on the long drive to Dearin and then home to Tyhera. He had never flown a flying car before, but somehow, the controls came naturally to him, and he was at the starport in a matter of hours and then on Tyhera by the following afternoon.
Hours later, over a large bowl of soup, Rafian received a call.
“Hello, brother. It’s Lucci.”
“Hey, old man, you made it! What is the body count for the Fels?”
There was a bit of a pause before Lucci continued. It sounded as if he was at a camp eating. “Let’s just say we killed every last cadet in that facility. The Felitians will not be having a fresh batch of troopers coming from our moon anytime soon.”
This was major, and Rafian could not believe his ears.
“You men are unbelievable. Well done, Lucci!” he exclaimed.
Excited about the huge success of Lucci’s revenge run, Rafian eagerly summoned Orion, Saiko, Barri, and Corgan to share the news with them. They celebrated with a round of beers at the saloon and tipped the dancers heavily that night. When he had sobered of the celebration, an empty feeling came over Rafian about the mission. The tactics and bravery of Lucci and Eagle had brought success, but in the grand scheme of things, they were detected and routed, so in fact, the operation was a failure.
Talula would now be under the microscope of the Felitians just as Cally was, and for what? He thought they were capable of much more than that. The ideal operations would be the covert ones in which the Felitians would lose a lot but the freedom fighters would not have to atone for much more than they already did. He pondered this for an extremely long time and then got up to return home.
* * *
It was another five months into Rafian’s dealings with Lucci and Eagle when they decided it was time to make their own organization. The old master was sick of the infighting among leaders in the resistance and wanted Rafian to help him build a smaller sect that would stay out of politics and concentrate more on results. With that, they decided to get their most trusted partners together and have a meeting.
Lucci’s meeting was convened at a large camp outside of Dearin, and the people gathered to form an alliance known as the Aygis. The name was chosen by Rafian, who had extensive knowledge of the war. He was known to spend many of his lonely nights poring over vids and holos that told tales about the war. Aygis was the name of an attack ship that had carried out an impossible mission on Primia—the planet home of those voluptuous women most Tyheran males lusted after. Primia was taken by the Volf Alliance for their rare ore, which was called dyuirt. The amazons of Primia fought back but were outgunned and outmatched until the Aygis showed up to claim over one hundred thousand Volf raider lives. The Aygis won Primia her independence, but the atmosphere was not friendly for the Volf, and most of the men and women on that mission died saving the Primians.
Lucci’s Aygis was to be a small, tight-knit group that specialized in strikes such as the training camp mission, and he surprised Rafian by naming him one of the leaders. The eight members of the newly formed Aygis did a traditional ritual of cutting the palm and holding it above a fire to take their oaths of commitment. The Aygis leadership numbered five, with Lucci as the spiritual leader, Rafian as war commander, Sa-Lin—a cute Primian tailor—as espionage lead, Tyren the escape artist, and Eagle the assassin masquerading as a bounty hunter. The sixth officer was a funny-looking Deijen who called himself Bigun (pronounced “big gun”). He was probably the biggest Deijen that Rafian had ever seen, but he was extremely fast and an ace at using ranged weapons.
Within the walls of the alliance were other resistance fighters whom Lucci had invited, and he was happy to move among them in hopes of great things to come. The Felitians had taken Talula like a storm, and Lucci and Eagle did a lot of missions by themselves, none of which gave them traction in taking back the moon from their enemy. As a unit, the Aygis aided in many military skirmishes and developed a reputation for being the special forces you would call whenever a situation seemed hopeless. Rafian found himself fighting on Tyhera, Talula, Deijo, and even Rofe. His bravery was a thing of legend, and he rallied many hopeless fights into victories, always on the front lines.
Under Master Lucci, Rafian the lost rebel with no Memory became a master of the Mera Ku arts. He gave up vines and whoring for meditation and mastered the unarmed combat arts in their entirety. He became a successful resistance leader and officer, showing up to fights whenever he was called and burning Felitian camps all over the moon.
The Aygis organization was turning out to be a dream come true. That is, until the day Lucci Vadosh disappeared. For months, no one heard from him, and after a while, he was assumed to be dead. Rafian believed that his friend and master had gone too far in his meditation and had fallen into the abyss—a place they all feared in their particular religion. Everyone else assumed the old Ranalos to have been captured or killed by Felitian Special Forces. Whatever the case, it appeared that Lucci was gone from them forever, and Rafian was saddened by the loss.
In an effort to keep Lucci’s dream of the Aygis alive, Rafian tried in vain to keep the meetings and operations going, but soon the other members began disappearing too. Lucci had been the glue that kept their motley crew together, and with him gone, they held no loyalty to Rafian, the cause, or any of the other officers. Out of frustration and disappointment, Rafian returned to Tyhera to the resistance fighting. He was one of the last remaining Aygis members after Bigun was arrested and Sa-Lin and Tyren were killed in action. Eagle vanished like Lucci before him but resurfaced to let Rafian know h
e would always be there in the shadows. Many members broke their oath and went into hiding after Bigun’s arrest, but Rafian and Eagle sought them out and killed them one by one in honor of the blood pact that they had broken.
A year later, in one of the bravest coups in the history of the resistance, Rafian and a fellow Mera Ku master named Ill Switch executed a plan of tactical genius. The results of their months of organizing and training led to the pair slaughtering a prison full of Felitian troopers to rescue their brother Bigun from its walls. It was a glorious reunion. Felitians began to fear the Mera Ku robes that men such as Ill and Rafian wore into fights, because the men moved like ghosts and struck with deadly precision. It didn’t matter whether it was with gun or knife, a Mera Ku master was a one-man army on the battlefield.
With the help of Ill, the Aygis was reformed on Tyhera behind a bunker owned by Rafian. It was a well-hidden base within the northern mountains of Apun, and it sat upon the ruins of an old Mera Ku temple. It always felt as if the spirit of Lucci was watching over them. Rafian was named supreme leader, with Ill and Bigun as his lieutenants—devoted warriors sworn by blood and oath to do as they were charged in taking the hell back to the Felitians.
* * *
One late night Rafian was thinking about Lucci as he walked through the main halls of the temple. Unsheathing a sword that hung on the metallic wall, Rafian examined it and smiled to himself. He had used this sword when he fought alongside his friend a year ago.
“Which will be your focus, Rafian? Unarmed fighting or the sword?” Lucci had asked him one day as they sat discussing philosophy on the steps of the Aygis.
“To tell you the truth, Lucci, I favor both.”
“I think you should lean towards sword and master it. The way of the sword is an old discipline that even the Mera Ku has neglected for many years. Everyone is able to use a fist and a gun, but you can be one better. I bet if you stick with your sword and your lessons, no one will be able to touch you.”