by Greg Dragon
“Thank you for telling me the truth. But I won’t lie and say it makes me feel any better about her ending up there. I did not want anything like that to happen. I have extended so much of myself to try and be friends with her, but she has never returned the gesture.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head before taking in a breath and changing the subject. “You haven’t been a good husband to me lately, Rafian. You are short with me, you keep things from me and you lie. I know that a lot of it has to do with her and I wonder if we were back on my planet, would things have been different. What I mean Raf, is that if you hadn’t lost your memory, would you still have fallen in love with me?”
Rafian thought long and hard on Marian’s question. It was a legitimate inquiry and she deserved an honest answer. He thought about the events of that day, when he and his feisty future-wife had squared off. That fateful day when he’d chanced upon her aboard a starship, weeks after they had tried to kill one another.
The memory put a smile on his face. He walked over to Marian and regarded her as if she were brand new. Her skin appeared as flawless, molded clay and her full lips curled in annoyance, as if she wondered what it was that he was up to. She was still his wild, Tyheran kitten, forever loyal to him, but hardly tamed. During the rebellion, she had switched allegiances for him when their love had forced them to choose a side. On her right forefinger sat the beautiful black ring he had given her back when she had agreed to be his wife.
“Rienne.”
The name made her flinch. No one had called her Rienne in ages. Not since the day she’d changed her name and identity to join her new husband and his.
Her lips parted slightly to ask him why, but Raf cut her off to continue what he was saying. “Nothing in this life could have changed the way I felt about you when we met and squared off that crazy afternoon in Veece,” he told her. “Even when I could barely remember what you looked like, I thought of you. And it wasn’t some admiration thing due to you holding your own against me in a fight. I couldn’t admit it then, but I had fallen in love with you.” With that he took her delicate hands into his own and looked into her eyes.
“We’re meant to be, my Tyheran hatch kitten. To think that I got blinked away to another galaxy and stumbled into the house of an enemy agent, not to get captured, but to gain a life partner. You need not question whether things would change if I had remembered Camille. In my heart, I believe that nothing would change, even if I had my memory.”
Marian stared into her husband’s eyes and Rafian could see the fight disappear from them as she remembered what they had been through and the deep love they shared for one another. She wanted to rub his baldhead and feel the bristles of hair growing back—it was something she always did whenever they were together. But she was upset with him and she could not let the physical urges she felt for him interfere with her feelings.
“Raf, what happened to us? In Luca, we were inseparable. You even considered retiring from the war so that we could be a family. Now that we’re here in Anstractor, I realize that it will never happen, but I was good with it because I knew that you would make my coming here worth it. When you shook off my concern for my people today, it really hurt me. I would have rather you had shot me instead of the way you made me feel earlier. I felt like I was in your way, like a toy you had grown tired of. It made me hate you. And it made me wonder, ‘why would he bring me here just to hurt me?’”
“If I vow to you, right here and right now, that I will never come between you and your family again, that I will do what I can to support you until they win their freedom, will you promise to forgive me and forget all of this?”
Marian smiled. “Yes, I can promise the forgive part; I can definitely do that. The forget part? I am not so sure about that one. That one is a bit beyond my control, Commander.”
She grabbed him by the beard and touched her forehead to his. They hugged and then separated to watch the shape of a large cruiser land and deploy a number of Phasers into the city.
“Probably going home to see their families.” Marian said, as if her mind were a million miles away.
“Are you okay, Rhee?”
“I’m just thinking, Rafian, I’m twenty four and you’re twenty six. I just really wish we could have children.”
The words were already out when her eyes found his to apologize silently. When Rafian had joined the organization—prior to his first jump, the dark education and meeting her—part of the Jumper’s process had been to sterilize the membership. Marian would not learn about this until she had followed her new husband home, ignorant of the hell that was going on in his galaxy and ignorant to the situation that he was in. She knew the reminder was painful to him but she had not done it out of spite. She was feeling emotional and the words had just come out.
Those members who’d joined the organization in recent years were lucky because the prospect of having a family was still a reality for them. Tayden Lark had taken the old rules of sterilization and dehumanization out of the training. But men and women like herself, Rafian, and Camille YAN were from the old, original order, and therefore lacked the ability to reproduce.
“I think I’m going to go take that shower now, Rhee.” Rafian said, his enthusiasm to reconcile with his wife now gone.
The only thing he wanted to do was wash up and retire for the night. He hated the thought of not having the ability to have children, and had always told himself he would find a way to reverse the process. Marian reminding him of his shortcomings made him want to get away from her as quickly as possible. He did not like that his first thought in uncomfortable relations was to run away, but that was how he had always dealt with the women in his life. Marian moved quickly to bar his exit, with speed that only a Phaser agent possessed, and while he could have dashed past her to descend the ladder, he let her stop him, curious as to what she had to say. Did she mention children out of some petty attempt at revenge for what he had done? Surely she was above that.
“Look, Raf. Stay. Wait. Please. I look over the massive city that you and I helped to make a reality and IT is our baby. We have developed something that meant a new start to a lot of refugees, and it will grow to become something wonderful. Can you believe it? Vestalians are back on Vestalia! Thanks to us! People that lived on vessels in space for an eternity are on solid earth. They are eating of its plants and animals, as your ancestors did prior to the Geralos. We did this!”
She was desperate and wanted to see him smile or nod – anything but that dark, downwards glance that he’d held once she mentioned children. He knew what she was doing and felt sorry for her, so he feigned a smile to appease her.
Marian knew it wasn’t genuine but she took it as an opening and continued to press. “When you built our home in that cave, you chose this hill because it’s hard to see what’s going on up here, right?”
Rafian nodded. “Yeah, it has a strategic advantage for us, should anything happen to the city.”
She grabbed his face and kissed him, and he didn’t notice that her dress had slipped off to rest upon her tiny, slipper-covered feet. She was really trying, and though he wanted to object, his body quickly surrendered to her touch. When he reached for her hips he noticed that she was naked and all of the anger faded from his mind as he enjoyed the warmth of her flesh.
They kissed each other passionately and she ran her nails down his spine in a way that forced his 3B suit to pop open and fall to the floor, joining her dress.
Rafian was right about the tower being hard to spy from the city below. There would be no one to see them on the top of that tall tower on the hill, or hear the things being uttered in Tyheran by Marian VCA.
~*~*~*~
“We’ve lost the Missio-tral,” the sad voice said.
Rafian sat on top of the tower, looking out at the lights of the city as the night breeze blew cold against his exposed skin. Marian had gone inside to shower and prepare for bed, but he could not join her due to the desperate call that had com
e through on his comm. Alliance soldiers were seeking his assistance with a Geralos strike. It was the last thing they’d expected the lizards to do and he realized that the alliance had been caught sleeping—which had cost them the lives of over a thousand soldiers.
“Was Val on Missio-tral?” he asked.
“No, the Colonel is actually on his way to Meluvia. I have to call him next, and it is not a call that I am looking forward to,” Aurora said.
“I can break the news to him if you want, sis.”
“No, Raf, it’s my job, so let me do it. I just know that everyone he knows was on that ship…”
“Not everyone.”
“Well, it is as much his home as Helysian was, Raf.”
“I know. Tell the commander that I have the intel and we will do what we need to do. I need him to get the Helysian out of the First Quadrant as quickly as possible and remain cloaked until that destroyer is taken care of.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Aury?”
“Yeah Raf?”
“I want you to leave Helysian as soon as you can and come down here with us.”
“You mean, there, on Vestalia?”
“Yeah, I want you where I can protect you. I’m not able to do that with you on the other side of the galaxy. Let them jump away and you come here with me and Marian. Can you do this for me?”
“I don’t know Raf. I have Luc here and the baby and… I’ll think about it and talk to him about it, okay?”
“Alright sis, but if you take too long, then I’ll take it as a yes.”
“Are the Phasers going to destroy the Geralos ship, Rafian?”
“We will be destroying that piece of schtill, oh don’t you worry—and a whole lot more. Just stay high and dry until things settle. Come home, baby sister. Vestalians are meant to be on the ground.”
He had not spoken to his sister, Aurora in over a month. As he thought of the friends he had lost on the Missio-tral, a wave of sadness overtook him. The sadness slowly turned into rage, and he considered going after the Geralos himself. However, he was Supreme Leader now and he had people that could do it without him having to be there. He looked over at the cave entrance of his home and the shapely silhouette of Marian stood at the doorway, waiting. She was always impressive with her dress. The sheer nightgown she wore barely concealed her form, and her hair was wrapped up in a towel. It could have been a crown for all he cared. It reminded him of how much he had to lose if he made a rash decision.
With much hesitation he flipped through his holographic Rolodex to the letter ‘Y.’ There would need to be an indirect attack on the Geralos command, since any direct assault on a primed destroyer would be suicide.
~*~*~*~
After the destruction of the Missio-tral, a tiny, black ship flew out towards the area of space where the Helysian sat. Even though it was within the larger ship’s radars, it remained undetected.
“Aurora, did you see that blip?” Aren TRU shouted to his fellow navigator. They were sitting at their posts, watching several large screens for any suspicious activity.
Aurora patted her afro nervously as she focused on the area. “There are always blips, Mister Paranoid,” she said, making a face. “It was probably a chunk of debris, floating close to the base.”
“It was moving pretty fast for debris,” he replied. His tan baldhead shone beneath the lights of the bridge. I wonder if it’s your brother doing one of those cool Phaser jumps or whatever.”
“I wish it were my brother. I haven’t seen him in months.”
As Aren and Aurora spoke, the tiny ship slid comfortably through Helysian’s shields and attached itself to the hull.
Maes Van Senthyn slipped on his skin suit and checked his reflection in the holo-display to make sure that he looked flawlessly human. He practiced his speech through an untested vo-corder and though he sounded good; he wondered if the people on board the Helysian would be convinced. He had no time to second-guess himself, so he took a deep breath and stepped through the rigged airlock. The blast doors slammed shut to protect the ship and he was onboard instantly. There was no turning back now, so he focused on his mission—he was to get onboard, blend in with the humans, and report on the Phasers.
The Geralos had chosen him for this mission because of his record. He was an unmatched spy and a brilliant practitioner of the martial arts. If any one of the humans or Meluvians were to see through his ruse, he would dispatch them quickly. There was to be no failure in this mission. The future of his people depended on it, and he was honored to have been the one chosen. He ducked behind a discarded torpedo when a few soldiers walked by. They were laughing and talking about the meal they’d just had so they paid very little attention to their surroundings.
I wish this were a standard mission so that I could slit their stupid, smooth throats, Maes thought to himself. But he let it pass. There would only be blood as a last resort. He waited until the hall was empty and then stepped out once more to look around.
“Wow! Now there’s something I haven’t seen in a long time,” a pretty, dark-haired cadet said when she saw the tall, pale-skinned man emerge from behind the torpedoes.
“Something wrong with my appearance?” he asked her shyly, and she giggled at how oddly he moved and spoke.
She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old and Maes noticed that the 3B suit she wore looked extremely different from the one he was wearing. He had stolen it from the body of a fallen soldier during the takeover of an Alliance vessel several years back.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be odd,” Maes said. “I am new here – really. I was on the ship Messio-tral before it got destroyed.”
The young girl gave him a sympathetic look and then led him out of the room and into a massive, well-lit hallway where humans, Casanians, and Meluvians were walking past one another en masse. It was the first time Maes had seen so many of them in one place and it was so much to take in that he almost panicked.
“You don’t like people, do you?” the young girl asked.
Maes permitted himself to shake his head in response. He had studied human behavior for months and had passed his tests with flying colors. Nevertheless, good grades and high marks did not translate smoothly to life, however, and after a time, he began to get many stares from the other humans.
“Why do you think they are laughing at me?” he asked the girl.
“My name is Jayne, what is yours?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“I am Sako,” Maes told her. “Sako Trynessis. Pleasure to meet you, young Jayne of Helysian.”
“Sako, the funny way you talk, your odd stomp walk and that horribly old 3B suit you’re wearing … that is why they stare at you. You stick out like a Geralos!”
Maes panicked when she said this and stopped to drop into a defensive maneuver to thwart off anyone that would attack him now that she had blown his cover.
“The Geralos aren’t really here, silly,” Jayne said, shaking her head. “I was making a point. You’re a jumpy one. See, this is where everyone hangs out. This is where you can buy some new 3B that is of the times.” She chuckled. “And you can get a haircut, too. I’m not sure what they did on Missio-tral—those poor souls—but I can see that military fashion was not happening there.”
Maes thanked his young escort and took another breath to calm himself as he tried his best not to stick out. The girl had noticed his oddness too quickly so he knew he had to try harder.
He looked around. The place was a mall of sorts, with flashing lights, long lines and people speaking loudly—it was everything he hated about the Vestalians. He placed some credits on the panel of a sales kiosk and then watched them vanish as the machine ordered him to stand still. Within seconds, he was in a slick 3B suit of bright silver. Now he looked as stylish as the other young people that were on the ship; now he really fit in.
“That color suits you,” a baldheaded Meluvian said to him. She walked up and deposited her own credits to purchase a maroon and silv
er version. “How does this color look with my skin?” she asked.
“It looks very attractive on you, Miss …?”
“Ura, Ura Dohn. I’m the cadet commander. Funny, I would think you would know that.”
“Oh, I’m Sako – ma’am, pardon my manners. I am not from this ship. I was rescued and brought here after Messio—”
“A refugee? Wow, this must be a terrible time for you, Sako. I am so sorry for your loss!”
“Thank you, Lady Dohn, I appreciate you talking to me.”
“Lady Dohn? Wow, I like that. You hear that, children? This young man called me Lady Dohn. If you want extra points on your physicals, you should do the same,” she announced loudly to every cadet within earshot. Then she winked at Sako and made to leave the busy hub.
Maes felt good about the exchange. She was an adult Meluvian—a race with more acute senses than human beings—and she had not seen him for what he was, even when he’d made the dumb mistake of calling her “lady.” He continued to meet new people, his confidence growing as he did so. Within a week he would be just like them, indiscernible to anyone he came across. He got a haircut, moved into a dorm, and started taking military classes. It was very easy for him to get inside, even though he had no record on the Helysian file system.
~*~*~*~
Yuth Varience was a legend on his home planet of Louine. He had left the comfort of a plush palace, several husbands and wives, and a promised lifetime of luxury in order to join the humans in their fight against the Geralos.
The united governments of Louine had given in to the foolish notion that they would be left alone by the lizards once they had consumed all of humanity and made themselves the rulers of Anstractor. They wanted nothing to do with the war and chose to sit out, hoping the Geralos would notice, consider them a peaceful, non-threatening ally, and leave them alone. Yuth had been one of the premier pilots during the Davinine World War. He was a national hero, but war had changed him immensely.
Unlike the other “heroes” that decided to accept the easy life or substitute their uniforms for the formal robes of a politician, Yuth had wanted to take his heroics beyond his planet to help the galaxy. After three years of fighting and showcasing his brilliance as a tactician, Yuth was invited to join the Phasers.