by James Somers
Tiet looked at the display as the information appeared. The scans showed indeterminate life readings across the plateau to the north of Sayir.
“It doesn’t say whether or not it’s human,” said Tiet.
Wynn chimed in on the conversation and said, “It wouldn’t at this distance. I’ve seen large animal herds that appeared similar on scans, but I doubt it in this case.”
“I agree,” said Grod. “The plateau would make a perfect launching ground for an attack on forces in the valley.”
“Then we’ll assume the worst and hope for the best,” said Tiet. “Let’s push our speed a little harder—I’m increasing to three point five of sound.”
Wynn and Grod followed, “Copy, three point five of sound.”
Tiet had to hold the controls a bit tighter as the fighter began to vibrate. It strained to reach the higher speed setting, but soon reached three point five of sound.
“The others should already be landing at Sayir by now,” said Wynn. “Let’s hope we’re on time.”
☼
LUCIN sat in his private transport shuttle, locked away in his suite. The room comprised the normal area for a troop compartment that could hold over one hundred men. It was lavish; fit for a king. He knelt on the floor. His human body was completely free of any clothing. Now, was the time for real transformation—time for his inward self to come out. Lucin’s body sweated profusely, but it wasn’t the normal human mixture meant to cool the body. His pores were oozing a dark brownish black substance. Every area of his skin, from his neck down, was changing in color as the thick liquid crept across the surface of his body, like a shadow eating him alive. Every muscle appeared to be in tetanus. Lucin’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut and his lips were pursed in a mask of pain.
The inward symbyte form covered him everywhere from his neck down. He began to look more and more like a Baruk warrior, possessing the same morphing exoskeleton. As the inward part finished encasing his form, Lucin’s human eyelids opened up to reveal the same blackness completely covering the whole surface of each eye. The windows to the soul of a man, in Lucin, revealed only a void of hate and evil intent.
Lucin stood in his new exoskeleton armor and strapped on the Barudii blade located next to his uniform on the bed. It was time for war, and time to claim his glory.
☼
KALE and Juli walked through patches of wild flowers growing everywhere on the valley floor. Merab and Jael were bringing up the rear of the group heading toward the area where a great many transport ships were already landing. Kale’s best estimate was well over one hundred ships, each carrying a compliment of rebel fighters of varying number. So far he could not see his father anywhere among those disembarking. He was supposed to be coming with Wynn and Grod in old aerial fighters, but nothing so small was seen yet.
Kale looked for the Maelstrom among the bigger ships that were already down or landing. He needed to find Captain Viche. All of the rebel forces needed to get organized quickly before an attack could be launched against them. The prophecy was very clear—Lucin would be attacking in the valley at some point. He needed Viche to get the other group commanders together by the time his father arrived.
Juli was the first to spot the ship. “Isn’t that it over there, the big one, where those people are disembarking?”
“Good eye.”
They ran the one hundred yards to reach the Maelstrom. Several men were gathered around another very distinguished man. He appeared to be the leader among them. The man looked worn by battle. His hair was gray, but it gave him a wise appearance and only added to his strength.
“Captain Viche?” asked Kale.
“Yes young man,” said Viche. He gave Kale a once-over look.
Kale suddenly felt like his age was factoring into this man’s first impression of him.
“Are you, Kale Soone, the king’s son?”
“Yes, sir. We need to—“
“Where is your father, boy?”
Juli gave Kale a sideways glance at the boy on the end of the question. Kale noticed it also and he didn’t have time for this man’s disrespectful attitude.
“Captain Viche, until my father arrives, I am in command here,” his tone was polite but firm. “We need to meet with all of the commanders of these groups immediately. An attack is imminent on this valley and we’ve got to be ready or no one is going to survive this day. Do you understand?” Kale felt a little heavy-handed with the last question, but he just didn’t have time for games. Every fiber of his being told him an attack would come very soon. Lucin’s forces had been dogging their heels and it was unlikely he had just given up.
“Come with me,” said Viche with a little more concern in his voice. “We’ll round up the other commanders and try to get this thing organized.”
The Captain led the way down the makeshift row between the landed ships pointing to various men as he walked along. They responded as though they understood his desire to meet with them, and they began to follow after them. Juli squeezed Kale’s arm as they walked, a playful show at her approval of his bold handling of the older Captain Viche. He shot her a quick sarcastic grin. It was typical for the elder men to disqualify a young man such as himself on appearance only, but he was a king’s son and officially a man of proper age according to the Barudii customs. He just wasn’t going to stand for the disrespect under such dire circumstances.
Armed men and women were gathering in large groups outside of the vessels they had traveled in. More ships could be seen coming from the southwest. They already had a number of larger vessels on the ground and at least a few thousand armed rebels in sight with more pouring out of the bellies of the ships.
Kale was sizing up the various commanders as they made their way to join their group. They all looked seasoned by what they had faced in their fighting against the Agonotti. Some had visible scars on their necks and faces and one had a noticeable prosthetic hand. He fought the notion that was creeping into his mind—I’m not worthy to take charge of these men.
Here he was, only a child in their eyes. Most of the men were giving him stares comparable with the look Captain Viche had set upon him. They were obviously thinking, who are these kids with Viche?
When they had reached the last man, Viche was trying to gather to their group, he turned to gain their attention. Viche began to talk about the king being in transit to the valley and was saying something more about Kale being the king’s son, but it was all fading—something else had caught Kale’s attention.
Juli was getting used to showing Kale her affection for him more openly in recent days. She liked him for more than a friend and believed the feeling was mutual. They were young, but Kale was already considered a man by his clan. Juli had caught hold of his hand and it was growing sweaty and tense. The thought had occurred to her that he was either nervous for her to be touching him that way, or apprehensive about having to address all of these rebel commanders. His hand tensed more and she shot a sideways glance to his face. He was staring at the ground just beyond Captain Viche. Kale wasn’t paying any attention to her or the meeting going on around him. His eyes were darting from the place behind Viche to various points on the valley floor around them. She saw sweat dripping down his temple in sixty degree weather and she became worried, what’s wrong with him?
Kale eyed the shallow grass around the valley, something was making the hair stand up on the back of his neck but he couldn’t see it—Danger!
Juli was holding his hand. She leaned in to Kale’s ear whispering, “What’s wrong?”
Kale wasn’t sure if someone else had heard her question, but something changed. Patches of the ground shifted in color for a fraction of a second and Kale instinctively grabbed his blade from his back. Suddenly, he was pulling the weapon from the sheath on his back and the men, still engaged in the meeting, reacted as though threatened by the young man.
Kale wasn’t even acknowledging the rebel commanders except to try and protect them. He charged toward
Viche with his blade held high. The men reached for him as he pushed toward the bewildered Captain Viche. Kale was too fast for their attempt to restrain him, seconds were passing like hours. Viche went for his blaster pistol strapped on his side. He wouldn’t have made it, Kale was already pushing between Viche and another man trying to get past them—a figure was forming from the dust of the ground behind the group.
The Agonotti warrior had only just congealed his form when Kale landed the first strike with his ignited Barudii blade. The warrior was covered by the same morphing exoskeleton Kale had seen on them inside the first underground rebel hangar. He had learned the weakness of their armor in that encounter and wasted no time exploiting it, striking a deep thrust into the joint between the deltoid plate and the left pectoralis plate. He drove the ignited blade up to three quarters of the way in. The Agonotti howled in pain as Kale sliced sideways to remove it through his chest, doing even more fatal damage.
Laser fire erupted all over the valley floor as seemingly thousands of Agonotti materialized among the rebel forces. The rebels present, were utilizing a heavier version of blaster rifle than those he had seen them using before. The rebels were retreating into groups, covering each other in all directions as the Agonotti tried to close in. It wasn’t going to be as easy as might have been expected; the rebel blaster rifles were being fired in short bursts that was doing damage to the Agonotti.
Kale was fighting furiously, with Juli in tow. He was trying to find some safe place to take her, but the battle was raging in every direction he turned toward. The Agonotti were taking down the stray soldiers with ease utilizing their melee weapons, but it was the small groups of rebels putting up the most resistance.
Kale spotted Jael and Merab and headed for them, trying to protect Juli as best as he could. An Agonotti warrior materialized behind them and snatched Juli from his grasp, hurling her several feet through the air as he focused on bringing his large, spiked mace to bear on the young Barudii warrior. Kale dodged allowing the head of the mace to chunk into the ground next to him. He swiftly severed the mace’s chain and in the same stroke, he hurled his blade between the breastplates of the Agonotti’s armor. The Agonotti staggered and Kale hit the creature with a massive kinetic burst that sent it reeling away to the ground some feet away. He ran to help Juli up from the ground and called his weapon from the disintegrating body of the Agonotti. The blade leapt away to find Kale’s hand as he continued his move to reach his Horva companions, Jael and Merab.
TWENTY-ONE
LUCIN watched with his troops from the edge of the plateau, where it began to descend steadily into the valley. Laser fire was erupting everywhere on the new battlefield. The Agonotti were disintegrating and materializing according to their special abilities and doing a great deal of damage both to the rebel soldiers and their transport vehicles, but it was not to the extent he had hoped to see. The rebels were actually holding their own in the fight and it surprised him.
“It looks as though my brethren cannot complete the job without my help,” said Lucin under his breath.
All of his thousands were ready to descend into the fray at his command. Storm clouds were gathering over head. The wind began to whip up as the weather system gained very steady strength. How odd, Lucin thought, the sky was clear only moments ago. Perhaps, he thought, the weather is freakish here as it sometimes had been on the twin worlds of Castai. He turned to his troops who were kneeling in row upon row, with their weapons at the ready.
“We Attack!!” shouted Lucin as he stood up and drew the Barudii blade he had procured back on Castai—an elegant weapon in the right hands. He charged forward down the natural incline toward the battle raging below, his body still clad in the morphing black armor, an extension of his inner symbyte form. The masses of troops following after Lucin had not been assimilated long enough to be able to form the living armor in them, but it was definitely on his list of things to do once this battle was won and the planet secured. Lucin intended to reform this new human army into the likeness of his former Baruk clan army. They had been a terrible force to contend with. He would regain that power and more. The only world that remained unaffected by his forces was the home-world of the Vorn clan, Demigoth.
He had never set foot on the planet, neither with a human host. Demigoth was virgin territory. The Vorn military had been in covenant under the Baruk for control of the twin worlds of Castai, but they still maintained complete control of Demigoth, at least for now. Lucin and his troops raged toward the ongoing battle, ready to tip the balance of power and destroy the rebels and the Barudii once and for all.
☼
TIET, Wynn and Grod had passed through the mountains only moments ago and were heading out over the plateau to the north of the Valley of Sayir. The signal the trio had been monitoring of a mass of indeterminate life readings suddenly changed when they cleared the mountains. The signal strength became very strong and Wynn was the first to report it to the others. “Do you see it? The scan says those signals are definitely human.”
“It must be Lucin’s ground army, but where are the big ships?” asked Tiet.
“The army is moving into the valley. Maybe Lucin realized the large cruisers would alert the rebels to his presence. Now, he seems to have surprise on his side.”
“I’m reading something else,” said Wynn. “There’s a multiplicity of gunfire down in the valley already.”
“I’m trying to reach the Equinox,” said Tiet. It took a moment of silence before Emil’s voice came through Tiet’s cockpit speaker saying, “Yes, sir, this is Emil. The Agonotti are attacking!”
The Agonotti! “Emil, where’s my wife and Kale?”
“Dr. K’ore is here on the ship with Ramah and Kale was out in the Valley meeting with the rebel commanders when the attack came. Merab and Jael are out there with him and Juli and I’m on my way now to help them.”
”No! Emil, I want you to stay with my wife and Ramah. They’ll need someone to protect them in case the Agonotti get to the Equinox.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll protect them with my life!” swore Emil.
“I have every confidence that you will. Your father and Wynn and I are inbound right now from the north. We are coming up on thousands of ground forces coming into the valley. We think it may be Lucin’s forces, but we’re going to try and slow them down.”
“Understood,” said Emil and he signed off.
Tiet spoke again to his friends flying in formation with him and said, “I spoke with Emil. The Agonotti are attacking in the valley already. They must be coordinating with Lucin and his human army.”
”If they are what Aija has told us, then it makes sense,” said Grod.
“We’re coming up fast on Lucin’s forces. Let’s dump everything we’ve got left on them,” said Tiet.
“I’ve got some missiles left,” said Grod
“Just unload everything into their ranks,” said Tiet. “We’ll make multiple passes and see if we can thin out their ranks a little before they can intermingle with our people.”
The three ships shuddered as the sheering forces of the increasing wind began to whip at their aerial fighters. They could see the ominous weather system hovering over the Valley of Sayir and it appeared to be growing quickly in intensity. Tiet led the other fighters in a descent towards Lucin’s ground forces as thousands of symbyte assimilated humans ran hard for the raging battle ahead.
Tiet and the others triggered their weapons sending missiles and automatic laser fire into the sea of Lucin’s army. Multiple explosions rocked the landscape sending bodies into the air, and more were cut down in mid-stride by the assault of pulse cannons from the three aerial fighters.
Lucin turned from his push toward the valley. “Destroy those fighters!!”
Many of Lucin’s troops began to turn on the fighters with larger weapons they had slung across their backs. Sights sprang from the tops of the weapons and the soldiers began to track the fighters individually, painting them with infrared las
ers to guide the rockets they were going to fire. They let loose the salvo and the rockets climbed skyward toward the three targets coming in for another pass.
Tiet and his group of aerial fighters lined up again on the advancing soldiers and began to fire their pulse lasers into the crowds. Alarm calls began to sound in their cockpits as they spotted clusters of vapor trails rising up away from the enemy forces. Tiet broke left trying to evade the rockets but there were just too many. His display was giving him a description of the weapons that were locked onto their ships. They were laser guided, normally not a problem, but there were at least one hundred of the weapons flying skyward toward them from different directions. Every direction that he turned the fighter found him facing multiple rockets. Tiet fired again, into the rockets, taking out some of them, but not enough.
He turned as a rocket struck his ship. He heard the shouts of Wynn and Grod coming through the speaker—they were being driven from the sky as well. As Tiet tried to regain control of his fighter, he heard Wynn’s voice saying, “Eject men!”
It was the only thing to do. Tiet’s aerial fighter began to spin out of control toward the valley floor. He slammed a fist on the flight chair’s ejection switch. The canopy immediately slid back into the body of the small ship and a charge launched him and his flight module away from the doomed fighter. The flight module was a small wedge of the flight chair that contained an antigravity pod inside allowing the pilot to make a controlled descent to the ground.
Tiet descended toward the valley floor nearer to the battle already raging between the rebel forces and the Agonotti. He could not see his son among all of the turmoil on the battlefield. Then something caught his eye as he drifted closer, still thirty feet from touching down. He could see one of the fighters slamming into the midst of Lucin’s soldiers as they descended into the valley. It wiped out quite a few, but they did not halt their advance. Then he noticed Grod already on the ground removing his flight module and heading into the fray. He could not see Wynn, but hoped that he had survived.