D'mok Revival: The Nukari Invasion Anthology

by Michael Zummo

  “I love you, I always will,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “You’re my mother. Put down your sword and shield. Just be the person Demas granted you life to be and you’ll find, like me, that others can be who they were made to be.”

  A great peace came over him. “I know you can find it in your heart—because I came from you. That’s what I believe. I’ll be watching … Mother.”

  * * * * *

  “No signs of being followed,” Seigie said, checking long-distance scans. “Maybe De’Genico really has let Cogeni go.”

  “Maybe even kept the Nukari at bay,” Mencari added.

  “Perhaps we can find a way to involve her in the fight at some point? But we’ll need to see what happens to the Nukari there.”

  Wincing, he recalled the prideful woman’s demeanor. Apparently seeing his reaction, Seigie leaned over and whispered, “Or perhaps not. One difficult person is enough, and Naijen already has that honor.”

  Mencari hid his smile, unwilling to explain it to the next-most-difficult warrior under his command.

  “So the stuff you did with the beads, how’s it work?” Allia asked Cogeni.

  Mencari listened, also curious about this.

  “Well, it’s a holy artifact, one from my faith, in fact,” Cogeni said. “My ancestors have been able to draw miracles from relics like these for generations. It’s why we lead the faith on our world.”

  “So just the Demas Beads and things work for you?” she asked.

  “No, actually the necklace I have is a holy symbol from an alien race.” He freed it from under his shirt. The symbol looked like two eyes in the shape of a flattened “X,” joined at the pupil. “It was a gift from a stranger we helped, another victim of my mother.”

  Mencari looked in time to see Allia studying it. “What does it do?” she said.

  “When I pray with it I can heal people.”

  “Like you did with me and Rhysus?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it’s like what I can do with animals, just with an object thing—” Allia gasped. “Then Seigie won’t have to keep using her green crystals!”

  Mencari smiled. The girl had heart.

  “And what about you?” Allia asked Nikko. “When you danced I felt something … also when we were by Cogeni’s mom with that mob, and you did stuff to those creatures too.”

  “When I dance I can feel an energy moving within me,” Nikko said. “When I’m more sensual, sometimes I can touch people’s hearts or minds. Other times it flows from me and becomes a wave of light.”

  “Like the way you attacked the creatures?”

  “Yes, but I like to bring pleasure more than pain.”

  Osuto’s face flashed through Mencari’s mind. “I should update Osuto before he has another fit,” he said. “It’s been a while.”

  “Good idea, you haven’t seen him pace yet,” Seigie said with unusual humor.

  CHAPTER 7:

  Knot of Leads

  “Before we retire and allow our newest members to settle in, there’s one more thing I want to show you,” Osuto said, leading the group through a finished set of new corridors in the far section of their asteroid base.

  “That’s so cool!” Allia cried. The old man looked over, curious, to see the girl bound up and look at Naijen’s arm.

  “Like it?” Naijen gloated. “Did it last night.” He twisted forward, showing off the bloodied head of a beast tattooed into his shoulder.

  To the disapproving look on Osuto’s face the warrior sneered. “This is how my people celebrate victories. And them beasts on Argosy earned me this.”

  “I was just thinking of the pain of carving that into your own arm,” Osuto said.

  The warrior snorted. “Only tickled.”

  “When can I get one?” Allia asked.

  “You don’t get one, whelp, you earn it—”

  “Say, Osuto,” Mencari interjected, looking around, “isn’t this the area you and I cleaned out when I first arrived?”

  “Among them,” Osuto said smiling, recalling his pupil’s fledgling days. “But you haven’t yet seen—”

  “Just tell us what it is already,” Seigie croaked. “I don’t do surprises.”

  Osuto stopped them before two large metal doors. An engraving of a mighty tree sprawled across them. Under the thick, protective canopy floated the D’mar emblem.

  “Allia, will you do the honors?” he said.

  She came over and with a wave of the hand, a loud clunk echoed around them. Brilliant light poured through the cracks as the heavy doors opened.

  “Ojisan!” she squealed and ran inside. “It’s just like my grotto back home!”

  He nodded happily, pleased with the youngest member’s response. “Go ahead,” he motioned to the others.

  “A grotto?” Seigie said, bewildered and annoyed.

  Mencari looked around and suppressed a laugh. “When did you have time to work on this?”

  “It was a project Ujaku, Toriko, and I were working on,” Osuto said.

  The old man soaked in the wonder on Allia’s face as she dashed around, looking at the trees and smelling the flowers.

  “Not everything here needs to be about our battle,” Osuto explained. “A place to rest and reflect can be effective to win, as much as our strategy room. We can grow food here eventually, and this place will augment our air filtration systems as well.”

  Seigie groaned. “So it actually does have a function.”

  “Does this place have a name?” Mencari asked.

  “Why not ‘Allia’s Grotto’?” Osuto glanced toward Allia.

  “Really?” Her eyes bulged before they teared with a painful joy. Giving him a hugging tackle, she cried, “Oh, thank you, Ojisan!”

  * * * * *

  “Good morning!” Osuto said more cheerfully than usual.

  Seigie looked up from the data display. She raised an eyebrow. “Already?”

  For the first time she realized just how meaningless time seemed to her. Everyone had just turned in, and in an instant, they were up. Of course, it was really hours that had passed, but it felt like an instant to her.

  A flash caused her stony body to clatter painfully as she recoiled. Gasping, she saw a star chart display without being requested.

  Osuto laughed. “Jumpy?”

  “Did I not say I don’t do surprises?” she grumbled while studying the chart further.

  “Oh, I’m sure that mean projection was quite a threat.”

  She glared at him before returning her eyes to the chart. A cone-shaped ship glowed with a red aura, and a warning symbol floated above it. The gravity of the sign sank in when an alarm blared.

  He covered his ears. “What is that racket?”

  “More of the girl’s toys,” Seigie spat, trying to find the controls to stop it. “It couldn’t be a nice chime or some soothing sound, could it? No, of course not!”

  The sound of hurried steps were nearly drowned out by the alarm. Mencari, Allia, and Ichini barreled into the command center.

  “Wh-What’s going on?” Mencari yelled.

  “A ship. Inbound,” Seigie explained.

  “Ujaku and Toriko?”

  “The system knows our own ships, Mencari,” Osuto barked over the alarm. “Can you shut that off, Seigie?”

  What do you think I’m trying to do?

  Seigie continued to mutter, desperate to find a way to stop the horrid shrill.

  “Find Naijen,” Mencari blurted. “Bring him to the bay. We’re going out!”

  Seigie noticed a second icon appear on the far edge of on the projection. This one was green. She opened her mouth to tell the others.

  A geyser of light burst into the air before Mencari. The countless balls of light coalesced, forming the outline of a foxlike Humanoid. In a flash, a small version of Toriko floated before him. In truth, it was a high-tech version of Toriko, one that sported a metal tech-suit complete with metallic fox ears and bushy tail. Mencari knew this wasn’t Toriko, b
ut rather her artificially intelligent avatar, Mini-T, just with a major upgrade.

  “Wait!” she yelled, fox ears twitching.

  The alarm stopped.

  “The second craft is Ujaku. Toriko is in the first one! We’re being hailed too,” Seigie said, near panic. “Opening the channel.”

  “Sorry! Sorry! SORRY!” Toriko cried using only audio. “I should have uploaded this ship’s transponder. Well, at least we know the perimeter system works.”

  After a nervous giggle, she continued, “Be there soon!”

  “Wonderful, looking forward to it,” Seigie crooned.

  * * * * *

  Allia bounded from the lift into the bay, faithful Ichini in tow. She stopped midstride, stunned by the sleek, metallic-pink ship with strips of white neon running lengthwise across the bow. Somehow it just screamed “Toriko.” There would be a great story about where the ship came from, she just knew it.

  Ujaku’s ship finished docking by the time she reached Toriko’s airlock. The lights of the bay flickered, then dimmed.

  “What’s going on?” Allia called out.

  A hiss drew her gaze to an airlock opening. Spark hopped out. After a happy howl, the bot’s visor beamed multicolored laser lights around the darkened bay. A chorus of oh’s and ah’s echoed throughout the bay as a billowing fog rolled out from inside the craft.

  Through the foggy haze, new ribbons of pulsing white neon appeared. Lines and arcs seemed to extrude from the body of the hot-pink metallic ship. Allia squinted into the darkness, thinking she saw a figure that looked like a person, except there were pointy things on the head.

  Wait!

  “Toriko!” she yelled.

  The neon lights became intense, and Spark converged his laser lights across a sleek pink exo-suit.

  “Miss me?” Toriko said.

  “And your hair is back!” Allia said, looking at the pink-highlighted tips. “You even highlighted your XoXo fox ears!” The new monocle over Toriko’s left eye glowed with streaming information, she noted.

  “New and improved Me, version 3.0!” Toriko said, striking a pose.

  * * * * *

  “I wanted to apologize again,” Mencari said, stumbling over his words. He looked about the empty meeting room, in any direction but into Toriko’s eyes. “I should have told you about the professor right away.”

  Her gaze revealed the nerve touched. “Yeah, you should have,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he pleaded.

  Her usual jovial face was sullen, cold. She looked ahead, eyes blank. In the awkward silence that followed, he struggled with what more to say.

  “I thought a lot about this,” she said, breaking the silence. “I had a decision to make. I had to figure out whether I came back—and why.”

  She hesitated, a well rising in her eyes. Long pink highlights skirted her head as it shook madly against the tide of emotion.

  “Should I return for Professor FX? To honor him? Avenge him? Or for you, because you took a chance on me—believed in me—when no one else would?”

  Her lips quivered; her body trembled. Again he found himself at a loss for words. Instinct told him to reach out, to comfort her. But something held him back. With hands clenched, she cleared her throat and gazed into the distance. A steadfastness overtook her; the struggle washed away. Water-filled eyes that beamed with clarity and blazed confidence met his.

  “It’s neither,” she said.

  A final hesitation was crushed when she continued. “All my life I’ve looked for someone else to validate that I’m worth something. Anything, anyone. And I’ve clung to the few times I’ve found it. Sometimes with the wrong people, sometimes the right. But then they disappear and I feel like nothing—a zero—the biggest loser all over again.”

  Her eyes were piercing, unyielding. She shook her head. “Well, it’s time to appreciate myself. Let everyone come and go, I don’t care. I won’t lose myself, and I don’t need anyone to tell me how good I am. I already know.”

  There was a gleam in her eye when she added, “I’m back for me. I want to be here and frankly, you need me!”

  She wiped the last of the tears away and stood defiant.

  Who was this woman standing before him? He couldn’t help but reflect on the childlike girl he met not so long ago. It wasn’t just the suit that had changed. Toriko glowed. A deep respect welled within him. Despite all she’d been through, she didn’t fall apart. Instead, she galvanized, ready to take on more. Few could do that. Though, was it such a surprise? She was the miracle worker, and it seemed she finally realized that herself.

  “You’re right,” he said. “And I’m glad you’re here.”

  She sniffled one last time. “Me too. Just one thing …”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “I promise.”

  A broken smile crossed her steeled expression. “So … if we’re good, I think we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “Then let’s get to it.”

  * * * * *

  Toriko had just stepped out of the conference room. Mencari took out his communicator and opened a channel back to the Coalition. They needed to be warned about the evolving Nukari threat.

  He waited, patient, thinking through how to deliver the strange change in circumstances. The Coalition wasn’t exactly friendly to his own manifestation of abilities. They wouldn’t be happy with the enemy that already steamrolled working with others like De’Genico that had abilities like his too.

  He felt his brow furrow as he looked down at the device. What was taking so long? Maybe there was some type of interference.

  Another minute’s wait, and he closed the connection. Nothing. That seemed strange. He wasn’t even able to leave a message. It was more like his attempt had never gotten through.

  Maybe he should ask Toriko to run a check on their communication systems.

  * * * * *

  “Rhysus,” Seigie said as he entered the command center. “You just missed Eyani. She’s asked for us to come to the Trading Post.”

  So the communication system was working fine. The request struck him as odd, too. They were just at the Trading Post.

  “Again?” he said.

  “Considering everything going on, including what happened on Argosy, and those metal tags Allia found that mention K’pec Labs, and that big Nukari ship, there’s plenty for us to talk about. Eyani said they have more about our beast friends too.”

  “True. Well, let’s not keep her waiting—”

  “Wait! There’s something else,” Toriko added. “Remember how Mini-T was working on that crystal from Nicia? She found something. A lot of something.”

  “Like what?”

  “There were videos of an expedition to find something called the Cosmic Link.” She gestured. A few videos and star charts appeared before her.

  “Cosmic Link?” Osuto said. “What is it?”

  “It wasn’t clear.” Toriko gave a shrug. “I still hav’ta sift through the things Mini-T flagged. It could be a power source, or a weapon, or something else. There’s a reference to the Janux Nebula too. I have Mini-T finding where that is.”

  “Maybe it could be useful,” Mencari said.

  “Or a wild-goose chase,” Seigie rebuked.

  “Regardless, one thing at a time.” Osuto spoke with composure. “I don’t want us spread too thin.”

  “Good work, Toriko.” Mencari turned back to Osuto. “You’re right, Osuto. For now, we head to the Trading Post.”

  * * * * *

  “This is actually good timing,” Eyani said while they settled around the conference table in the war room. “We have a few things we wanted to tell you about too.”

  She pointed to the far wall, where new holographic panels detailing Nukari and mercenary activity tiled the wall. “But you first.” She gestured warmly.

  “We’ve found an active Nukari installation,” Mencari said.

  Her
face stilled. “Where?”

  “Their world—Argosy.” Mencari pointed to Nikko and Cogeni. “A well-established base. Not just a partnership with mercenaries like on Allia’s world.”

  Eyani glanced at the couple. “What were the Nukari doing there?”

  Cogeni looked down, embarrassed. “Looking for me.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “My mother hired them, but … they ended up doing much more.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s the religious leader there,” Mencari explained.

  “Argosy?” Eyani pondered this. “Your mother is De’Genico, the High Priestess? Then that makes you—”

  “Cogeni. Just Cogi, nothing more.”

  “How did she connect with the Nukari in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. We were moving crates on the Selsamed docks. We didn’t know anything about them until Mencari told us.”

  “We ran into a number of creatures that appeared to be guarding their installation,” Mencari added. “With these on them.”

  He pulled the coin-sized tags from his pocket and showed them to her.

  The bug-bot emitted a squeal and skittered over.

  “What’s wrong?” Mencari said.

  “Potential security breach,” Bob blurted, and extended scanning antennae.

  A holographic projection appeared before Bob, revealing internals of the tag. Gradually, sections illumined green, until he gave his characteristic happy beep. “Scans concluded. Passive detection possible. No outbound transmission capability found. Basic station shielding will impede detection 99.9%.”

  “Warn me ahead of time if you bring something back here,” Eyani said to Mencari. “We can’t be too careful.”

  “What about the asteroid base?” Seigie said, concerned.

  “Checking,” Bob said. In moments a projection of the asteroid base appeared. Eyani saw the sudden anxiety in Mencari’s eyes. “Station composition provides sufficient blockage of passive detection, as do your ships.”

  “Rhysus, when Toriko interfaced with Eden, we were granted mutual access to each other’s systems.”