“Call all of the remaining ships here. We will amass our fleet here in the event they strike again.”
“It will be done,” Braac said with sadness, yet he remained for a moment, his expression was that of complete helplessness. As they sat in silence, staring at each other with weary eyes, Chuumdar’s desk chimed for an incoming call.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice soft and weak.
“Prefect, we have news of another attack by unknowns,” the man said.
Chuumdar pinched the bridge of his nose. “How bad?”
“We lost the Blood Rage,” he announced. “However, word of this came via two survivors who escaped in the Cloaker prototype.”
“Send them directly here as soon as they dock.”
Within moments, they arrived. They were battered and bruised, but alive.
“Sit,” Chuumdar ordered and they did. “I want to know everything.”
“My prefect,” one spoke. “We were out on patrol charting Seryys’ spysat locations as you ordered. We had just finished logging one when a fleet of two hundred ships of a design we had never seen appeared out of the black.
“The… the animal designated himself as Vor’l, Supreme Commander of the F’Rosian Empire Fleet. He told us to surrender and prepare to be boarded and no harm would come to us, but we are Vyysarri Warriors! We neither retreat nor surrender! We fought valiantly, yet they were easily able to overpower us and disable our ship. They sent warriors with strength and dexterity comparable to our own attributes. Commander Verdyyn ordered us to take the Cloaker Prototype and warn our people. Before we could get there, they attacked. We had to fight our way to the hangar.
“We were able to escape before they completely commandeered our ship. Verdyyn had a message for us to relay. Unfortunately, we were far out on that little ship, it took us two jumps to make here with a rest period between. The message Verdyyn wanted us to relay: “They are coming.”
“Thank you for your truly heroic efforts. Sadly, you are too late.”
The other, who hadn’t spoken yet, stood immediately planting both hands on Chuumdar’s desk. Chuumdar noticed that the warrior was missing all the fingers with the exception of his thumb on his right hand. Clearly they had fought courageously to bring these tidings. Chuumdar, who normally exuded strength and confidence, looked wearily at his two warriors. “Please, sit.” The man was too fired up to follow his Prefect’s wish. He remained standing. “Our home, Colony One, was destroyed approximately an hour ago.”
They both stood shocked, the standing man’s knees buckled and he fell back into his seat. “We failed,” the other said.
“Do not count this as a complete failure,” Chuumdar pleaded with his men. “The fleet at Colony One dealt a severe blow to them.”
Braac stood behind them. His somber visage was stony and cold but the fire in his eyes was unmistakable. “What would you have me do, my Prefect?” he asked.
“Contact Prime Minister Puar. I wish to warn him of the coming storm.”
“I will raise him immediately.” With a crisp bow he left the three of them behind.
Puar sat in his office, Seryys spun slowly in the viewport behind him. He was looking at a man he both recognized and didn’t recognize at the same time. He was ushered in by an armed security detail.
“Tander!” Puar gasped. “What happened to you?”
“I had a little Reaper encounter back on my estate,” he lied. “My security detail was able to quell it, but he ate some of my guards.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re all right.”
“I’m on the mend,” he assured his Prime Minister. “I wish I could say the same for my guards.” He looked back at the guards. “Security a little tight since my… accident?”
“Well, with Stiprox and Warthol nipping at my heels at every step, I can’t be too careful these days.”
Tander fought hard to suppress a knowing grin. “I understand. They have definitely made a mess of things. But anyway, I know you’re a busy man so I’ll be as brief as possible.”
“I’m just glad you were willing to meet me face-to-face. I can’t be sure that every channel I have isn’t being bugged or intercepted in some form or another.”
Again, Tander fought a grin. “Again, I understand.”
“So I got a brief explanation—if not a cryptic one—from my tactical advisor, but it sounds like you’ve developed some new tech that might be helpful to us.”
“Yes, well—” Tander was cut off by the buzzing of an incoming call.
“One moment, please,” Puar begged. He then hit a button on his desk. “Puar. Go ahead.”
“Prime Minister, the last of our navy has arrived. Every ship is accounted for.”
“Excellent. Have them set up a defensive parameter around Seryys and await further orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry Tander,” Puar apologized. “The work of world leader is never done.”
“Again, I understand you’re a busy man and these are scary times.”
“You can say that again.”
“Anyway, I have successfully bench-tested a new cloaking technology that may prove useful in the coming days. I am willing to sell this tech to you if the price is right.”
“Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, these F’Rosians are a serious threat, so there really isn’t a fee too great for an edge against our enemy. Can we see this tech in action?”
“Actually, Prime Minister, you are right now.”
“I beg your pardon?” Puar looked very confused.
Tander pressed a button on his watch. “Jarv, do you copy?”
“Yes, Master Dah. What can I do for you?”
“Disable the cloaking field around the Savvy Merchant, if you would, please.”
“Disabling cloaking field.”
Puar’s desk buzzed again. “Puar here.”
“Sir, we have detected an unknown ship in orbit around Seryys, though we can’t get visual confirmation. One minute it wasn’t there, the next minute it was!”
Tander grinned. “I’d say that’s a successful demonstration, wouldn’t you?”
Puar grinned back. “I’d say so. Commander, stand down. It’s the Savvy Merchant, Dack’Tander Dah’s ship.”
“As you wish sir,” the commander said, if not a little tenuously.
“It’s a cloaking field that masks energy, heat, radio and subspace signatures. Then, I had the ship fitted with a flat black paint job. If they look closely enough, they can see a set of stars moving. Those are the lights from the cockpit and engines.”
“Ingenious!” Puar laughed. “How much do you want for it?”
“I think Seryys Combat will pay a hefty sum for it, say… a hundred million?”
Puar leaned forward over his desk, studying Tander’s face. “How hard is it to install?”
“Not hard at all. I manufactured it to be compatible with any energy source and any ship with minimal modifications. I’m sure your engineers would be able to figure it out.”
“Seventy-five million,” Puar threw back.
“Ninety million,” Tander countered.
“Eighty.”
“Eighty-five.”
Puar nodded approvingly. “Deal,” he said getting to his feet and extending a hand. “I’ll have the funds transferred to your account within the day. How many do you have ready to go?”
“I can ship a hundred out today and another three hundred by the end of the week.”
“I’ll take the hundred right now,” Puar said without hesitation. “Have them shipped here by the end of the day. We may have a week, or we may have an hour before the F’Rosians show up. So the sooner the better.”
“I’ll get right on it, Prime Minster. A pleasure doing business with you as always.”
“Likewise,” Puar said, walking him to the door.
Good for business, Tander thought with a grin as he rode a lift down to the hangar where the Savvy Merchant had just docked. Her flat black c
hassis was in stark contrast to the brightly-lit hangar and she turned more than a few heads. Using a pseudo name and a dummy account, he sold the same design to the Vyysarri a week earlier. Playing both fields would increase his profits tenfold.
The defense grid was complete. He had the entire Seryys Combat Core of Engineers working literally around the clock to finish it on time, though “on time” was a relative term seeing as how he had no idea when the F’Roisans would come knocking. But the important thing was that it was completed before they showed up. He read the report: one thousand gun emplacements, fifteen hundred personnel, two thousand sensor packages over one hundred thousand tons of Ti’tan’lium—supplied by Dack’Tander Dah, and it reached all the way around the sun to protect it from any direction. It was a huge—no, a gargantuan—feat to complete such a daunting task in such a short amount of time. It was a true testament to the resolve of the Seryysan People.
They would fight.
They would prevail.
They would thrive.
Or die trying…
His desk buzzed, bringing him out of his reverie.
“Prime Minister, the first shipment of cloaking field generators has arrived. One hundred units.”
“Excellent. Take ninety-six of them and outfit every Lance-Class Dreadnaught we can. The other four will go to the defense grid. Can’t wait to see the look on those monsters’ faces when they launch that torpedo and something that they can’t even see stops it short.”
“Right away, sir!”
Things were all falling into place.
His desk buzzed again. “Sir, I have news of the shuttle going to get Miss Kayward’s family!”
Brawl followed Kay up flight after flight of stairs.
“At first, we tried to make it to the staging area for evac, but our hover car was literally knocked out of the sky by a giant Reaper with dark red skin,” she explained on the way. “Our car spun wildly out of control when the left half of the hoverpads shut down. We crashed several blocks away into the street and then we crashed through it into the sewer system.
“The giant Reaper tried to follow us down, but couldn’t fit. Only its arm came down after us, but I was able to beat it back with my Kit’Ra. The thing took nine or ten swipes before withdrawing. The car was totaled; nothing in it was useful. We were stranded with no way to call for help. We wandered the sewers for a day, trying to find a way out. Whoever built these sewers must have had a flawless sense of direction. Near the end of the day, my younger brothers were starting to get tired and we still had no idea where we were.”
They had just passed the tenth floor and Brawl was getting the impression that they were hunkered down on the top floor.
“As luck may have it, we came across an abandoned subway system that clearly hadn’t been used in thousands of years. We holed up there for the night in hopes that we could find our way out the next day.
“We were wrong.
“We spent two more days in the sewer until we came upon an intersection that was labeled. Imagine how we felt when we realized we had spent two days walking in the wrong direction! We went street side and found the city quiet. We knew that there was no help coming for us, we were on our own. It was dusk when we escaped the sewer so we found the nearest house and stayed the night. That night, I reconnoitered the area, got my bearings and stood watch while my family slept.
“The next morning, knowing where I was, we set out to get back home in hopes that we could regroup, recover and try again to escape the city. It should have only been a day’s walk; it took much, much longer than that. About noon was when we encountered the first herd of living dead. They were rummaging through a local restaurant. My plan was to sneak by but my youngest brother caught a glimpse of one of their faces, and of all the billions of people in this city, the face he sees was a friend of his from school.
“He shouted out to him and when he turned…” her eyes watered up, “when he turned, half of his face was missing like something chewed it off! Of course both of them began to cry and drew the attention of the whole herd. I ordered my family to run and stayed behind to cover their escape. What I can tell you is that they are slow and easily killed if you take off the head.
“Before I could kill them all, my mom screamed. They were pinned down by a Reaper with a slightly red tone. Now, I realize that it had mutated recently, but I didn’t know what they were at the time.”
“What’d you do?” Brawl asked, completely enthralled by her story, and her eyes, and her hair, other things...
“The only thing I could think of at that time, I charged in and threw my sword. The thing took the sword up to hilt and didn’t stop. My only option was go hand-to-hand with it. But before I could get to it, it made a leaping attack that caught my mom on the shoulder. Though a bad wound, it wasn’t fatal by any stretch of the imagination.
“I quickly killed the thing by breaking its neck. The rest of the day was spent dodging herds of the dead and Reapers.”
“I’m calling ’em Roamers, ’cause that’s what they do.”
“Roamers,” she digested it. “About as apt a description as any.”
“Anyway, we needed to stop again for the night. I field-dressed the wound and she seemed fine. We slept the night and I stayed on watch again. Morning came and we only had a little way to go to get back. We made a run for it. We got to our building and there were hundreds of Roamers tearing through the restaurant so we took the fire escape up.
“That was three days ago.”
“Your mom’s situation has deteriorated, I reckon?”
She nodded sadly as she opened the door at the top floor and led him down a hallway to their apartment door. “See for yourself,” she said, opening the door.
Her mom lay on the couch; her skin was an impossible shade of gray. She moaned and kicked her feet. The area of the wound was a mess and the smell was enough to make him skip a step. Being sure to use his prosthetic arm, he carefully peeled back the bandages. Strings of slimy mucus stretched from bandage to skin. The wound, which must have started at two gashes, had turned into a one giant rotting hole that went all the way down the bone. The areas around the wound were black and faded to gray.
“This is bad, I’ve never seen anything like in all my years,” Brawl said. “We need to get her to an infirmary yesterday!” As if on cue, the heard the high-pitched whine of shuttle engines approaching. Brawl grinned. “I reckon our chariot has arrived! Round up your youngsters, I’ll get your mom.”
Within minutes, they were rounded up and ready to go. Through the hallway was a direct route to the roof where they waited. The glint of metal in the distance brought hope to their faces. The vessel slowed just above the building and lowered down to roof level and extended the ramp.
Kay quickly ushered her dad onto the shuttle and had one of her brothers on the ramp when the shuttle suddenly and violently pitched away from the building. Kay’s brother fell and she was barely able to catch him before he fell to his death. The weight of the boy began to pull Kay over the ledge. Brawl quickly put the mom down and ran at full sprint to catch her. Just as she went over, a metallic hand gripped her by her sword scabbard and halted her fall.
From her new vantage point, she saw a deep maroon, enormous Reaper easily five stories tall that was hanging from the side of the building with one clawed hand rooted into the outer wall and the other had the shuttle in its clutches. The beast’s talons dug deep into the hull of the vessel literally crushing it in its grasp. The last thing she saw before being yanked up onto the roof was her father’s terrified face as the shuttle went down in the Reaper’s hand.
The next thing she knew she was on her back, her little brother beside her also on his back looking up at the smoggy sky. She cried out, immediately springing to her feet and running to the edge just in time to see the Reaper throw the shuttle into another building where it exploded.
She cried out again and dropped to her knees as hot tears ran down her face. A comforting hand f
ell upon her shoulder. She looked up and saw Brawl standing there, concern filling his eyes.
“Come on, darling,” he said as soft as his gruff voice would allow. “We need to get off this roof, more are coming.”
Being a former Agent, she was able to push the emotions back and she was all business again. She gathered her brothers and they turned to find her mom on her feet.
“Oh! Thank the Founders! You’re okay!” she cried as she made a move toward her.
Her mom staggered forward a step. Her eyes snapped open. They were of a milky white hue and warning bells rang out in her head as her reflex package kicked just in time to avoid a lunging, albeit clumsy, attack.
“Mom!” Kay shouted, trying to get through to her.
Another clumsy attack came and Kay dodged again. Brawl didn’t have the heart to put down the girl’s mom, but his mind was already calculating what had happened. The Roamers were people attacked by Reapers, not just any Reaper, though, mutated Reapers.
As he watched Kay fruitlessly try to reach whatever of her mom was left in that undead husk, he heard the telltale scraping of claws on crete. He rushed over to the edge, the other Reapers were almost on them. He pulled his machine gun and started blasting the things’ faces with lead. Unfortunately, he was only one person and it was only a matter of time before the other three sides of the building were covered with Reapers. Kay’s brothers were huddled near the roof access hatch near the center of the roof while Kay had her mother restrained in a full nelson still trying to reason with her. The mom feverishly tried to bite at Kay, but was effectively immobilized.
“Kay!” Brawl shouted. “Either end her suffering or take her with us! We can’t stay up here! Think of your brothers!”
She could see the overwhelming number of Reapers surrounding them. She knew what she had to do, for her brothers’ sakes. “I’m so sorry, mom,” she whispered as more tears rolled. From the full shoulder lock she had, she simply pushed her mom’s head forward sharply and a sickening pop ended her suffering. Then, like a switch, the emotions were compartmentalized and she whirled into action. Like a blur she cut through Reapers like paper. Brawl held his own, taking them down with his gun, but what Kay did was absolutely beautiful. It was like a ballet.
The Seryys Chronicles: Steel Alliance Page 8