by Daniel Young
He pushed buttons and twisted dials. The only part of the contraption he did understand was the steering arm in front of him. The rest of the machine didn’t respond, not even when he cursed and yelled at it.
Continuous pounding blasts shook the vehicle. Good thing it was so well-plated, or the soldiers would have destroyed the pair in seconds. Two screens, one on the driving console and one at the firing station, showed the scene outside. Soldiers and other armored vehicles surrounded them on all sides.
The vehicles took positions ringing Jackson’s vehicle. The Legion didn’t have any trouble firing on him. What genius came up with an armored tank design too powerful for even their own weapons systems?
Roy gave a guttural roar. Jackson hazarded a glance behind him to find the gunner kicking the firing station in enraged frustration.
“Fire, dammit!” Jackson yelled over his shoulder. “How long do you plan to sit here whistling Dixie?”
“How?” Roy bellowed back. “I don’t even know what kind of weapons these are, much less how to work them.” He checked over his shoulder too. “What’s the matter? Can’t you get us out of here?”
“No!” Jackson snapped. “I can’t even start this damn thing!”
“Try that one.” Roy stuck his arm past Jackson’s shoulder and poked one of the buttons Jackson had already tried forty times. Nothing happened.
Jackson reached behind him too. “That must be some kind of EM pulse weapon. Try that dial there.”
He grabbed a dial at random and twisted the knob. The needle wound up to 40kMHz, and the vehicle hummed with suppressed energy. All at once, an explosive boom rocked it on its wheels and a blistering crash punched one of the buildings nearby.
“Woo-hoo!” Roy crowed. “Bow down, suckers! Bow down!”
“Just shoot, Einstein! You’re good at that.”
“Just drive,” Roy shot back. “You’re good at that.”
Yeah. Drive. Jackson cast one more hopeless glance over the dashboard. Roy swinging the firing cradle hard to the right and unleashing barrages on the enemy didn’t help Jackson think.
If he could only find a way to start this piece of…
His eye fell on something small and black on the floor. The right-hand pedal almost completely hid it from view. That had to be it.
He stamped his boot onto it, and the motor roared to life. Just as fast, he stomped on the pedal and the vehicle rocketed forward. “Finally!” Roy growled.
Jackson didn’t look to see what Roy was shooting at. Belches and crashes behind him told him Roy was handling his end of the bargain.
Now he had his own job to do. The miniature wheels didn’t steer very well—actually, not much at all. Jackson’s screen showed the enemy giving chase, and Roy wheeling his weapon in all directions. He blasted enemy vehicles off the ground, only for them to crash down, wobble, and take off in pursuit again.
Jackson bent all his attention on where he was going. He could see a lot on that screen, but not much of the way ahead. He squinted through the slit window, showing him the street leading straight to nowhere.
He pinned his boot to the floor, but this little tank only rumbled so fast. It wasn’t built for speed, unlike the Severance. A ship. He needed a ship.
He still didn’t have the first clue where he was going. He veered from one street to another, passed one contingent of masked soldiers after another, and dodged one blast after another. Every street looked the same.
Keter had space flight. Keter had light speed. Keter must have ships…somewhere. But where?
Four more armored tanks converged from a left-hand side street. He yanked to the right, only to run into another seven coming from that direction. He skated between them to escape at the last second, when a screech echoed overhead.
Ten racers whined into view and unloaded charges all over the street. Two smashed into the roof, and the heavy armor plating buckled. It banged Roy in the head and he bellowed in fury. He let go of the firing cradle, and his hand flew to his skull.
Jackson fought the controls to hold the vehicle steady. So this was the weapon the Keter Legion developed to neutralize their own armored vehicles. The racers came spinning back for another pass, and explosions carpeted the street.
One of the racers’ shots struck the pavement next to the fleeing tank. Jackson’s vehicle hopped off the ground, caught air, and smashed down on its side. Dozens of blasts struck it and collapsed it on top of him.
6
Jackson came to his senses restrained to a chair, but he couldn’t see or even feel the restraints. He sat in a regular chair, resting his arms on the two side props, but he couldn’t lift them. Something invisible held them down.
He was in custody, exactly the way he said he shouldn’t be. He should have expected this. It was only a matter of time after he and Roy had crash-landed here, gone on the run from the Legion, and then stolen one of their vehicles to go joy-riding through town. He couldn’t help being annoyed about it, though.
Two Keter Legion soldiers stood guard over him, but their masks hid their faces. He’d been on this stupid planet a matter of hours—if that—and he already recognized their uniforms. This didn’t bode well at all.
The Keterans could be the most hideous aliens imaginable under their hoods, but they looked human enough, if he didn’t count their faces. They had two arms, two legs, a torso between, and what looked like regular hips, asses, and genitals—not that he was looking. Curious how the mind started to wander in the absence of anything better to do.
The real question was why, if aliens like the Urval and the Silden were wandering around on this planet, the Keterans kept their faces so studiously covered. No, the real question was how everyone on Keter spoke perfect English.
Where was Roy? Had he survived the armored vehicle crashing? Jackson might be the only survivor of the Severance. The Zenith Militia might have no idea where he was, or even that he was still alive.
The Keterans might be interrogating Roy right now. In a way, Jackson hoped so. At least then he could hold out some hope of finding Roy again.
His mind was starting to venture into really bizarre territory when a door opened between the two guards. Another figure entered, and this was nothing even remotely human.
Jackson couldn’t tell how it moved, because it had no limbs at all. It looked like one giant black capsule—or maybe a cocoon of some kind. It had no eyes, no mouth, nothing. It was so black it seemed ripped from the void of space. All light vanished beneath its surface.
It halted in the middle of the floor. The guard-soldiers showed no alarm at its strange appearance. They didn’t move, except to subtly adjust their weight from one foot to the other. That on its own made them look only too human.
This creature didn’t fidget. It didn’t even breathe. It just hovered there. A crackly, metallic voice came from somewhere near it, but not directly from it. “You are Zenith.”
That voice made Jackson’s skin crawl. In fact, it scared him just a little. He reacted by getting angry. “Where’s my friend? Is he dead?”
“He is across the hall in another room. He is answering questions with my colleague. You are Zenith. You need not answer. We already know.”
“If you know, then get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
“You would not want me to do that. You have been looking for me.”
Jackson stiffened. “I haven’t been looking for you.”
“You are looking for me now. I am Krakzid.”
Jackson gaped at the thing. This—this was a Krakzid? He opened his mouth to ask his own questions, but no sound came out.
“How did you come here?” the thing demanded. “You do not belong here.”
Jackson pulled himself together. “I’ll tell you if you answer some questions of mine. Why did you attack our people? We weren’t threatening you. We were nowhere near you. We were traveling through friendly space in the Silden system.”
“You were not threatening us, but we were t
hreatening you. We are threatening you. We will destroy you. We will take your system and add it to our empire.”
“Empire!” Jackson gasped before he could stop himself. “You’re imperial. That’s why you attacked us—to take over our system?”
“Now it is your turn. Honor your bargain. How did you come to Keter?”
“Your attack force shot down my ship. We crashed here.”
“I do not believe you. You are a spy.”
Jackson snorted. “You don’t know much about our people. Do you really think I would kill seven of my own crew to spy on…” He pretended to look around. “Spy on what? This is Keter. This isn’t even your planet.”
“It is now.” The creature started to turn away.
“Hey!” Jackson yelled after it. “I’m not finished. What do you mean, it is now?”
“You will die, Zenith. You will join your honored crew in the halls of death where all spies reign supreme.” It migrated toward the door.
“Hey! Get back here!”
The creature turned a deaf ear on him and glided out of the room. The two guards shut the door behind it and faced Jackson.
He sank into his chair. Great. Fan-flippin’-tastic. Some phantom species from the ass-end of space was assaulting Zenith to annihilate the system and add it to their death empire. Meanwhile, Jackson was stuck here in this piece of shit chair and couldn’t get out of it.
He might as well be enshrined in the halls of death where spies reign supreme. Maybe then he could get some peace and quiet from this cocksucking war that he and the rest of the Zenith Militia didn’t even know was going on.
He gave another jerk against his invisible restraints. Another genius maneuver by the Keter Legion—invisible restraints. A prisoner couldn’t sabotage a restraint he couldn’t see.
Shit. Shit on a stick. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even warn anybody. He couldn’t save Roy; he couldn’t even save himself. He couldn’t fly back to Zenith. He couldn’t even get out of this bitch chair.
The guards stood unnaturally still while he fumed in frustrated rage. He concocted a thousand schemes, none of them remotely possible. What good was being a captain in the Zenith Militia now? He was as helpless as any gutter rat.
After an eternity of waiting, someone thumped the door from outside. It trembled and opened again. Another two guards entered, and the two already in the room turned toward them.
Jackson waited for the usual watch-change conversation when, without warning, one of the guards who had already been in the room grabbed his nearest comrade and broke the man’s neck with a powerful twist.
The body dropped. Before anyone could move, the traitor attacked the next nearest soldier. The intruder pulled one of those handheld disc weapons, jammed it into his comrade’s ribs, and fired.
The second guard crumpled, and the attacker dove for number three. This one actually had time to get his weapon up. The attacker took one quick step toward him and shot out his arm. He stabbed his fingertips into his friend’s throat and smashed the windpipe in a single blow.
The guard dropped his weapon. His hands flew to his neck, and he gagged and choked. The intruder—whoever he was—snatched the weapon out of thin air, whipped it around, and fired.
The weapon thumped the air, and the next second, the attacker turned his gun on Jackson. Jackson sat rooted to his chair, utterly defenseless. If this stranger wanted to kill him, there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.
Still aiming the weapon at Jackson’s chest, the stranger pulled something out of his pocket and pointed that at Jackson, too. The attacker’s gloved thumb depressed a button, and the restraints released.
The intruder grabbed Jackson’s arm, and a muffled voice came from under the mask. “Hurry. We don’t have much time. The colonel in charge of the jail will be watching for the off-watch to check in before they go off-duty. When they don’t show up, they’ll come looking.”
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
The stranger hauled Jackson toward the door. “I’m just paying you back for saving us from the Legion. As soon as you get out of here, we’re quits, got it?”
Jackson stopped in his tracks. “Saved you? What are you—?”
At that moment, the door burst off its hinges and another uniformed soldier barged in. He slammed the door behind him. Jackson reared back, ready to fight for his life, but the newcomer didn’t try to stop him from escaping.
This newest guard turned on Jackson’s new friend. With one swift tug, the soldier pulled off the hood covering his head—except it wasn’t a him.
Jackson stared at the creature in front of him. There could be no question at all that it was female—she was female—but unlike any female he’d ever seen. Her skin and flesh, along with the faintest fuzz of hair on her scalp, appeared transparent.
Blood vessels and bones showed up underneath the skin. Eyes, nose, mouth, and ears floated suspended in an almost invisible field. The brain pulsated through the dome of translucent bone.
Jackson opened his mouth, but no words came. His mind struggled to fathom what he was seeing.
The creature spoke to Jackson’s savior in a clear, unmistakably human tone. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Liri? Are you out of your mind? You’ll bring down the whole Legion on our heads.”
The guard who’d rescued Jackson—or started to rescue him—ripped off her own hood. “I’m repaying the blood debt, Lana. Can’t you see that?”
“There’s no blood debt here,” Lana countered. “You don’t even know this asshole. He could be one of the Legion, for all you know.”
“He isn’t part of the Legion. He’s their prisoner. He just had a confrontation with Commander Kwex, and Kwex considers him a spy. If anything, he’s a friend to the resistance.”
Jackson finally found his voice. “What resistance?”
The two women completely ignored him. “You don’t owe this idiot anything,” Lana snapped. “You’re throwing your life away over nothing.”
“You’re the one who’s always talking about blood debt and loyalty,” Liri countered. “You’ve been preaching to me for years that there’s no higher obligation than blood debt. We would both be dead if he didn’t stop those soldiers from blowing up our skater back at the warehouse.”
Jackson’s brain whirled trying to follow this conversation. “You—you were behind that vehicle? You’re the ones those soldiers were shooting at.”
Liri spun around. “Your friend is across the hall. We’ll get him out, and then we better move.”
Lana grabbed her arm and whirled Liri back toward herself. “You owe me a blood debt, Liri. I’m your twin sister, and if Kwex thinks this squirt is a spy, maybe he is one. I risked my life to come in here and try to protect you from your own foolishness.”
“No one asked you to come. I would have come alone. In fact, I did come alone before you turned up here to make sure I got arrested along with him. Now, do you mind? I’d like to get out of here.”
She took hold of Jackson’s elbow, towed him around her flabbergasted sister, and pulled the door open. Jackson glanced back and forth between the sisters. He couldn’t possibly have recognized them from the street battle, because they kept their faces hooded.
Now that they’d showed themselves, he saw the similarity between them. Liri was tall and willowy, while Lana was short and sturdy. Other than that, they were identical in every respect—except their personalities.
Liri spoke in a sultry, unruffled undertone. Lana spat. She bit off her words in a harsh, machine-gunfire diatribe, and her eyes flashed pale fire. She glared at Jackson in hateful fury as Liri led him to the exit.
Liri trained her weapon into the corridor. Lana compressed her lips and followed Liri and Jackson outside. The corridor was deserted, but Jackson heard voices not far away. The commander would come to find out why the off-watch didn’t report.
Liri straightened her hood. “Cover up,” she mur
mured to Lana. We’ll pull the same trick.” She tugged the hood over her head and face. She took out the device she’d used to free Jackson and pointed it at him. “Pretend you’re our prisoner and we’re moving you to another cell.”
“You aren’t going to…” He swallowed hard. “You aren’t going to restrain me again, are you? If anyone attacks us, I won’t be able to fight back.”
“If anyone comes, I’ll have to. Just play it cool and pretend you’re cowed and submissive.”
Jackson snorted.
“I said pretend.” Liri inched to the door across the hall. “We’ll get a few more weapons from these guards. Then we can fight our way out.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Lana muttered.
Liri didn’t answer. She approached another cell across the hall and listened. More voices came from inside. This time, Jackson recognized the metallic rasp of a Krakzid. “Kwex is in there. He’s interrogating your crewman.”
Jackson stiffened. He wanted to kill that Kwex, but right now, he recognized that Liri’s plan was probably the wisest. If these two sisters could get him and Roy out of the jail, they could work out the finer details later.
Liri straightened up, took hold of the door handle, and flung it open like she owned the place. Lana shoved Jackson from behind, and all three stormed into the cell.
The instant Liri crossed the threshold, Kwex and four guards spun around to confront the party. Roy sat bound to a chair with the same invisible restraints. Kwex hovered over him the same way the Krakzid commander had just hovered over Jackson.
The moment Liri got inside, she fired her weapon at Kwex. The pulse struck his black cocoon and shot him off the floor. He sailed across the room and slammed into the wall, but she didn’t stop firing. She charged to where he lay and planted her legs over his black form.
She fired again and again without letting up once. Lana barreled into the room and laid into the guards. She nailed her elbow into one of their helmets, and the man staggered the other way.