Unsanctioned Reprisal

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Foster turned away from her, looking for the exit, wherever it was in the pitch-black chamber. “I’m gonna get going.”

  “Those men don’t have a chance to be with you, do they?”

  “Nope.”

  She found the door as a cold and damp hand from behind held onto her arm, hauling her back. “Does this mean, I have a chance?”

  “Didn’t you just say that psionics ain’t allowed to give sugar to those of the same gender?”

  “This is a place of secrets,” Phylarlie whispered into her. It made Foster cringe. “Lisette is in Imperial custody, because she got caught. My mother isn’t alive today because she got caught. The two of us are having to this conversation right now because I’ve never been caught.”

  “So, what you’re saying is . . .” Foster said, moving away from her grip. “You did have your competition killed to hold onto your lord title?”

  Phylarlie didn’t deny it, nor had any further comments, just a soft snicker. Foster left and marched back to the room she shared with the rest, scrubbing her memories clean of the encounter.

  The manor grew silent shortly after Foster’s head hit the Hashmedai-made pillow and mattress. Chevallier, Bailey, and Boyd had also retreated to their beds for the night, while the beds reserved for Maxwell and LeBoeuf were vacant and remained that way. Sometime during the night, Foster was awoken by the sounds of Boyd crawling out of bed.

  She watched him from behind as he walked over to EVE who stood motionless next to the front door on watch. Half her mind wanted to go back to sleep, the other half told her it was time to wake up since the sun was out. But it never set to start with!

  “You . . . still with us?” Boyd asked EVE.

  EVE’s body jerked slightly and addressed the EDF team leader. “Yes, Sergeant, I am still here, my operation for this unit was in sleep mode.”

  “Sorry to wake you,” he said.

  “There is no need to apologize, Sergeant. My sleep mode is similar to that of computers and electric devices. I shut down nonessential systems to conserve power.”

  Foster shut her eyes, hoping to fall back asleep.

  “And now those systems are back online, consuming power needlessly,” Boyd said. “I was just checking to see if you still had a good charge; my HNI isn’t authorized to view your stats.”

  “My power cells are currently at 84 percent.”

  “Good to know. Kinda wish I asked earlier rather than checking my HNI. By accident I viewed the vitals of Maxwell and LeBoeuf. Maxwell’s heartbeat and breathing were high all night, he must have fucked those two girls. And LeBoeuf? She was supposed to watch him, but her elevated heartbeats peaked pretty high, at least five times. It’s got me a bit worried.”

  “Warlock LeBoeuf’s vitals are consistent with a woman experiencing an orgasm during sexual intercourse, at least four to five times over the course of—”

  “I didn’t need to know that.”

  How LeBoeuf and Maxwell’s Hashmedai sexual partners got over their heavily cybernetic enhanced bodies the two had, was something Foster didn’t want to know. Those two looked more machine than EVE.

  “Fascinating, Sergeant,” EVE said. “A ship has landed near the equator of this world.”

  “And?”

  “It has been three hours and five minutes since it landed, and it is allegedly the ship that was to bring the mysterious substance for us. Furthermore, the tropical regions of this planet are akin to the arctic of Earth and lack all forms of civilization with the exception of research outposts.”

  “Right, Hashmedai hate the heat,” Boyd said. “Why is it only now you detected it?”

  “During sleep mode, the synchronization of my processors aboard the Johannes Kepler is temporarily severed,” EVE said. “In essence, the me on the Johannes Kepler detected it. The me here didn’t receive the update, until sleep mode was terminated.”

  Foster felt her body slowly drift back into the comforting state of sleep, the conversation the two were having, faded in and out periodically.

  “. . . if there was an emergency, and you were in sleep mode, you wouldn’t know about it until you awoke?”

  “No, I am still able to receive messages and essential updates from the Johannes Kepler. Had there been an emergency or transmission, I would have awakened automatically. My synchronization, however, is not deemed to be important.”

  “So, the ship we’ve been waiting for landed planet side, just not here?”

  “That is correct, Sergeant, unless the data I have is incorrect, and this ship is not the one we were waiting for. However, current sensor scans show no signs of transport ships en route to Taxah, detectable from our current position.”

  “Either Phylarlie was full of shit about it being en route, or it’s here, and hanging out in a region of the planet where no Hashmedai should be . . .”

  That does seem weird . . . probably a misunderstanding not worth losing sleep over, Foster told herself.

  “Thanks, EVE, you can return to sleep mode if you wish . . .”

  Everything around Foster became silent and dark. Sleep had returned.

  40 Peiun

  High rise apartment

  Gravity City, Morutrin Prime, Morutrin system

  October 16, 2118, 14:18 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Four EISS agents slithered in with pistols moving and trigger fingers ready to end the life of two targets they didn’t like. It was hard for Peiun to make out what happened next, as the blotches in his damaged vision, plus the unbearable sunlight from the skies obscured things.

  With Sarah still holding onto his back, and his one free hand securing her limp legs, he stepped back into the kitchen and its floors littered with shattered bottles, plates, and cups from the magnetic rifle barrage. The agents fanned out and stopped, examining the body of Cody, not realizing it was him at first glance, since his headless body looked like a shredded slab of meat found in a butcher’s shop. Sarah whispered, asking Peiun to step out of the kitchen, while the backs of the agents were turned. Her pistol did the rest after he followed her instructions. Despite her condition, Sarah’s marksmanship was impressive, quickly turning the fight into an even match.

  He retreated into the kitchen still carrying Sarah on his back. Its walls might not defend them from the projectiles that could easily pass through it, but its ability to hide exactly where they were, did. The lone agent returned fire, shooting blindly at the wall for the chance a stray shot would hit them. Sarah did the same.

  An exchange of projectiles passing through the walls and cupboards commenced. Wooden splinters and fragments of broken plates flew around in every direction, rays of light shone through the new holes made. There was nothing Peiun could do, just lower his body when Sarah told him to or swerve to the left and right.

  Silence fell. All targets holding a weapon knew their opponent was alive and evaded the projectile storm. Sarah reached for a mangled stainless steel bowl. She angled it in a way that its reflective surface could be used a mirror and show her what was going on in the living room. Her eyes blinked twice, and a scatter of lines and colors appeared over them. It was tactical data being overlaid on her eyesight created by her HNI, most likely its threat detectors tracking the movement of the agent. She moved her pistol to the right, and then pulled the trigger eight times rapidly. No other weapons discharged in retaliation.

  He carried her to the kitchen’s exit as her pistol searched for the last target. She found it. The agent’s body was slumped up against the wall. If Peiun’s vision wasn’t so bad, he’d see the agent’s body leaving a smear of red on the wall and the eight holes pushing out a red fountain of fluid from his chest and forehead.

  “Are we clear?” Peiun asked her.

  “About to find out,” she said. “Head to the door, go left.” He followed her directions, making his way past the door into the hallways of the apartment. The lack of sunlight helped his vision make a slow but welcomed recovery. “Okay, now straight!”

  She was
guiding him to the emergency staircase. It was probably safer to take that than the elevators that were most likely compromised. He felt her arm extend backward, the one that held her pistol. Five shots roared, he was right, the elevators behind weren’t safe.

  His haggard footsteps moved faster to the staircase doors, hoping he could get behind it quickly, or at the very least, Sarah kept the newly arrived EISS agents down. Once clear of the doors, he charged up the staircase, as per her directions, carrying her with him. He waved away the thoughts of the trail of blood their bodies were dotting on the floors behind. It was going to point to their location when someone came searching.

  “Can’t believe this is working . . .” Sarah said, as they neared the top and the entrance to the rooftops.

  “Like I said, they thought we were dead,” Peiun said. “Their arrogance and confidence got the better of them.”

  Penelope’s hologram appeared and floated beside him. “You two still alive?” she asked.

  “Penelope you said your name was, correct?” Peiun said. “Are you close?”

  “I managed to hack an express train,” Penelope said. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “We haven’t been shot at in the last, oh, two minutes?” Sarah said. “Are there any agents left?”

  “I have limited access to security cameras in your area,” Penelope said. “I’m seeing at least four snipers and that backup soldier I mentioned earlier.”

  “Was afraid you’d say that,” Sarah drily said. “Wait, soldier? As in not an agent?”

  “Rifle and protect suit.”

  Sarah grunted. “Durendal, fuck! Where is he now?”

  “Probably inside the apartment you’re in now,” Penelope said. “I’m not sure where, unfortunately, as I said, I can’t access all the cameras until I get closer.”

  Stepping foot onto the rooftops made Peiun yelp and scream. He forgot about the sunlight, it was all around him now. “We’re on the roof now,” he said after coming to, with his eyes shut.

  “I can see that,” Penelope said. “Not a smart move, given the snipers in the area.”

  “We don’t have a choice, and I’m sure they have the lobby blocked off,” Peiun said.

  “Stay away from the edges, they shouldn’t be able to get a lock on your position,” Penelope said.

  Stay away from the edges. Edges he was blind to. Sarah had to tell him exactly when to walk, turn, and stop, for he was moving with his eyes closed. She guided him away from the door and the location where new attackers would appear from.

  So they thought.

  Peiun heard the engines of a ship close in on their position. It was small, perhaps a transport, or an attack drone. Or worse.

  “Ah, fuck! Gunship,” Sarah yelled. “Turn us to the right and run!”

  The heat from the planet, the blinding light, his weakening body dripping blood, and the weight of Sarah’s body on his back, Peiun didn’t know how much longer his body would last. If the weapons fire from the gunship didn’t end them, his body, on the verge of shutting down, would. He ran, as per her directions, it was like running through a forest in the middle of the night full of deadly predators.

  “Let me know if we are nearing the edge,” he said, having realized they’d been running on one direction for a while.

  “Fuck the edge, that ship will tear us apart!”

  Exhaust vents provided the same form of cover the cupboards and walls of the kitchen did earlier. It didn’t defend them from the stray rounds that passed through, it only forced the enemy to guess where they needed to aim and shoot. Only this time, they faced an enemy that had air superiority, and used it. The gunship rose in the skies to gain a better vantage point and regain a target lock. So he figured, based on the sounds around him, and the touch of the exhaust vents touching his skin.

  “Where do you wish to go now?” he asked.

  “Just sit and wait,” Sarah said grimly.

  “For what?”

  “For our deaths, it was a good run, babe.”

  “We must—”

  “Snipers ahead and that gunship is repositioning to get a lock. If we move now it will find and shoot us. So, yeah, we’re fucked.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a pessimist.” It was Penelope’s voice.

  “Let me guess, you got a deus ex machina to pull us out of this?” Sarah asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I will, in the next thirty-eight seconds,” Penelope said.

  Peiun felt the heat from the gunship’s engines increase. It was closing the gap. “We don’t have that time!”

  “Don’t die, please, I’m about to make that gunship my bitch,” Penelope said. “And those snipers? Oh, just you wait!”

  A surge of intense heat accompanied with a loud bang sweltered Peiun’s body. He lost his balance, nearly passing out from the heat, his body had had enough punishment. A secondary blast came from behind, throwing him and Sarah to the surface of the roof. His ears listened for the gunship, he couldn’t hear it. He heard billowing flames and the sound of something heavy crashing near them instead. The impact of the heavy object sent a sudden vibration across the rooftop’s surface.

  “That may go down in history as the fastest thirty-eight seconds ever,” Sarah said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Penelope said with concern.

  “You’re shitting me, right?” Sarah said. “If not, then who the fuck took down that gunship?”

  Peiun forced his eyes open, shielding them with his free hand, now that Sarah had fallen off him. He looked beyond their cover and noticed a downed UNE gunship with flames and blackened smoke raging from it. Moving to the left, he saw the rooftop’s entrance, and a lone human wearing an EDF protect suit. It was the target Penelope was talking about.

  “Sarah?” he said, returning to her.

  “I see it,” she said. “It must be Durendal.”

  He looked back at the soldier. Something didn’t sit right with him. Durendal was an enemy, as was the gunship, which was most likely taken down by the newly arrived human in the EDF protect suit. Said human also had a clear shot at both Peiun and Sarah, it couldn’t be Durendal. The lavender waves of psionic energy rippling away from the EDF soldier’s body making their long brown hair flutter only reinforced that thought. The EDF soldier, was a psionic, a psionic woman.

  Sarah sat up the best she could, given her wounds, locking her eyes on the woman.

  She uttered one word. “Chloe—?”

  “Not now, Sarah!” the woman, who apparently was Chloe, replied.

  A magnetic rifle out of Peiun’s vision discharged. Its projectiles were stopped via a small protective barrier Chloe created when she jump ported next to Peiun and Sarah. He turned and eyed the source of the rifle, and made out the faint image, amongst the blinding light, of Durendal. He stood by the burning gunship, the gunship he was piloting.

  “Penelope?” Peiun asked, as her holographic likeness floating in front of him returned.

  “One moment,” said the Hashmedai hacker.

  “The gunship is damaged,” he said, while Chloe continued to deflect the projectiles from Durendal’s rifle. “A psionic attacked it.”

  “If it has a computer that works, I can make miracles happen,” Penelope said.

  The downed gunship’s rail guns shifted and took aim at targets across the apartment on its rooftops. A five second continuous burst of weapons fire from the burning gunship shot in the general direction of the EISS snipers. The gunship had rail guns designed for ship to ship combat. One round carried enough force to make a humanoid body explode, regardless if they had shields or combat armor on.

  They were also loud, so loud that Durendal lost focus on what he was doing. He looked at his downed craft confused that it suddenly took on a life of its own, firing upon his EISS allies, loyal to the Terran Legion. It was the advantage Chloe was looking for. She forced the protective barrier to shatter and jump ported behind a distracted Durendal. Peiun wasn’t able to make out what happened next,
though he imagined it consisted of a lot of telekinetic pushes and pulls in conjunction with her rifle’s weapon fire. Durendal’s body become limp and face-planted into the ground.

  “You are now safe to move to the edge,” Penelope said.

  Peiun began to imagine what the remains of the snipers looked like.

  Chloe returned to Peiun and Sarah, kneeling next to Sarah, and mending her wounds with flesh regenerators from her med kit.

  “Sis?” Sarah said to her.

  “Jesus Christ, Sarah. Can you walk?”

  “It hit the spine, I’m paralyzed.”

  “It’s going to take doctors months to grow you a replacement spine.”

  “Fuck that, I want a cybernetic one.”

  Chloe’s haste to mend her sister resulted in her dropping the flesh regenerator device. She held her hand above it and forced it to rise back into her grip via telekinesis.

  Sarah was drawn back at the sight. “Okay, stop, just stop,” she pleaded to Chloe. “Who are you, really?”

  “Your sister?”

  “My sister isn’t a psionic.”

  Chloe sighed returning to mend Sarah’s body, stopping the bleeding. “No point hiding it any longer,” she said. “Ever heard of the mythical third human psionic?”

  “Fuck off, that was you?”

  “Side effects from the Celestial Order wars.”

  “And you kept it secret from me?”

  “We’re black op operatives,” Chloe said. “Keeping secrets is part of the job, isn’t it?”

  The two sisters shared an emotional embrace, a long one at that. As much as Peiun was pleased to see Sarah reunited, he was still bleeding out. Chloe’s med kit could help with that if she shared it.

  “Next time you pull something like this,” Sarah said when the embrace ended. “Let me in on it? Didn’t know whose side to be on.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time I ask you to watch my back.” With Sarah taken care of Chloe looked at Peiun, and reluctantly went to mend his wounds. “Who the fuck is he?”