CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Skymera was a massive airship of orderran design, nearly two hundred yards long and built to house military units, mechs, dropships and ground vehicles.
What could best come close to describing this machine, was a beetle with two sharp ovals so close to its flanks they seemed to be one, and claw like structures curving out of almost all the creases. The proverbial ass of the beetle had four round rockets spewing out orange flames. The ovals had rows of three massive antigravity orbs beneath, thrusters at the back and mounted guns at the front. It was silver-blue colored at the base but bronze colored at the top, with the head being the usual orderran white with red eyes, of course.
And beneath the head, there lurked under the quiet a particle-beam cannon.
Particle-beam technology was something the orderrans developed ninety years ago based on discoveries they made outside the solar system. It had some specifics in its use, being that it could only be used in weapons as large as airship—say one of this size, or cannons that could be only be carried by the strength of a yautgan, female orderran (none of who took part in fighting in their military), or large mechs. It took nearly ten seconds to charge up the cannon, and it also took a scoop out of the ship’s shield power.
But it was worth it.
As the massive airship stalked over the dome, the lower particle-beam charged up. It consisted of a series of metallic tubes with a pink central bar that extended to a sphere, then again into the long, narrow barrel.
With a harmonious whistle glowing bits of matter like dust particles in a beam of light were pulled into the pink central tube. The outer ones generated a field of energy that contained the energy once absorbed. It was channeled into the sphere where it was bundled up, then finally released through the barrel with a flash of pinkish-white light.
It hit the dome with a wet slapping sound into a chaotic explosion. Once the hole was blown, the base of the ship’s abdomen slowly opened up like a giant mouth ready to consume the prey it just slayed, but first it released its drones to finish off the kill—the Dawhawks.
They swarmed through the mortal wound in the dome like flies to a sore, all ten of them. Following shortly was Viceroy Morg; however his mode of transportation was much different.
He was seated with his skin shiny with sunscreen in in a lavish chair, set against a grey surface with the symbol of his military dominating the top. It was like a giant disc with a grey and white base that narrowed to a point. Antigravity orbs went around the rim. There were bulges around the sides were the weapons were kept, and above them were wings with thrusters and a single antigrav sphere at the base of the Tesler.
Morg was listening to a tune from his mp5 player via headphones. He rested his hands on the arms of his chair, with one foot folded, tapping the beat and singing the lyrics, even as the Dawhawks descended in the city around him, creating a circle to seal off some of the panicked civilians from escaping, he was quite immersed in the tune.
I’m a sexy boy,
Oh! So sexy boy
Wanna be your boy-toy,
Oh! Your boy-toy
Can you take me to your house?
Yeah! Inside your house
I’m goanna sex on the couch,
Ooo…on the couch
Then I lay on the bed,
Uh, uh, the bed
I’m goanna run your pussy red,
Ooo, oh yeah!
As Morg flew out of his seat and danced to the verse, a dozen or so soldiers deployed just beneath the Tesler formed a parade before the rubble—which had a few mangled limbs sticking out of it.
Some curious civilians still peeped at the orderrans from the crack of their apartment windows and from around corners. More orderrans came to join the parade. This time they had dragged some civilians with them. Most didn’t try to escape from the orderrans as they had witnessed the few who resist getting gun-down.
They handed off the civilians to ones at the front and moved to back of the parade. They subdued them into a kneeling position before, making them face their sulking fellow citizens who approached the orderrans voicing their hate, disgust and outrage. But they didn’t go beyond fifty meters near the orderrans.
Morg’s Tesler sensed the distance between it and the ground and stopped between two apartment complexes. But Morg was still in the tune. He gyrated his waist with his hands on his head. He put his voice in the best seductive tone he could;
All the ugly girls and, all the pretty girls
Wanna play with my sugar-stick, they wanna rock my world,
I can’t help it ‘cause I got the finest ass in the place,
They all wanna throw their panties in-my-face they’re like—
Ooo…that boy! Oh yeah, that boy, they’re like
Ooo…that boy! Oh yeah, that—
Morg stopped in the middle of the song when he noticed from behind his tinted lens the people staring at him, soldiers and civilians alike. Morg quickly put away the mp5 in his coat pocket and accessed the buttons on the arm of his chair.
A tiny disc popped out of the floor, hovered in front of his face and scanned his imaged with a beam of light. It projected his image out the top meters into the air in a large hologram of Morg grinning, showing his large canines.
“Good afternoon, people of Suride Town!” Morg said. His voice was amplified through the disc and into speakers in the Whistler, “I am your handsome, lovely Viceroy, Bozobo Morg. Today I have brought with me soldiers to your wonderfully crappy dwelling, in search of a few bandits who have not only killed some of my soldiers, but made a mockery of the orderran people and rudely insulted the name of New Tartian.” Morg leaned in and wagged a warning finger, saying in a feminine voice, “And you know we don’t take crap like that lightly!”
The tension grew amongst the people. The orderrans, Morg included, could smell the chemical chaos of hormones in their bodies, and they relished it.
Morg said, “If those pesky little bandits don’t reveal themselves now, I will appoint my soldiers to kill someone every five minutes…”
The people cooed at the soldiers, enthralled with hate and fear.
Out of the raging crowd an elderly geckoid male with long grey hair and bushy eyebrows made his way to the front with the help of a few officers. Among them was the police commissioner, A large yautgan man with a lean face and black feathers on his head; Commissioner Oldam.
The geckoid was dressed in a light brown coat beneath his white, long sleeved sweater, and wore dark brown trousers and simple leather shoes. He had deep green skin and wrinkles around his eyes, cheeks and the corner of his mouth, and his hunched over appearance made him look even shorter.
He was the mayor of the city, Mayor Cassim.He gestured with his slim hand with sharp black finger nails, and the commissioner stooped and gave him a small microphone.
“Viceroy Bozobo Morg,” said the mayor in a low, but assertive tone, “I am Mayor Cassim, the man in charge of this city…”
“Yes…” Morg said with slow nods.
“I speak in the defense of all my people,” the mayor said, “Bandits can come in and out of the city as they wish, so long as they hand over their weapons and do not cause any trouble. Neither you nor I, have any proof that these bandits you’re after are still in the city, so you have no right to harm anyone here. For all we know, the bandits could have come and gone long ago…”
The mayor lowered the microphone and said to Commission Oldam, “Make sure you get your officers in front to face the soldiers. I do not think this Morg will listen to reason.”
“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” said Oldam.
Oldam gestured behind him and more officers slowly crept forward to the front. The eyes of the captives remained apprehensive, but their orderran captors’ expressions were unreadable behind their masks.
In the crowd, Clastaan, Tylin, Tet and Podge watched the soldiers with thinning anticipation.
“They’ll attack us anyway,” said Podge grimly.
“I know,” Tylin said. “Are you sure about this, Clastaan…?”
Beside her Clastaan nodded briskly, his yellow eyes fixed on the mechs. “We must stay and fight to help these people. We are partly responsible for provoking the orderrans and bringing them here. We must provide some means of support.” Clastaan turned to Tet, “Are the men in place, my friend…?”
“Yes,” Tet said, “All nine men are ready to fight. Though, I have to say, I don’t know what good a few bandits and sixty-odd police officers will do against over a hundred heavily armed orderrans and their mechs.”
“As anyone gotten word from the Rakai?” Podge said.
“S’us went to visit him and Lezura,” Tylin said, “I don’t know if they already left or are still here…”
“Think they will take action?” Tet said.
Tylin smiled. “Knowing Joey, he wouldn’t miss this even if Lezura told him to.”
Morg scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “That does make sense,” he said, then his eyes lowered to the people and a tight smiled played on his lips. “But I got orders to kill you people anyhow, so…”
As Morg was about to give the order to shoot, a black duffle bag dropped on top of the Tesler. Immediately as it dropped large insects scattered out of it and disappeared over the side.
“What the bloody fuck?” Morg said.
A huge, moist red panty slapped Morg across the face. He involuntary took a breath and chocked. He violently threw the thing off his reddened face. The Tesler had its own generated force fields, but such things only worked against fast moving projectiles such as bullets, arrows and missiles.
Morg kicked off the bag and panty off the Tesler and shouted, “Who the hell did that?”
“Tat-tada-daaaaaa—bitch!” said Joey from above.
Morg looked up to his right. On a ledge beneath the top of an apartment building, stood Joey, Lezura and S’us. Lezura had her lancegun and S’us the pistol. Joey preferred to wield his honoi.
Morg studied the alien wearing the helmet of an orderrans soldier. The boldest of it stirred his rage. That could only be from one of the soldiers that had been killed, confirming the bandits were still here in the city, and the audacity to gloat about it.
“So, you finally showed your little shit selves, he?” said Morg with a bitter frown.
The people on the ground looked up to where Morg was speaking, even some of the soldiers dared to do so.
“Told ya,” said Tylin with a cocky grin.
“That ass better not get himself killed,” said Podge.
Clastaan shrieked. “Dear heavens!” Clastaan said, pointing next to Joey, “S’us is with them!”
“You made a big mistake coming where I’m staying, punk!” Joey shouted at Morg.
Morg grinned, shaking his head at Joey. “You’ve just signed your death warrant, you little vermin.”
Joey pointed his sword at Morg two stories below. He said, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, super-white boy. Unless you didn’t hear, I’m the Rakai, and I’m here a’ save the day!”
Morg threw back his head and laughed. He pointed at Joey and jeered, “You’re the Rakai? Oh please.” Morg ignored the surprise of the crowd below and continued, “How the hell can a stupid alien kid like you, walking around with—”
The sight of Lezura at Joey’s right side captured Morg’s attention and sparked his interest. What the hell’s a nycarman doing all the way out here? Morg knew not all the nycarman people had agreed to the Prestige System, but one amongst an alien claiming to be the Rakai did arouse his suspicion.
“If you are the Rakai,” Morg said, his curiosity piped, “show me the key,” Morg gestured with his open arms to the people below, “Show us all the key!”
Joey dropped his sword, scratched his neck. He said, “Well…um…”
“He doesn’t have it!” said another voice from above.
Morg and everyone else turned to the building on Morg’s left to see a yautgan woman standing at the top with a police officer beside her, and a mixture of armed civilians and officers behind them—a healed Coenter and a wounded but still battle-ready Dinon.
Yeltsa held up the compass and said, “That’s because I have the key!”
Another disc abruptly popped out of the floor of the Tesler and flew up to Yeltsa. It scanned the compass and displayed it on a large hologram projected near Morg’s head in the air.
The civilians below broke out into a chorus of comments.
Morg gritted his teeth on the hologram for everyone to see. “Enough of this!” his voiced boomed through the speakers. “Kill them! Kill them—”
The hostages threw themselves forward and hit the ground the moment the barrage of gunfire and screaming retreat of civilians began. Oldam’s officers didn’t need his order to start shooting; they just waited until the captives made themselves prone.
The orderrans gunned down three of the retreating civilians as the spread out and took cover amongst the corners of the buildings and the rubble. The police did the same, but had trouble getting the hostages who were now scampering to their feet to retreat and the shield of the orderrans.
Tylin and the others dived back with the crowd, but pushed their way through them to get to a better position to attack. From through the windows in some of the building their people unleashed arrows at the orderrans below.
Not only did some of the soldiers have deployed shield-projectors but some also had it on a gauntlet looking piece if wear that projected it in a small circle. Usually this shield was wielded with a pistol for more maneuverability, effective increasing their defenses from gunfire from the police in front and the clansmen above and lessening the men that fell on their side.
They used this advantage to gun down two officers and one of the clansmen hiding in the building above. His largaph body plummeted out the window onto the battlefield, where the exchange of gunfire occasionally made a new hole in his corpse.
A few of their shields were already down, but any advances the other side could make were kept at bay by the aid of the soldiers’ trusted mechanical comrades.
Five assault-mechs walked down the street to the core of the police force. Police officers had gone around to try and flank the orderrans, but were quickly being overwhelmed by their superior fire power.
The assault-mechs had bodies of jet-black metal plates with joints that exposed some of their red and blue wiring. The pelvis was almost rounded with two distinctly large silver wires stemming to the thighs. Their hands and feet were silver colored, with a white face made into a frown. Their weapons were heavy assault-rifles nearly six feet long, chain-fed from an ammunition packet on their backs.
And they weren’t afraid to wield it. With a five round per-seconds fire-rate they used it to mulch down the cover of the police force, eating the vehicles and food stalls to virtually nothing.
One assault-mech mulched away the edge of a wall until it ripped off the shoulder of a yautgan officer. He wailed on the ground, clutching his torn limb. The mech finished him off his gunfire that reduced him to shreds as it pushed him across the ground.
Another officer, a dracoid, was literal taken off his feet and thrown over Commissioner Oldam’s head by the hailstorm of bullets.
“Fall back! Fall back!” Commissioner Oldam said, not even risking a shot as he retreated by turning in an alley with a few others.
This was enough for the soldiers to advance forward. So far they had only lost four of their own, but the three dozen soldiers were quickly pushing their way down the street behind the mechs. Victory seemed sure for them. And would have—had not the great alchemist Clastaan Baryonix been there.
He, Tylin, Podge and Tet and four other clansmen and women had retreated with the crowd, only to get enough distance to set up an ambush. They traversed around a restaurant and around the dark back alley, looking straight down the end into the street where the gunfire of the assault-mechs were coming down like a rain of yellow flashes.
Tet and Podge pushed the dumpster in the way to provide cover.
They could still hear people running down the street behind them, crying out for their loved ones that got lost in the chaos.
A raizean woman running down the alley had Tylin grab her and pushed her back out.
Then they saw the first assault-mech coming down the street.
Clastaan and Tet snuck closer to the front. They crouched, hoping the machine wouldn’t notice them.
“Do it, now! Do it!” Tet said to Clastaan.
“No yet, I need to get as many as possible,” Clastaan said.
The second mech came into view some meters off the other.
“Now!” said Tet, “Do it!” He tapped Clastaan furiously on the shoulder.
“All right! All right! Cut it out!” Clastaan said.
He sped up to the unsuspecting assault-mechs, all the time trembling all over and with his teeth chattering.
“Dear gods give me courage…”
Clastaan stimulated the transmutation circle in his hands until they shone with honoi. He touched the ground, sending cracks of white light across to the mechs. Picturing the structure in which he wanted to rebuild that part of the ground into, Clastaan send this into the transmutation energy. The result was the ground breaking apart like a mass of clay, then reconstructing into a huge wave of spikes that ran like a train into the two mechs.
Both soldiers and the police dropped their jaws.
The mechs landed in a mangled heap of twisted and dented limbs.
Tylin and the others broke their cover and charged. Tylin kicked Clastaan in the butt and said, “Get going!”
Clastaan nearly fell on his face. He braced himself with his hands and ran into the street. He faced the direction of the soldiers in a sudden turn that nearly made him trip, and repeated the attack once more.
A massive column of spikes nearly a story tall raced into the heart of the soldiers like a tsunami. Some managed to throw themselves out the way, but the spikes impaled three of them in its wake.
Commissioner Oldam’s mind quickly went from astonishment to seizing the opportunity presented to them.
“Move forward!” he said to his men. “Move forward and take it to those bastards!”
Like medieval knights spurred into action, the officers charged in a roar fueled with new-found hope.
“Get us over there, Professor!” Tylin said as she took her spot before Clastaan. Podge and Tet came to her side.
Clastaan said, “As you wish my dear lady!”
He hit the ground just behind three with his hands, manipulating the ground into a massive stone hand that cradled the three of them and stretched over the wall of spikes into the broken ranks of the soldiers.
On the way Tylin leaped out of the palm towards a mech. It lifted its line of fire into the air to trace Tylin, but she was already upon it. With a dagger covered all around in groves that allowed it to be fully cloaked in honoi Tylin descend upon the metal monstrosity’s back, holding on painfully with one hand on its hard shoulder and slashing the chain of rounds that fed its hellish weapon.
With the link cut Tylin stabbed the mech in the tendons in its neck twice, dropping off as she severed them and made its right arm go limp. The mech dropped the gun like an anchor to the ground, wheeled around and protruded a long, tapering blade released from its wrist.
With blinding speed, Tylin ducked beneath the machine’s swipe, spun on her heels, unsheathed her sword at the same time, parried the second attack with a loud grunt at the force of the impact, and leaped back out of the way of the machine’s kick.
The mech came at her with considerable speed, nearly hacking off her head. Tylin dodged with the tip of the blade making a deep cut on her face. Tylin augmented her sword with honoi, snuck her way behind the mech and whirled around with a chop in the back of the mech’s knee. It wobbled off balance, giving Tylin the chance to step onto its pelvis and leap in the air.
She augmented her weapon further, turning the bright-blue glow of the honoi to near white. And with one clean slash she beheaded the mech.
The mech stumbled forward with sparks flying out from its neck.
Podge and Tet leaped into the fray of orderrans, quickly unleashing assaults with their weapons and forcing the orderrans into close -quarters combat. The other four clansmen followed over the arm with the officers behind them.
A mech that tried to take aim at them and had the ground beneath it suddenly sink into a crater and toppled over. Clastaan switched from that mech to the one that had just pushed three officers off the bridge with gunfire in a bloody mess.
Clastaan raced across the bridge and leaped off, running up to mech as it was about to focus on him, and touched its metal pelvis. Iron was much harder to breakdown that normal soil, and required more of Clastaan’s honoi. But he used it all in that instant, breaking down the mech from the pelvis all the way up to the abdomen into pieces. Clastaan dropped back as its torso hit the ground.
Clastaan watch the soldiers and his clan and the officers brawl it out with swords, knives, and wrist-blades. He would have helped, had his body not become so tired. It wasn’t that he was old, Clastaan was just in his late forties. It was just that physical exertion wasn’t his forte.
I need to work out more…Clastaan thought, as he laid back and closed his eyes. What are you doing, Clastaan? You used to be a Dragoon for goodness sake! Get up you lazy you bum!
Clastaan clenched his jaw and rose to his feet.
He ran over to help the others, tripping over the body of the mech and landing on his head, knocking himself out cold.
The moment Morg gave the order to kill Yeltsa, Nesten and their troops made a hasty retreat on top of the building and over the roof.
“You sure we can make it out of this?” Yeltsa said as her long legs effortlessly carried her forward.
“Nothing beats trying!” Nesten said as a flock of Cyries shrieked over his head.
The Cyries, congregated like a single noisy entity, opened fire at the people on the roof. The rain of death clipped the calves of one of Nesten’s officers, dropping him and pressing him with bullets like passing steamroller. The Cyries sped up to administer the same treatment to the unwilling patients.
The group headed to the old ruins of the city, with buildings like the ones Yeltsa hid her gang in. They weren’t sure if people where still squatting there, but it was least populated place they could find. And with Yeltsa carrying the key, they were bound to follow her there.
As they traversed the roof tops across pipes, poles and stairs, half the flock of Cyries in a triangular formation sped ahead of them, pivoted around to a steady hover just two buildings away.
A Dawhawk slowly glided over to that building. The side of the vehicle slid open and soldiers and mechs jumped outside, finding what cover they could.
“Dammit” Nesten said.
“Take cover!” Coenter shouted, diving behind the edge of the roof top as the second set of Cyries swooped by with a payload of bullets.
They all managed to move out of the way of that attack, but the first set of Cyries flew by with a storm of gunfire that slew two of Yeltsa’s armed men and another officer.
The roof top was scares with only a few bird coops and some shacks for equipment, and with gunfire coming from the other roof, and the two groups of Cyries circled the building like a pack of sharks, they were sure their deathwas sealed and stamped in their soon to be split blood.
Yeltsa got shot in the leg; a large nice hole in the thigh from a Malcer, just a few inches from the bone. She screamed and doubled over. Fighting for her life she crawled behind the shack next to Coenter and one of her thugs, an armed geckoid.
Gunfire shaved the top of the shack and rained debris down on them.
Yeltsa channeled her honoi into her wound and pushed out the bullet. She used it to effectively slow down the bleeding, but the pain was omnipotent.
Noticing her discomfort, and sensing that this woman would be needed if there were to survive this, Coenter swallowed her pride and said, “How is it?”
Yeltsa said with an irrigated expression, “Just wonderful…”
Coenter lowered her rifle and pulled back the sleeve on her wrist. She put it to Yeltsa’s face and said, “Drink my blood, quickly!”
Momentarily shocked by the offer, Yeltsa hesitated, then being hit by the pain again, she held Coenter’s arm and bit into her wrist. Coenter braced herself and gripped her teeth, closing her eyes as Yeltsa’s teeth sliced into her flesh.
Lazhinian blood not only healed lazhinians, but was also adaptive, mimicking the cells of another organism’s body by fusing with it, replicating itself so it could survive as that new organism. It didn’t try to take over the body; it merely became part of the organism so its white blood cells wouldn’t attack it.
As Yeltsa gulped ounces of blood, one of the flocks of seven Cyries deployed static bomb looking like black eggs with blue lumps at the top and bottom onto the roof.
The blue lumps popped off to expose metallic rods that erupted with electricity. Four on the roof got caught in the field of electricity and convulsed where they stood; tiny rips popped up on their skin and their eyes rolled into their in a death like someone slowly driving a nail into their skulls.
When the field died the Cyries descended on the roof. Most of them were easily gun down, but one of the two remaining flocks landed and countered attacked, screaming maniacally as they dropped organism and Oikumies perched on their corpses.
Coenter yanked her hand from Yeltsa and clutched it. The wounds were slowly healing, as was Yeltsa’s body. A Cyri appeared around where they were and shot up the geckoid in the chest before had chance to react.
“Bitch, hahahaha!” the Cyri said.
Coenter immediately hovered over the geckoid’s corpses and began eating out his exposed insides. It wasn’t some random burst of cannibalism; Coenter simply needed more protein to restore her own cells.
Yeltsa shot the Cyri from her Sputty, sending it staggering back with a horrified squeak. Yeltsa blasted it a second time and ripped open his chest.
This won’t work! Yeltsa thought. If I stay here everyone out there will die; and then I’ll be outnumbered, and…
Yeltsa sprang into action to support her allies.
With both hands augmented with the Hiradokou, Yeltsa ran into the crowd of Cyries on the roof, pummeling down those in her way to pieces. She switched her attention from the enemy as the officers and her thugs took over and went for one of the assault mechs across the other roof.
She threw her knee into a Cyri-bot running at her, knocking it back as she dove beneath the gunfire of an assault-mech. She came up with an uppercut that knocked the head clean off the mech, and with another Hiradokou she bored a hole into the mech’s chest.
Yeltsa lifted the torso of the mech, and with her newly salvaged shield she ran across the pipes to the other roof where the soldiers had taken up their post. A handful of combatants from her side trailed behind her, shielded from the onslaught of bullets that riddled the mechs chest to nothing.
I need armor, were the thoughts racing through Yeltsa’s mind. The Hiradokou alone couldn’t save her. Her shield was withering away to nothing, and she need to protect herself…and those behind her.
But why? Why do I have to protect them? I’m a criminal, aren’t I? Then why do I want to protect them. Then she remembered. Yeah, that’s why! I couldn’t save mother. She was sick, and I couldn’t save her...
Her shield was destroyed, but her body responded to her need. Under the stress her body was force to counter the situation, forcing itself beyond the normal use of its honoi. Yeltsa’s honoi seeped out of her skin and all over her body like a film of armor—the Hirabidshi.
With her armor of honoi Yeltsa barged into the assault mech in front of her with her forearms over her face. The bullets tore apart her armor like shards of glass off her skin. But she reached.
With all her strength Yeltsa rammed her shoulder into the mech, at the same time she grabbed it around the waist and hoisted it off the ground, using it as a battering ram to knock down Cyries and orderrans.
“Shit!” Dinon said. Gunfire from the enemy made him dive for cover.
Yeltsa crashed with the assault-mech into the floor, shattering the roof and falling with it into the room below. The lone occupant, a raizean man, screamed and leaped off the bed and went through the room door.
As the gunfight above her escalated, the mech kicked her off, breaking a few of her ribs and the last of her armor. She land on the bed, clutching her chest as the pain seared through her body.
The mech got up and produced two wrist-blades. Yeltsa’s mind was telling her to rest with the first throb of the honoi fatigue, but doing so would ensure her death.
Not a chance!