Blade of the Lucan: A Memory of Anstractor (4 page)

“Yes. But this is why he was special, Blu. It is why his eyes lacked the spark that all other Tyherans have, and it is why he left,” Marian said.

Blu chuckled and moved his hands from her shoulders to the small of her back. He said, “Come inside, Marian; this is a lot to take in. We were curious how you showed up so suddenly without Rafian, and we worried that you had killed him and returned to your—”

“You all dishonor me with such a vicious rumor, Blu,” Marian said sadly as she took the cat’s leash and followed Blu inside the cave. The Deijin pulled open a large hatch and they descended a flight of stairs. They did not go a long way before the stairs opened up into the living area of a large house, and Marian’s thoughts were interrupted by her surprise at how warm and welcoming the house felt.

“I say ‘we,’ but I have never doubted you, Marian,” Blu said to her as he led her to a couch and poured her a glass of spiced, sour berry ale. “When Rafian brought you in, he told us that you were his heart. From that day on, from what I remember, you outfitted us, healed us, and bled with us as a sister. No-one can question your sacrifice for our fight, especially now with you rallying us together to help the people on Talula. But men are jealous and angry, Lady Raf. You left us in our most desperate hour, and it caused a lot of speculation and anger.”

Marian wished Rafian were there to hear Blu’s story so that he could realize what he had caused with his sudden departure from Luca. She had always warned him that his rash decision to jump back to Anstractor would mean dire circumstances for Tyhera, but he had been too concerned with the fate of his own people. She couldn’t blame him for the choice he made, but she didn’t like the fact that she was the one to take the brunt of the blame from the confused Deijin.

“Well, I am here to help set things right,” Marian said. She sipped on the ale and grimaced as the sour after-taste did a number on her taste buds. The thick liquid reminded her of bitter aloe mixed with the greenest limes. She made a face when she swallowed it, and the Deijen—who stood watching her, as if he expected the reaction—chuckled at her as he pointed playfully to the bottle.

“Happy to hear it,” Blu said suddenly. He clapped three times, which woke up a service android who Marian noticed for the first time when it stood up gracefully and walked towards one of the walls while swaying its hips.

“That’s a bit of a sexy walk for an android, Blu,” she said as she watched the android begin its work. “I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I don’t recall androids having the ability to move like us.”

“Oh, I modified Rita to walk like that,” the giant man said to her. Deijins didn’t really smile, but she could feel the pride that he had in his work beaming from his stoic face.

“I’m going to hope that is all the modification you did to that thing,” Marian said and forced another sip from her glass.

The android touched the wall and it shimmered and opened up to another room. Marian could see that a number of men and women were seated around a table in there. She counted seven men and three women, some hailing from other planets and the majority being natives of Tyhera.

Blu announced to them: “Ladies and gentlemen of the resistance. Warriors, survivors, and future kings of Luca. Please welcome a friend of the resistance, the wife of my eternal brother, Rafian.”

The people stood up and began to cheer as she walked into their midst to shake hands and hug the familiar faces that were there. It was a warm welcome, one she was not expecting, especially after what Blu had told her, but she took it in and gave them her warmest smile before taking a seat at what could be considered to be the head of the table.

Marian took in the numerous faces and tried to see if she knew any of them. She recognized a few faces but she wondered if they remembered her. If any of them were to become suspicious, they would no doubt question her loyalties now, even as she stood: a proud Phaser, wife to the most wanted man in her galaxy.

She began to second-guess every move she made while sitting amongst their number. When a declaration of action was made and they all cheered in agreement, she tried to see herself from the outside –
did she really look like she was one with them, or did she seem to be acting?
After a while, she began to clam up, her paranoia getting the better of her.

“How many of you know who I am, truly?” she asked, looking around at her comrades who now regarded her with some surprise.

“They know who you are, Marian. What’s the problem?” Blu asked, standing with her to urge her to take a seat.

“I want to make sure,” Marian said. “We are about to commit our lives and many others to some serious actions tonight, and in meetings to come. When the blood begins to flow, and the Felitians’ grip begins to tighten on the innocents for our crimes, I don’t want any of you to question my right to being here.”

“Why would we do that?” a stern, dark blue Daltak remarked. He stood up suddenly and stared at her with what seemed like new interest, and the flap that acted as a nose lifted slowly before settling like the blast doors on a starship.

“I am Felitian-born and I have blood on my hands. Not just Fel blood, but—but Veece city blood as well,” she said, her words so fast and strung together that she had no chance to bite them back from being uttered.

The group looked at one another, nodding, and the Daltak shifted his stance. She could see the hilts of two poison darts on his leg and one of his hands had moved to hover near them. Blu stood up, as well, with a pistol in his right hand, ready to act if the Daltak moved to attack Marian.

“Seriously, woman? This is why you interrupt our meeting, to tell us about your past as if you are some sort of special fish in this boiling cesspool we call life?” another Daltak remarked. Marian looked over at this new voice and realized it was one of the faces she recognized. “We all have pasts, some more bloody than yours could ever be,” he continued, letting the words linger as he flicked his dark eyes up at the other Daltak who blinked, flashed him a return glance, and sat down.

“Thank you,” Marian said, and the kinder Daltak grunted and went back to his wine.

“So, what about Talula?” a grizzled, dark-skinned man asked, acting as if the interruption hadn’t occurred. The rest of the group looked like they were deep in thought, but several of them nodded at this question.

“We need a distraction if we’re going to mount that rescue,” one of the three women in attendance said.

“Rescue? Are you out of your mind?” the aggressive Daltak from before remarked as he looked around to make sure he wasn’t the only one who thought it to be a bad idea. “The Fels will have android guards posted all around that facility. You have to understand, they think that the people they have inside of there are the last of our organization! If there are more of us out here, they want to be sure we know that our comrades are in trouble.”

“So it’s some sort of honeypot for suckers, then,” Blu remarked, stroking his chin and looking at Marian.

“I know many of you don’t know me, or know what it is I can do,” she told them. “But if you can rescue the settlers on that moon, my friend and I can provide the distraction needed to make sure the Fels won’t react to you.”

The dark-skinned man from before smiled where everyone else had thin lines where their mouths should have been. He was the only one not drinking, and she could tell that despite his kind eyes, he was the most dangerous member there. He was armed to the teeth, but in a way that only a Phaser with her training could see. His weapons were strategically hidden, and his eyes betrayed the fact that he knew she was aware of them.

The unfriendly Daltak made to talk and the dark-skinned man waved his hand for him to remain silent.

“Shut up, Corea, you’ve more than made us aware of your distrust of this beautiful woman,” he said. “Like brother Blu here, however, I know who she is, though she wouldn’t remember most of us – old Rafian made sure of that,” he said and snorted out a laugh. “Sha’an, they call me Saiko, and I was a close friend of your husband’s, back in the golden days of Cally,” he said, his voice trailing off sadly as he made mention of the city.

“Pleasure to meet you, Saiko,” Marian replied. “You say that you were a close friend of my husband’s. You said it in the past tense, as if you two of you are no longer friends or—I don’t know. Do you all assume that Rafian is dead? Is that what you all think?” she asked, looking around.

“Where is Rafian, then?” the nicer Daltak asked, and Marian blinked quickly, trying to figure out what to say.

“The truth is, warriors, Rafian was never from here. He isn’t a born Lucan like the rest of us, even though his amnesia made him fight for us the way one fights for his own homeland. Rafian is from another galaxy, a warrior from a war torn universe who was sent here to be taken away from the ones he loved. He … he got his memory back on the day that he left you, and has gone back home, where he still fights for his own people,” she said.

“Sounds like a load of Buraa shite to me,” the older red-headed woman said. They were the first words she had spoken that night, and Marian looked at her and sized her up.

“You question my honor,
cruta?
” Marian asked, and the woman flinched when she saw the cruel intent reflected in Marian’s eyes. “Why would I make any of this up after Blu has more than vouched for me? The things Rafian can do is beyond even my understanding. His powers are—”

“We know, we know, Marian,” Saiko said. “Calm yourself, girl, we are all friends here. Persena was merely suggesting that you were making a joke. Most of us know about Mera Ku monks and the strange magic they have through their meditation. I’ve personally seen your husband get burned by a Felitian rocket trail, then walk away from it after kneeling into that meditation thing he does.” His eyes took on the look of a child witnessing a magic trick for the first time. “I knew he was special, but at least with what you’re saying now, it was some sort of alien thing, not just Mera Ku magic.”

Saiko seemed to calm himself as he spoke, and then he sighed. “Whew, many of us were thinking that he was … I don’t know—”

“What?” Marian pressed.

“We thought the Fels got him. Hell, we thought he was rotting away in one of their floating prisons, or worse. So old Raf’s alive, you say? I’ll be damned if that isn’t some good news. The next time you see that old boy, tell him One-Shot Saiko was asking about him. He could always come back and share a mug with me, Orion, and old Blu.”

Marian smiled and mouthed a ‘thank you’ without saying it out loud.

“Listen,” she said, as she composed herself and began again. “I have a friend that I brought back from Rafian’s galaxy. She’s a warrior like the rest of you, but a part of the group that I told Blu about. We have a special skillset that allows us to get in and out of formidable places rather easily. Like Rafian’s disappearance, it is a thing I cannot explain in too much detail but trust me, we can stir up enough noise in Veece to bring every Felitian in the galaxy running to protect their precious Emperor.”

“Really?” the unfriendly Daltak asked, his demeanor changing to one of even more hostility as he regarded Marian. “Show me proof, NOW, or I—”

“Or you fire that old, Felitian-issue pistol at me that you have resting on your knee beneath the table?” Marian asked, her eyes dangerous now as she looked at him with hostility of her own. “Fine. I will show you all if it means we can move ahead. But don’t blame me if I frighten you with our methods!”

With the utterance of her last word, Marian dropped a crystal and flipped out the tiny knife she held hidden in her palm. She slammed it into the Dalak’s hand that rested on the table, and then disappeared, appearing at the entrance where she had dropped another crystal.

She heard the man screaming and the panic that ensued when she teleported right in front of them. The Lucan rebels did not know what to think; she heard the chairs being overturned as they jumped to their feet and she shook her head, disappointed she’d had to show them Phaser secrets.

Marian walked gracefully through the cave and back to the room where Blu and company were shouting in a panic. They looked at her as if she was a ghost. Without saying anything as they stared at her in awe, she held up the blade and walked towards the Daltak.

“So, are we ready to make some plans, or do I need to prove myself to another piece of
schtill
like this worthless Daltak here?” she asked.

“I
’m sorry, Lady Raf,” Blu said once everyone had left, and it was only the two of them beneath the entrance.

“Don’t be. They have every right to be suspicious of me, especially with the length of time that Rafian and I have been gone. You’ve been a true friend, Blu … there must be something you need or want that I can use to pay you back,” she said.

“Lady Raf, how many times am I going to have to tell you to drop it? I helped you because of Rafian. He would have done the same if our roles were reversed,” he said, and she thought that his hulking form looked menacing beneath the limited light.

She stepped past him towards the outside of the cave and stared up at the giant moon of Talula. It stood above them like an unblinking eye, bright and uncontested by any of the other stars and planets. It also provided them with light on the outside of the cave since they dared not use a flashlight or torch.

Marian thought of the planet Vestalia on Anstractor, which was a similar planet to Tyhera in both look and inhabitants. Humans and Tyherans were practically twins in appearance, but Vestalia had become a disfigured planet due to the years of war with the Geralos.

There was nowhere on Anstractor that could compete with Luca in terms of beauty, Marian thought—at least in her opinion. Talula glowed above them, and there were no clouds to hide the bright pattern of stars that seemed to dominate everything. She could see the planets Hostera, Coryen, and Vur. They hung above her, tiny but visible, unlike the night sky of Vestalia which would reveal a moon and little else.

“If we all could understand what we have here, we’d throw down our weapons and learn to get along,” Marian said sadly. Blu walked up next to her, staring upwards, and then nodded his head in earnest.

“That’s the thing, Lady Raf, we don’t take these moments to reflect like you do. I’m as guilty of that as anybody else here. How could we? I wager we spend more time glancing behind us for Fel daggers than looking forward to see where we’re going. Life has gotten harsher since you left. Stay here long enough and you will understand.”

Marian said, “It’s not much different in Anstractor, Rafian’s galaxy. The planets fight a common foe, which makes it similar but our—I mean, his people…” She stopped to find the words in Tyheran. “They lost their planet home, Blu.”

“What do you mean, lost it?” the large man asked, a look of confusion on his flat, featureless face.

“Imagine, Blu. Imagine that Palus was Vurian and not Tyheran. Imagine that he started a genocide of the Tyheran people because he believed we are inferior, and that our skins had magical properties. Imagine that he had the entire planet of Vur to stand behind him in this assertion, and they came through, slaughtered us all, and then took over Tyhera, enslaving the survivors.”

“But, I am from Deij, not Tyhera. What would Palus do with the aliens like me who call this place home?” Blu asked.

“That’s the thing, Blu; that wouldn’t matter. The fact that you aren’t born from Vur would mean that he’d either kill you here or on Deij when he goes there next to harvest bodies. In Anstractor there is a race called the Geralos. Their features are similar to Deijens but they are green, shorter, and … scaly,” she began.

“I don’t see how they are similar to us at all. We are a proud and kind race, Lady Raf. Though some have been imprisoned and made slaves to the Felitians – but you know this!” Blu snapped, annoyed at the comparison Marian was suggesting.

“No, no, no, I dare not say you are the same, Blu. I’m sorry. What I meant is that their planet is similar, very wet and tropical. The air there, you and I cannot breathe, but—they look like green, miniature Deijens, with wicked teeth meant for biting and plotting cruel things.”

Blu was still staring at Marian and she couldn’t help but feel unsettled, like his words did not match up with what he might actually be feeling. He stood staring for what seemed like a lifetime, then folded his arms into his robes and stared at the sky once again.

“Rafian is fighting these terrible men and women right now?” he asked.

“Yes, he has been fighting them since he was a child, if I’m not mistaken,” Marian replied.

“This doesn’t surprise me,” Blu said. “He was a natural at war, and I found it hard to believe that our rough, rudimentary training in Cally could produce someone as gifted as he.”

“Really?” Marian asked.

“Yes. It was bizarre, and like I said, many thought he was a gift from the maker, come down to help topple the Fels. When the Mera Ku monks took him in, he grew even stronger. You know this firsthand, correct?”

Marian rubbed her neck unconsciously and nodded.

“Will he ever come back here?” Blu asked suddenly, and Marian froze, trying to find ground between her anger with her husband and the adoration that everyone else had for him.

“Ugh, he will, Blu. He has his hands full, but part of his heart is here in Luca. He will not stay away for long,” she replied, wondering if she was telling him a lie.

They stood next to one another, watching tiny ships cross the sky and then all of a sudden, Blu grabbed her and pulled her back into the shadows of the cave. Marian made to struggle but could do nothing to escape the clutches of the tall, strong man. She tried to get to her knife, but he had her arms pinned, so she wiggled her face free of his hand to scream at him. He quickly covered her mouth and pointed to an area of the sky where a tiny white star looked as if it was getting closer.

“Fels!” he whispered and rushed back into the cave.

Marian stared at the star as it took on the shape of a drop ship. It was moving fast, and she could tell that it was headed somewhere near their area. She reached down and touched her leg where the knife was, then exhaled with relief when she felt it. Blu returned with his cat and then touched her shoulder and pointed to the back.

“There’s a tunnel we made in case we got discovered, Lady Raf. I have to collapse the cave; there is too much at stake for us to risk it,” he said.

“Blu, if Fels are onto us it means that one of the people we brought here was a mole,” she began.

“No! None of them are. We have always met, and we have always executed plans. The people here tonight have too much hate for Palus Felitious to make deals with him. Someone else must have figured us out. Perhaps they followed you here from the city.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Marian said. “I came here via teleportation, the same way I showed you earlier.”

“Then I am out of ideas,” he said. “That ship will drop soldiers, and we will be killed or captured. So let’s save the speculation for later. We need to take the tunnel and collapse the cave in order to avoid discovery,” Blu said, pulling her away from the cave’s entrance.

She ran behind him through the darkness to the front door of his actual home. They slipped through, powered down the lights, and then Blu triggered an explosion that shook the floor and the walls to the point where Marian had to catch herself from falling. He then began scrambling, piling his belongings into a moving capsule. When it was full, he collapsed it into a small, travel-sized cube, and then popped open another one to add more of his books, tablets, and illegal weapons.

Marian helped, and thought to herself how Anstractor could use the technology of the moving capsule. It was so convenient: it could take items that would require a transport to move from one place to the next and fold it all into the size of a small, weightless box.

They packed five cubes and then Blu touched a panel on the wall. A portion of the rock slid to the side and a narrow passage was revealed.

“Nemesis. Shah, G’toh!” he shouted at the cat and she bounded to the passageway, looked back at Blu and then slowly began walking into it. Blu then fanned impatiently at his server android, and she perked up, ran over to them, and then followed the cat into the passageway.

“Are we forgetting anyone else?” Marian asked with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, and Blu smiled at her—if one could tell a Deijen’s smile from their otherwise stoic expression—and then walked behind them into the darkness.

When Marian heard machines working at clearing the cave’s entrance, she imagined it was the Felitian Troopers, determined to find out who was inside. This meant that they were tipped off and a sinking feeling washed over her stomach. She took one look behind, then quickly followed Blu into the darkness.

Once they had walked for several yards, Blu triggered another explosion, and a wave of heat blew past Marian.

“What was that, Blu?” she asked.

“That was my home of several years, being destroyed to cause a cave-in to kill the intruders that would see me in chains. This is the life of a freedom fighter, Lady Raf. We keep our homes rigged in explosives. You never know when they will come for you, and when they do you must be prepared to die, or give up everything for the resistance.”

“Where will you stay now, Blu?” Marian asked as they pushed on through the blackness.

“I will visit Orion Zee, in the jungle. He has a hideout there that the Fels have yet to discover. Nemesis will love it there, since he has other cats living with him that she can be around. What about you, Lady Raf? What do you intend on doing until the rebels are ready?”

“I will be doing a bit of spying on my old neighborhood, and plotting an area where I can get at Palus to kill him,” she said.

“You are very confident,” he said after some time.

“I’m a Phaser,” Marian replied and didn’t bother to explain what that meant to him.

~ * ~

Marika Tsuno was a Casanian assassin. On Anstractor this gave her an edge because Casanians were considered to be the docile, artisan race of the galaxy. This was how she managed to become a famous gun-for-hire during the time when Vestalians were too occupied with the Geralos to care.

She’d had so many contracts to fill throughout her career that there was scarcely a time she was on location for leisure. A tragic childhood that became a short lifetime as a gangster had gotten her into the assassin’s guild. It suited her, the love and care for life being null and void in her dark mind, until her guild was wiped out by Rafian VCA and his Phasers.

In Rafian she saw a similarity that she hadn’t seen in many others, and it was due to their shared outlook on life. She tried to fight him on their first meeting, but he had been a step ahead of her in every way. He was supposed to kill her —she was a part of a unit that slaughtered humans and Geralos alike— but he spared her, and she bent the knee and handed him her knife.

While she loved Marian, she belonged to him. If there was anything she kept in terms of her Casanian blood, it was the honoring of a life debt.

Sneaking off and escaping to Luca had been Marian’s idea. It was a rash and dangerous move that would have gotten her killed and her records wiped from the cloner had she been anyone else. But, she was wife to the supreme leader, and unbeknownst to her, he had tasked the assassin to stick by her side and keep her safe.

Marika had agreed, but only if she could do it on her own terms. Rafian didn’t know the terms, but they were the kind that satiated Marika’s lustful desires and curiosity. How many other Phasers could say they shared the supple lips of Marian VCA with the supreme leader? She smiled wickedly at the thought. A good assassin must always have leverage, even on the most trusted of employers.

When Marian had slipped off towards the Starport earlier that day, Marika had gone back inside the house and collected her clothes. She dressed herself in an all-black 3B suit with a heavy black coat over it. On her face, she wore a mask to hide her distinct features.

She stood in front of the mirror in their bathroom and thought she looked menacing. It was hard to suppress the smile that crossed her full, dark lips, since she found her outfit to be quite amusing.

“Oh, this would frighten any little would-be snitch,” she muttered to herself as she turned one way and shifted to stick out her hip. She popped it to the other side, pulling her las-sword free with the same motion. “Yeah, they won’t see you coming, will they, killer?” she whispered and then spun to exit the bathroom and made her way outside.

She hopped onto one of the hover bikes that was parked near the house, then tested the controls. They were alien to her but not so complicated that she couldn’t figure them out. Touching the comm on her arm, a holographic image of Tyhera hovered in front of her. She used a gloved finger to slide it around, and took note where the city of Veece stood along with the ruins of Cally.

With a kick of a pedal and a few button presses, the bike lifted her steadily into the air. She sped towards Veece, flying recklessly past tall, branchless trees, which looked like logs planted in the ground. Marika kept an assortment of guns that she favored for killing her marks, but the one she brought for this trip was a rifle. An ugly, black, shiny machine with a barrel so long that it stretched past her shoulders to another three feet above her head.

If they were to assassinate a galactic despot, she would need to master the hunting grounds. There would be guards, but she would be ready for them if they were in the way. She set the bike down near a humming dome that stood out like a silver pimple in the orange and brown grass that popped up from everywhere.  She dismounted and left the rifle, choosing instead to grab a knife and pistol while sinking low to the ground so that the grass could mask her approach.