Blade of the Lucan: A Memory of Anstractor (8 page)

She slipped out the back door and dashed to another building where she scaled the wooden paneling on the side, climbing up to the roof. There she perched near a large chimney and waited for the cruiser to silently land on the path leading out of the village square.

Black-uniformed Felitian soldiers poured into the square and they began to rush the houses. A few of them circled to the back to watch for anyone trying to escape but none of them bothered to check the roof.

She waited for the men to kick a few more doors in and then decided to take action. One of them had foolishly gone into the house below her without any of his comrades to back him up. She waited for him to exit the rear, and then dropped on top of his shoulders. Before he could throw her off, Marian hooked her feet beneath his arms and rolled forward—bringing him down with her—stabbing him in the abdomen as they fell. She dragged his lifeless body into the forest and kicked dirt and rocks over the blood trail to cover it up.

Marian stripped the man of his helmet and chest piece, and then slipped them on and retrieved his rifle. She glanced down at it briefly, and recognized it as an upgrade to a model that she had trained with as a teen. She flipped open its barrel, touched a few buttons, tried out the scope, and then threw it over her shoulder.

She walked the perimeter of the village under the cover of the brush. Her mind kept traveling back to the giant snake she had seen on her ride in and the thought was making her overly cautious.

The soldiers were yelling at the people and threatening to shoot them. They threatened the children with violence while asking the parents about her whereabouts. Marian felt an urge to leave, but she felt responsible for the fates of those people. They were neither Felitian loyalists nor rebels, and they did not deserve the treatment being dealt to them by the frustrated soldiers.

Marian remembered that Rosa was still tied up inside the closet and she wished and hoped that no one would find her there.

One of the soldiers used the butt of his gun to knock an old man over, and this was what pushed Marian over the edge. She knelt in the bushes and brought the rifle up, then shot the soldier in the back of the head with an incendiary round. The bullet tore through the base of his skull and expanded on impact. Flames melted his eyes as they ejected onto his face like molten, white wax, and fire flamed from his nostrils like a dragon. The bullet, still expanding but undeterred, flew from his mouth into the wall of a house and the wood caught fire instantly.

The soldiers began to run for cover while firing back, and the people scattered into the forest. Marian didn't wait to see what the shot had done. She got to the soldier’s cruiser, switched to kinetic rounds, and then shot the pilot in the head.

She pushed his corpse out of the cockpit and then took the controls and powered it on. When the engines were ready, she lifted the vessel into the air and then tilted the vehicle. She activated the lower thrusters and then pushed the throttle up to maximum speed and blasted out of there.

As the cruiser picked up altitude and speed, the fire in the forest gave Marian a feeling of sadness for what had become of the beautiful village. She turned the cruiser northward and kept it low, trying not to think of what the fire would cost the innocents in property and life. It was out of anger that she had shot the soldier, and it was out of anger that she had left Rafian to come back to this world of pain and suffering. Maybe Rosa was right, Rosa who would now be burned alive within the pretty house that she had built for herself out of Felitian money.

“Good job, Marian,” she mumbled to herself. “You can now add Parricide to the list of atrocities committed here in Luca.” She sighed heavily, and pushed hard on the throttle, hoping there would be more juice to allow for her to get away even faster. She thought of flying back to Veece; she could rendezvous with Marika there and lay low for a time, but that would compromise the setup. She had to find a place where she could get hold of some long-ranged communications equipment and reach out to the rebels that had fled the planet.

No, Veece was definitely out; plus, if either Felitians or resistance fighters were to see a cruiser flying towards the northern territories, she knew she would be shot down. She recalled the mountain where she and Rafian had eloped. The area of Tyhera in which it stood was untamed and dangerous for anyone to explore. Rafian and his fellow monks had used it to hone their skills. It would be a good place to set up a reunion for the resistance, so she pulled up the navigation map and punched in the coordinates, then flew towards it for the better part of an hour.

When she reached the mountain that wrapped itself in a semi-circle around a scenic valley, she flew down into the basin where several waterfalls cascaded down from a flattened cliff face, down into a scenic, misty lake.

“Maker!” Marian gasped when she saw how beautiful it was. “No wonder I married you, Rafian, when you proposed to me here. This is something out of a
thyping
dream.”

She grabbed her gear from the seat next to her and pulled on the pack, then made sure that everything was secure and ready. When she was satisfied with her preparations, she drifted down into the mist and landed the cruiser inside of a shallow portion of the bubbling water. She navigated it close to the rocks and then opened the cockpit and jumped on to the shore. Water seemed to splash everywhere, but she didn’t hesitate in starting her climb up the face of the cliff. She touched her ear and ignored the crackling, then waited until she could hear Marika's voice.

“
Cahlahluuu
, it’s your favorite assassin on house arrest,” Marika’s sweet but deceptive voice intoned in her head from the nano-comm.

Marian was stressed from the day’s happenings, but couldn’t help but giggle at Marika’s attitude. “Going crazy in there, aren’t you?” she said.

Marika said, “I haven’t thrown my glaive into the door yet, so I would say I’m more bored than going crazy. You know that we Casanians are used to the open country, Rhee. Keeping one of us trapped within four walls for too long could yield terrible results.”

Marian thought about relaying the events of the day to Marika but decided to keep it to herself. Marika impressed her; she was a master of adaptation and espionage. The last thing she wanted to do was whine about a woman pretending to be her aunt to someone whose resume included the leveling of a city back on Anstractor. Plus, a near miss like the one she had experienced went better with wine, not over nano-comm.

“When all of this is done, remind me to tell you about my Aunt Rosa, Marika,” she said.

“Sounds very boring, but okay,” Marika said, sounding preoccupied.

“Whatever are you doing, Marika? I doubt you’re just sitting around,” Marian said.

“Oh, is that your way of asking me what I’m wearing? Well, I am in those tiny little shorts that I wear to bed, and I have on a very, very sheer top – I think it’s silk or something nicer, and my bare foot is on the wall—”

“You and your thyping foot fetish, Marika. Cut it out. What are you really doing?”

Marika chuckled and continued, “Well, as I was saying, my bare foot is on the wall, next to the window, while I stare into the scope of this nasty rifle of mine.”

Marian paused for a second to process the visual. She ignored the whole wardrobe or lack thereof that Marika described and tried to reason how she would have her foot on a wall while staring into her scope. She mentally flipped Marika around inside of her head and then settled on a picture of her seated on the edge of a bed, foot braced against the wall next to a window, aiming at someone with deadly intent.

“Marika,” Marian said in a low, motherly tone, “who are you aiming that thing at?”

“Well, it all started with me looking in at the police station to see how things worked out for my friendly survivor of last night’s raid,” Marika told her.

“Wait, what? You let one go?” Marian asked.

“I used that little bullet I showed you – from before. Shot that
thyper
through the shoulder, and sent him up the stream – literally. All I had to do next in order to leave the house was track him into Veece. Wait until he was stationary and then jump to his location. The crystal fell out, so I jumped in next to him … was kind of hoping that it was still inside that arm, would love to appear there and come through ripping it off, y’know?”

“You’re such a sweetheart, Marika. What would have happened if he had been in a room full of doctors mending that wound, or soldiers asking him questions?”

“I came in hot, Marian – I swear you forget who I am sometimes. THEY are lucky that nobody was present when I came in, not me. I wiped out an entire fleet in—”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You don’t have to run down your resume of murder in Anstractor, Marika. I can’t help it that I care, okay? I’m just glad that you’re at the hotel and safe.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Marika joked, and smiled when it was met with silence and what she assumed was Marian punching something.

“I’m still waiting on you to answer my questions, you snippy little
cruta
,” Marian said.

“Okay, but it was you that interrupted me. Let me finish up my explanation now, okay?” she said and then paused to make sure that Marian complied before continuing. “So, anyway, I was checking the police station this morning when I saw my boy walking home, dejected. I think they either fired him or put him on leave or something. Whatever it was, he looked so pathetic that I didn’t know whether to run down there and give him a pity thype, or pull the trigger to end his misery. Didn’t opt for either. I mean, you and me, we do our thing, but my darling Vallen would not be okay with another man touching me. I’m sure it’s the same with you and Rafian.”

Marian stopped her climb to sigh loudly and roll her eyes. “Please tell me you’re joking about that load of
schtill
you just ran me down about the ‘rules’ in lovemaking, Marika. My piece of
schtill
husband
thypes
women nonstop, and you’re acting as if it’s funny that he’d be upset if I returned the favor?”

“You’re such a volatile sprinkling of spice. Do you know that, Rhee?” Marika laughed. “I bet you’re all jiggling everywhere and hot under the collar. I’m just joking,
cruta
, get a breath. Anyway, I watched him walk home and was about to go back to bed to laugh about it when all of a sudden I saw some commotion coming from the barracks.”

“What sort of commotion?” Marian asked, a hint of worry in her tone.

“The soldiers brought in a number of people, dressed like…like…hmm, they remind me of...” Marika paused to think on her comparison. “Yeah, have you ever been to a hub? Well, of course you have; you know how tattered and dirty they are in there. This is how the people looked that they brought to the station. They were being extra rough with them, too, bashing at their heads and whatnot. Anyway, I saw people cheering in the streets, so I just kept watching in case something drastic happened.”

“Those were rebel soldiers,” Marian said. “They are the allies we have here in Luca, and they are my and Rafian’s friends. Oh no, a Veece prison. We—we have to get them out somehow, Marika. If they stay in there until their farce of a trial, they will be tortured and killed. Hey, was there a Deijen, like a big muscly bald guy in robes with them? He’d be a light blue complexion with very … very kind eyes.” A lump caught in her throat and her heart raced in anticipation of Marika’s answer.

“I’m sorry, Rhee, but he was the first one they took inside. He was a warrior, though. Many of the others were crying and pleading for their lives, but not your friend. He took it like a Phaser.”

“It will take me a few days to get back, Marika. I got in trouble and had to leave the country,” Marian said. “I need to find a place that has a communications tower. Rafian and his men used to send covert details by satellite out here, so I’m gonna see about finding it.”

“Stick to your mission and I will do what I can to help your friends, Rhee,” Marika said. “This is what I’m trained to do and it is a lot more interesting than sitting in a hotel room, ‘staying safe’ for you. I’ll kill the Fels and get them out, and then I will radio you to let you know when it’s done.”

B
lu had been captured. That was all Marian could think about as she got to the top of the cliff and walked to its edge. She peered out at the beautiful yellows, oranges and greens that comprised the expansive mountainside. It was on this same precipice where she and the then-rebel leader Rafian VCA had gotten married so many years ago. She looked down at the shiny black ring on her forefinger and rotated it slowly in remembrance.

“We should have stayed and finished the job, Rafian,” she said out loud. “Now our friends are dead or dying, and the Fels that you hated so much have complete control over the galaxy.”

The thunderous waterfall off to her right dropped down into the lake, and she watched as the cruiser become more and more submerged. She wanted to rush back to Veece, shoot up the police troopers, rescue her friends, and then start the assault on Talula. But that wasn’t an option.  She would have to find a way to contact the rebels on the other planets to ask them to fly into Talula and rescue Amanxa and the prisoners there.

The country was called Vyre, and it was one of the last places on the planet to be completely untouched by the technology and taint of the Felitian Empire.

Everything is a matter of adaptation,
she thought, and looked down at the rifle which was a representation of this. The Felitian rifle was a versatile weapon, with a wide range of ammo-types that regenerated over time—a wonder of the
carvyn
cartridge, of course. It had a laser-knife, a torch, an extendable, two-foot cord, and it would act as a floatation device if thrown into water.

She walked back away from the precipice, towards the face of another cliff that led even higher up the mountain. The stream that trickled by came from another waterfall that flowed from the edge of this new cliff-face. There were thick trees near the stream, so she activated the laser-blade, walked the mile or so it took to get to the mountainside, and began to work on securing a camp for the night.

~ * ~

Marika Tsuno’s mind was all focus as she turned an area of her room into an assassin’s cache. She opened cases, screwed things together, flipped at switches, and laid out several sharp and dangerous-looking items on a sheet of white cloth that was so flawless, there wasn’t even a crease on the surface.

When she was finished, she stood up and looked at her arsenal. Unlike Marian, she had brought along several 3B suits for the mission. She was always prepared, and it was times like this when she praised her obsessiveness and promised herself that she would never change.

The rebels that she’d seen arrested had been taken to underground cells. With a city as big as Veece and the ongoing resistance problem, the cells would be extensive enough to separate the petty criminals from the ones they labeled as a threat to society.

She thought about rushing the police station, killing everything that moved, and working her way slowly to the cells, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. But that was a brutish plan with too many negative variables. One woman against an entire army required finesse, and finesse in this situation meant research, espionage, and working at night.

She opened up a tightly sealed package which popped up into a holographic, translation decoder. She would normally use this to hack into the networks of Vestalian and Geralos battleships, but the digital outlets in this strange new universe were too foreign for her to connect to them. She would have to do things the old and unconventional way, which was to find someone knowledgeable about the architecture of Veece and force them to give her a map or draw one out on paper.

Picking up the translator implant that was in her case, Marika clipped it behind her tiny ear and closed her eyes while her body adapted to it. She then powered on the entertainment device that came with the room and fumbled around on the strange keyboard until she found what could be considered Tyhera’s version of television.

She pulled up a news station and an attractive Tyheran woman began to speak rapidly. Marika kept quiet and watched the video, letting the translator absorb the language while she imitated the woman’s mannerisms.

The translator was a military tool that would pick up the visual and vocal cues to identify words and inflections. After cross-referencing this several times with other situations where the words were used, it would send it to your brain to file away, so that the next time you heard it, you automatically knew what it meant. Marika watched the television for twelve hours Vestalian time, going from news coverage to television shows, then a few movies, and then a number of game shows.

When the hour grew late, she went to the window and listened to the noise of the city. She tried to understand the shouts and loud conversations of the people. At first it was tough, and she struggled to keep up, but before long she knew what they were shouting. The hotel was close to a market and it was near the end of the day, when vendors would begin packing up. They were shouting out last minute deals, and trying to hustle patrons to get to their stores.

Marika reached into her bag and took out a case of makeup. She dabbed a tan foundation over her face, and slipped a pair of contact lenses into her eyes. She pulled on a wig and combed it to perfection, then put on a dress that was simple and discreet. When she stood up and observed her disguise in the mirror, she looked very much the part of a Tyheran lady, but she threw on a hooded coat to keep her warm and to hide the imperfections of her outfit.

She exited the room and bypassed the elevator to run down the long flights of stairs that led to the lobby. She brushed past a few visitors to gain the street and as she looked around, the anxiety she had felt began to slowly subside. The translator clicked on and began working hard when she passed the people in the street. She walked for a while until she reached the crowded downtown area of Veece.

There were red and blue neon lights hanging from the domed rooftops, and large, animated advertisements that showed Palus Felitious and his red guard in combat. Marika found it to be a cheesy spectacle but she was happy that she could read them all. One sign stood out above the rest and it read, “Report all suspicious activity.”

Marika found the contrast of natural, brick buildings combined with the advanced lighting on the signs to be a bit of a paradox. When she looked up at all the brilliance, she was reminded of the planet Meluvia in the Anstractor system. But when she looked around at the people in their sandals, shawls, and robes, it seemed to be a very ancient culture.

After walking for an hour, she dipped into a bar and took a seat near the back. It was overly crowded but no one bothered her as she absorbed their conversation and their general, drunken banter. One particular conversation piqued her interest: it was an off-duty trooper talking about new prisoners. He was saying that they would be detained for a month or so before a man he referred to as the ‘Red Lord’ would execute them publicly in the heart of downtown.

A pretty Carian girl walked over to her table, balancing a tray and displaying a look of struggle behind the straight, white teeth of a painfully false smile. She stood there for a time, fighting off the advances of a drunk and aggressive Deijen, then sat down across from Marika and sighed.

“Well, aren’t you friendly,” Marika joked, wondering why the waitress was sitting with her instead of standing and taking her order.

“Why don’t you take that hood off, sister? You’re supposed to be relaxed in here,” she said.

Marika carefully removed the hood and patted down the long, black hair of her wig. She watched the girl’s eyes to read for discovery and hoped that she wouldn’t be forced to take her head and slam it down into her upturned knife. But the girl only beamed and glanced around, so Marika relaxed and kept her knife at bay.

“Relaxed, eh? You should be taking your own advice.” Marika said, the Tyheran language flowing naturally from her tongue. It came out quickly, like a native born to speak the language, and Marika almost covered her mouth when she realized that she was talking.

“Relax in here and some
shota’s
hand would be up my…” The girl smiled and cleared her throat to stop herself from finishing the thought. “You’re cute. I like you. What can I call you, and what can I get you to drink?” she asked.

“Call me Rika, short for Marika. I’ll take a…you know what? Why don’t you surprise me?”

“Your eyes are interesting,” the Carian said with a look of innocent curiosity on her face. “You an outsider? Like, not an outsider – bad choice of words, but are you visiting? Veece, I mean. Maker, I can’t talk today. Are you visiting here on some business, Rika?”

“ARLA!” A gruff Ranalos shouted at her from the bar and with a motion so smooth it was like an assassin, the girl hopped to her feet, balanced the tray on her palm, and winked at Marika.

“I’ll be back with your drink and hopefully some more conversation,” she said as she left, and Marika watched her go with a new curiosity. The girl was a Carian, a beautiful race. They looked human but had hair that lightly covered their bodies. Carians had horns like the rams on the planet Vestalia, and this girl, Arla, had tiny horns that curled neatly over her hair and hooked back to the front beneath her ears.

Marika had thoughts of what she could do with those horns, but she refocused on her objective when she saw a trooper looking at her. She watched a pair of Carians kick over some chairs, then climb atop the tables to begin dancing. For all the bad that was going on in Luca, Marika realized that for the citizens of Veece, life was pretty sweet. They all seemed to either love their emperor or weren’t interested enough to care about his politics.

There seemed to be nothing but beauty in the world of Luca, at least to a blood-drenched Casanian orphan turned assassin, turned Phaser. The men and the women were pretty—like Marian, their world was beautiful, and their troubles all stemmed from one power-hungry man and his enemies.

The door kicked open all of a sudden, and a team of troopers marched in. One of them walked over to the deejay, who was an older Daltak. The trooper threw his equipment to the side and grabbed him by the neck.

“This man is a dangerous member of the Tyheran rebels,” one of the troopers announced and then dragged him out by his throat. After they left, another man—a Tyheran this time—picked up the music box and placed it back on the table. The dancing and drinking resumed as if nothing had happened.

Marika watched all this happen while the pretty Carian, Arla, placed a wine glass in front of her. The glass was filled to the brim with a yellow liquid, and there were tiny creatures jumping around on the surface of it. Marika looked up at her to see if it was meant to be a joke.

“Poor Orion,” Arla muttered as she placed the glass down. She turned to walk away.

“How much do I owe you?” Marika asked.

“Nothing. It’s on me, pretty lady,” Arla said, her once happy face saddened by what had just transpired.

“You knew that rebel?” Marika asked under her breath, and Arla stared at her as if trying to work out if she would admit more or shut her mouth. “Oh, come on, Arla, I am not a Felitian, so don’t worry about being honest with me.”

Arla reached across the table, lifted Marika’s drink and took a sip, then wiped her mouth and said, “Who cares, anyway? I was his friend. I mean, I’ve been his friend for about three months now. He taught me how to blow a horn the proper way, and he was just a very nice person.” She looked as if she wanted to cry. “I don’t think it’s true, this whole rebel thing, but even if it isn’t, they will just kill him to keep the rest of us in check. I’m so sick of this, Rika. You don’t understand. Enjoy the Swamp Sour, it’s our specialty, and my favorite drink here at Riyor’s.”

She spun and rushed back to the bar, and Marika knew that she had gone off to cry. She looked at the glass and its moving surface and then threw caution to the wind and took a sip. It was a cold, sweet joy to her lips, tongue, throat, and then her insides. She stared at the glass as if it would give up its secrets as she lifted it again and drank the rest.

“Veece is both terrible and amazing,” she muttered to herself in Tyheran, and then decided that it was a good time to leave the premises. She deposited a token card into the table and left Arla an extremely generous tip. She then stepped out to begin the long walk home, and when the cold air hit her, she pulled up the hood to cover her ears. About ten minutes in, she felt the effects of the drink and the night was no longer cold, but hot and exciting. Walking became floating and she let her hair flow, not even noticing the many stares she received as she slipped past the partygoers of the night.

“Let it flow sister, yeah!!” A human woman screamed drunkenly at Marika and let her own hair out from the complex bun that held it in place. A man who looked to be her husband caught up with her, then spun her around and slapped her in the face. Marika went for her knife but caught herself, then looked around, noticing for the first time that everyone was staring at her.

“Why are you staring at me when it’s this piece of crap that just slapped an innocent woman?” she screamed at them, her words slurred.

“Disgusting creature, control your hair!” a woman yelled and as she looked around she realized that none of the other Tyheran women wore their hair down like she did.

Marika stumbled away and pulled up her hood, disappointed that a crowd of women were okay with a large man slapping a tiny woman. She made special effort to commit the man’s face to memory.
He better be on a transport out of here in the morning,
she thought,
or tomorrow when I’m on my rifle, I will find him in the crowd and blow his thyping head off
.