Star Brigade: Odysseys - An Anthology (8 page)

“Just realized that, so shut up,” Tyris snapped.

Surje rolled his eyes. “Lights be gone! The Peloponnesian
again
? Jan’Hax went two nights ago!”

Tyris and Khrome exchanged a knowing glance. “Apparently, he’s got a good feeling about tonight,” the Thulican snarked.

That answer didn’t satisfy Surje, not after seeing Jan’Hax already lose so much currency to gambling. “Why do we keep encouraging him?”

Tyris rolled his dark, beady eyes. “We’re letting it slide tonight, since he didn’t get onto a combat team, and you’re a nanoclic away from joining the Shining Way.”

“Okay, okay!” Surje raised his hands in surrender, laughing. Tyris and Khrome were right, as usual. The Voton was worrying too much again. Not believing in himself again. He’d worry about Star Brigade tomorrow.  “Point taken and driven home. Let’s go already!” The trio began to walk away from the Living Light source. “Wait,” a realization hit Surje then, annoying him more than enlightening. “Did Jan’Hax not show up because he knew how I’d react to us hitting up a casino?”

“He may have suggested we mollify your anger before we reach the shuttle,” Khrome admitted innocently, or as innocent as the Thulican could ever get.

Surje shook his head and smiled. He knew his friends as well as they knew him. “So are we going to watch and ridicule as Jan’Hax loses his currency, or what?”

Right now Liliana Cortés wanted to scream in frustration.

If only she had the strength to do so. The doctor lay gasping urgently for breath after having been knocked flat on her back for the umpteenth time. Every inch of her svelte body ached. The clingy workout suit she had on was soaked to the skin in sweat.

As she lay sprawled on the floor of a hardlight hologram suite, a floating spherical mechanoid—her unconquerable foe—hovered overhead. For a moment, Liliana could have sworn that the mechanoid hovered back and forth in a victorious fashion.

The doctor knew becoming a field active Star Brigadier was a mistake. But two weeks ago, she hadn’t realize how large of a mistake. There had been a reason why Liliana staunchly declined to active field duty after her fellowship finished.

But this time around, Sam D’Urso and Captain Habraum Nwosu had been so hard to refuse.

Regardless, the past two weeks only confirmed her massive mistake. She had Pluto-ed nearly every practice session, and almost gotten killed on her first live op.

Anyone else she told about her career change wholeheartedly agreed, especially her mother, during their last Transnet conversation. “I don’t care what trivial need you have to use those cursed powers. For Union’s sakes, quit now,” Dr. Marimar Cortés had snapped. 

“You said you were done with that Star Brigade nonsense after your fellowship. Do you actually think you have the stomach to do what they do, míja?” Her mother, ever the great motivator.

Which lead to the past two orvs of Liliana being continuously knocked on her ass. She had been trying to better hone her sonic abilities when it came to aiming and shooting them. It was a simple HLHG program, designed for maximals with energy expulsion-based powers like herself. A small, spherical mechanoid, equipped with a low-level pulse blaster, would float around the room shooting at the young doctor. Her goal was to not only evade the mechanoid’s blasts, but also strike it as well.

The digitized
putt-putt
of the mechanoid’s blaster became the bane of Liliana’s existence. Despite her improvement in dodging, she would get tagged more often than not. The first time Liliana got tagged this session she squealed at the top of her lungs. It basically stung like a supercharged mosquito bite on the tip of a mule kick.

Captain Nwosu had once told her, “You howl bloody murder at first, but after a while it’ll feel like wee pinpricks.” Liliana reminded herself that this came from a Brigadier who could battle three floating mechanoids at once without getting hit.

She tried sitting up, and her body angrily protested. “Still waiting for those pinpricks!” she shouted.

Her problem wasn’t dodging the blaster shots. Liliana used to run six miles a day before joining Star Brigade, so she had the conditioning. Moreover, these past few days the doctor had progressed to where she could shoot down the mechanoid without getting hit.

But today’s unexpected mission had Liliana second-guessing again, putting too much thought into how she would shoot the mechanoid or which direction to dodge a pulse blast. By the time she made up her mind,
BLAM
, she’d get drilled.

Liliana couldn’t help it. She was a xenobiologist who analyzed the tattshi out of situations. But life-and-death combat situations were decided on instinct. A Star Brigadier needed good instincts to survive live missions.

“I can’t even survive this training program,” Liliana finally winced her way up to a seated position. After limping back to her quarters, the doctor treated herself to a hydrobathe. Streams of hot water cascaded from the ceiling, washing away the grime and easing the many aches troubling Liliana’s slender body.

Mentally, Liliana remained overwhelmed with doubts. Should she continue struggling as a field-active Brigadier, or work solely in the Medcenter?

Or just resign?
She had planned to, after today’s disastrous mission.

But Marguliese’s suggestion, which clearly
wasn’t
a suggestion, had stayed Liliana’s decision…for now.

The Cybernarr’s appeal still hadn’t given Liliana any idea on how to overcome her hyperspace sickness. Once aboard any spacefaring vessel, she began overanalyzing the reality of being trapped in an enclosed metal tube, hurtling through space at stupefying speeds. At any moment, those speeds could rip the ship into a million pieces. And outside of that ship was space, an infinite everything…and
nothing
.

Liliana shuddered, continuing pondering her choices as she dried off and threw on greyish pajama pants and a snug burgundy t-shirt with the circular Star Brigade logo. She was still drying her pixie-cut hair when an urgent beeping caught her ear.

Liliana turned.
Who in the cosmos is calling me this late
? Across the room, her TransNet console with its wall viewscreen lit up with the bold text.

Secure Incoming Call. Section M: Cuende Facility.

Liliana’s eyes widened. Cuende, a small town in northeastern Navarre she was unfortunately familiar with. It could only be one being. Liliana’s professional impasse became background noise as she hurried over to the TransNet console.

“Liliana Cortés. Display caller with TriTran,” she said. Moments later, the 3D image of a human male appeared right in front of Liliana, seated on the floor.

The earthborn human bore a conspicuous resemblance to Liliana. Their hair and eyes were both dark brown; even their faces seemed sculpted of the same oval shape. His skin was much paler—akin to someone who hadn’t seen much natural sunlight. Through his white t-shirt and shapeless pants, he looked a bit doughy from lack of physical activity. And his hair had recently been shorn off.

He saw Liliana and his face lit up. “Ana! Hola!”

Liliana’s heart sang.
He’s having a good day.
She sat on the floor opposite him, even if he was actually on Terra Sollus and she on a starbase floating within the gas giant. “Tommy, mi amor. ¿Cómo estas?”

Tomás shrugged. “As good as can be in this prisión!”

Her older brother always called her ‘Ana’ or ‘Ana Lucia’ like most family members did, while she preferred to call him ‘Tommy’ instead of his full name, Tomás Carlos.

At least once a week they spoke, either face to face or via TransNet. Yet even when catching her brother on a good day, Liliana still remembered the terrifying fury that had distorted his face years ago. That memory was always a knife thrust to her heart.

The two Cortéses sat and talked about everything and anything happening all over the Galactic Union in their usual rapid-fire Spanish banter. Things felt normal, which Liliana needed in her life right now.

“Still no word from Elena?” Liliana asked, referring to one of their first cousins.

“Aunt Flor spoke to her a week ago. Said she was okay, but that’s it.”

Liliana gasped, surprised and a little hurt. “You heard about Ella and didn’t tell me?”

“Hey!” Tomás threw back. “You were too busy with your Star Brigade thingamajig job.”

The fact that he knew stunned Liliana. “Who told you?”

“Papá. Other than you, who else would’ve told me?”

“Okay,” Liliana straightened, taking note of the sudden bite in Tomás’s voice. She resolved to stay on topic. “I really can’t say too much about what I’m doing—.”

“Thirteen years, Ana,” Tomás interrupted, his face twisting in anger. “Thirteen years and she won’t even call me on the TransNet.”

“Tomás,” Liliana said calmly, knowing what was coming, “let’s talk about something else.”

Tommy rose up, seething. “It was an accident!
Why can’t she forgive me?
”

“Please,” Liliana struggled to stay firm. These outbursts weren’t unusual, even on his good days. “You know what happens when you get mad like this—”

“I DON’T CARE!” Her brother’s anger tasted of torment. “She doesn’t hate you!”

“Tomás, bastante!” cried Liliana. Suddenly the doctor was twelve years old again, cowering before her brother’s blind rage. She could feel tears welling up.

“
Cállate
Liliana!!” Tomás roared. “STOP COVERING FOR HER!!” Tomás’s TriTran image became staticky just then.

He tried to speak again. But something seemed to constrict his voice. The image of him normalized and Liliana, through watery vision, noticed his wide eyes loosing their crazed glow. Tomás began to focus on her again, blind rage giving way to regret. And a wave of gratitude washed over Liliana.

A nanochip at the base of Tomás’s brain constantly monitored his med levels. Should Tomás start losing control, like now, the chip immediately released a payload of depressants into his bloodstream.

Finally Tomás sank to his knees, head lolling forward. “Lo siento, Ana. I got…carried away,” he murmured in a languid voice. “My drug cocktail is kicking in now.”

Liliana nodded in silence, wiping her tears away with long fingers and staring despondently at the floor. She mentally checked off the long list of inhibitor drugs in Tomás’s bracelet, which suppressed his Zenitrophin levels and regulated Tomás’s mental state—Zenitrophin being the
neurohormone produced exclusively by humanoid maximals.

Tomás, a maximum like Liliana, had manifested at fourteen years of age, four years earlier than she. But unlike Liliana, Tomás had difficulty controlling those abilities, as his body produced too much Zenitrophin. No doctor or solution had been able to help, and the problem worsened with age. Then, three days before his eighteenth birthday, one of Tomás’s outbursts on a space shuttle almost killed their whole family.

From then on, his home had been a secure Section M facility in Cuende, explicitly for maximums with uncontrollable and dangerous abilities. Since that horrible day thirteen years ago, Liliana couldn’t ride any spacefaring vessel without extreme bouts of terror and nausea. And from that day forward, their mother hadn’t visited or spoken to Tomás once.

He straightened up with a deep breath and eyed his younger sister. “Muy 1ueno,” he said snidely.

Liliana’s tears finally stopped, but the pain of seeing her brother like this didn’t, even after thirteen years. “I will find a way to make you better, Tommy.”

Tomás chuckled. “You always say that, Ana.”

“Because I mean it,” Liliana insisted, meeting her brother’s gaze.

“I know.” Tomás smiled affectionately. Something off-screen caught his gaze and sobered him up. “Looks like my little tantrum cut our call time. So I’ll be quick.” The elder Cortés sibling leaned forward. “Were you truly happy at your previous job with San Ysidro Medcenter?”

Liliana sniffed and shook her head. “I was bored.”

“And is this Star Brigade outfit the answer?”

“That’s what I keep hoping,” Liliana looked away. If only she could answer ‘Yes’ with complete certainty.

Tomás leaned back as he studied his sister’s ambivalence. “Even if this Brigade thing doesn’t work out, I know you’d have given it your all. You wouldn’t be
you
if you didn’t, Ana.”

A comforting warmth filled Liliana’s heart. She opened her mouth to respond, but then Tomás’s TriTran image began to flicker. Their time was almost up. So she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Gracias, hermano mio! Te quiero!”

“Yo te quiero también, Ana.” Immediately after that, Tomás’s image vanished. Liliana now sat alone staring at the spot where her brother had just been.

She remembered when first manifesting, how Tomás’s condition had dissuaded Liliana from even trying to gain mastery of her maximal abilities.

Tomás had been the one who persuaded her to learn the fundamentals of her abilities. That was why she had chosen an accelerated medical residency on the military starbase that housed Star Brigade.

Tomás had been as right then as he was now. “I have to try harder,” she murmured. That meant overcoming her space phobia. And not by way of drugs or neuronanocyte enhancement. With that goal in mind, she changed into military-issue cargo pants and a long-sleeved black tee. She dashed out of her quarters in the middle of the night, knowing exactly who to ask for help.

With help from Hollus’s computer system, Liliana found herself in a launch bay between two long rows of Shadowlancers fighter jets. This launch bay had a more diminutive and sparse appearance than Hollus’s other bays that Liliana had dared to peek into. Dim, monotone halolights splashed down from the ceiling, accentuating the bleak ambiance. But that hardly bothered Liliana. Seeing so many spacecrafts, despite their smaller size, almost turned the doctor’s legs to spaghetti beneath her.

Small metal tubes…stupefying speeds!
Liliana’s stomach began to churn. She stopped and shut her eyes. “Khrome?” she called out, the echo of her voice bouncing off the surrounding walls.

“
What?
” came a computerized and curt reply. Liliana’s eyes popped open. The short, stocky Thulican stepped from behind the last Shadowlancer on her right and kept walking until he stood right in front of Liliana.

The doctor had three inches on Khrome. But his burly wall of armored muscle made her slim build look like a toothpick. The Thulican cut quite an intimidating pose, especially with the irritated look on his noseless, blue face. Liliana couldn’t believe this was the same playful, devil-may-care Khrome who cheered her up the moment she stepped foot on Hollus two weeks ago.