Hycn (5 page)

Xerla had a kill under her belt; he had to
blow the remaining craft. There was no way he would let her win
easily. Never. The two of them always kept scores of enemies they
killed in battles and compared their statistics to see who killed
more enemies than the other. This strange custom started many years
ago when they were new recruits and were partnered together for
their first real mission as soldiers. Each wanted to prove to the
other that they were better, hence should assume the role of a
superior and give commands during missions.

“Shoot back at it Delilah!” Cooke barked the
command again. Merida was just blown to pieces in front of his
eyes. He didn’t want the same fate for himself. He still wanted to
live. And he damn sure wanted to avenge her.

“As you wish sir.” The AI responded.

Toyer’s rear laser guns whistled at once,
spraying blue rapid laser fire at the alien craft hot on Cooke’s
tail. The serpent’s fightercrafts unlike most of other one-person
fightercrafts were fitted with guns in the rear. Humans were taking
full advantage of their advanced AI. The alien ship, which was not
expecting that, spun wildly out of control but quickly regained
stability and continued to pursue Cooke. It swung upwards and
sideways, dancing in midair to avoid Toyer’s fire, at the same time
maintaining its high speed and steady flow of laser fire on Cooke.
Toyer’s sensors tried to lock on it, and moved the guns along with
it as it danced about but every second Delilah thought that she was
locked onto the ship it had already danced off and her laser fire
only penetrated the emptiness where the craft was previously.

Cooke jumped his craft upwards again to the
black skies. His pursuer followed. The two ships whizzed past
Windhoek as fast streaks of lights in the black sky and vanished
into the horizon.

The alien ship spat more blasts.

Cooke took a dive downwards and flew close
to the surface. The alien ship kept its height above and shot at
him from there. He made Toyer dance all over the area. The craft
jumped and leaped everywhere, the energy blasts aimed at it hitting
the hard ground below, and creating small craters in the entire
area. Then one of the laser blasts hit Toyer’s tail. The fighter
ship shook violently and spun out of control. It came tumbling
down, falling towards the hard, rugged and hilly surface like a
heavy rock. Cooke knew soon the ship would hit the ground and he
would die. The thought scared him. He wasn’t ready to die yet. He
fumbled for a while but finally found the control levers – and
pulled them backwards.

Maybe there was something he could still
do.

The ship didn’t respond. He pushed the
levers forward and pulled then back again. Still - there was no
change. He didn’t give up though - he tried for the third time.
Toyer stopped spinning and steadied a bit. The damage was not that
lethal. Cooke pulled the left lever some more and the ship
straightened. He swerved the ship to the left, circling back
quickly to face the oncoming alien craft. It was in front of him in
his line of sight and fire now. He could see its blinking lights
clearly. He pressed the triggers. Toyer’s front heavy guns coughed
laser.

Phfphfphfphfphfphfweeeeo!

The laser guns whistled and screamed. The
alien craft swung to the right and Lieutenant Cooke followed it.
The tables were turned. He was now in control of the chase. The
alien ship raced to the south at high speed and Cooke gave chase.
It maintained its high speed dancing about in evasive maneuvers
avoiding his blasts. It continued south with him on its tail his
guns blazing and it kept to continuously dance out of his line of
fire. Twenty minutes later the two ships were still zigzagging
about in the Kalahari sky. The scorpion ship swerved east and Cooke
followed it. Finally he locked on it.

The black scorpion went spinning downwards
and crashed against a hillside. Cooke sped past and circled back
quickly.

“Lieutenant Cooke, the other alien craft is
coming this way. It shall be here in less than a minute.” Delilah
informed him.

“I don’t care. I’m going to kill that
bastard who crashed. They killed Merida.” Cooke snapped.

He swooped Toyer downwards like an eagle and
sprayed the crashed alien ship with laser fire. He wouldn’t be
Cooke Hamilton if he didn’t blow the asshole to pieces like they
did to Merida. After a few shots the alien craft exploded in a
blinding flash that turned night into day. Its shattered bits
scattered over the whole area. He dived his craft upwards to flee
before the other ship arrived, but he was late. A trail of red
laser fire hit his precious fighter craft. The poisonous black
scorpion that stung Merida to death had come for him too! His ship
rocked hard and went spinning to the ground.

It was time to leave Toyer.

He’d seen how this just arrived pilot
operated like. He didn’t want to be blown to pieces along with his
ship like Merida. The safest place to be was out there in the cold,
not inside the falling ship. He had to abandon Toyer before the
enemy could blow it to bits. He released the ejector seat and the
craft spat him out.

He watched from above as his craft continued
spinning downwards, but quickly lost track of it as Xerla’s
blinding spotlights fell on him. In about five minutes Cooke hit
the hard ground. He rolled over, released the chute, and pulled
himself up. The unidentified craft was circling overhead. Its
bright lights on him - blinding him. He tried to run but laser fire
hit the ground around him. He stopped dead in his tracks. The craft
glided unhurried to the ground, its strong beams of white lights
still fixed on him.

It stopped and hovered about 30 inches above
the ground a short distance away from him and its doors hissed
open. A dark figure loomed into view, a huge laser gun in its
hands. The figure jumped from the ship to the ground and hurried
across towards him; gun fixed on him. Cold sweat trickled down
Cooke’s spine. He risked a step backwards, arms raised in the
air.

“Don’t shoot. Please.” He shouted in
English.

“Nim ha kyo xixoha koba xi nom hanagas xiho
re tuxipitkazir!” The figure shouted in a strange alien tongue.
Laser blasts dug holes on the ground around him, choking him with
dust and sand, a few times hitting him with stones the size of his
fists.

“For god’s sake alien, you are heartless; I
have my arms in the air.” Cooke shouted in English even though he
knew it was useless. The alien woman stopped firing but kept on
approaching him. She stopped only a few meters away from him and
removed her headgear. She was about six feet tall and had really
long green hair that was loose, reaching all the way to her waist.
She had on an armored suit covering her entirely from the neck up
downwards. The suit had red alien digital writings flashing on it
all over.

The woman muttered something in her strange
alien tongue again and moved closer to him. She reached out and
pulled his head gear off completely, revealing his boyish handsome
face with a strong jawline and dark brown eyes. Her face lit in
amazement and surprise. She turned him sideways forcefully and
touched his ears a few times, studying them in her ship’s strong
lights then released them. She circled him a few times studying him
with a lot of interest. Finally, she stopped in front of him. She
reached to her left ear and lifted her hair to reveal her ears. She
had slightly longer than normal, pointed ears. She muttered
something quietly in that same alien tongue she used earlier then
stepped back. A serious don’t-fuck-with me look planted across her
face. She raised her gun in an instant and pointed it at him again.
She nudged him with the huge laser gun signaling to him to start
moving towards her craft.

It was many moments later. Twenty or so
minutes after Tilyhn cut his penis. Cede was barely alive and still
lying motionless in bed where Tilyhn left him.

Where are the fucking bodyguards?
He
asked himself.

It was a long time since Tilyhn left.

They should have caught her already by now
and rushed to his quarters to alert him that she tried to escape as
usual. What was delaying them? Had Tilyhn managed to actually
escape?

If his guards didn’t find him in time he
would surely die. There wasn’t much time left. He had lost a lot of
blood already.

Everything was slowly becoming blurry and
distant. He was slowly drifting away into darkness.

Where are they?

He tried to keep awake and avoid passing out
by repeating the question over and over in his mind. His plan
wasn’t working. Darkness kept on creeping in on him. The mafia boss
knew he was on the verge of death. Not the kind of death he thought
he would die, being literally stripped of his manhood and left to
die a slow painful death. He had always thought he would die by the
hands of his competition. Not by a girl’s hand. No, he had never a
thought a mere young woman would be the one to kill him. Never.

Everything ends here right now. I am
dying and there is nothing I can do about it
. He lamented
silently.

He wished he could go back and do all things
that he didn’t do yet, but knew he couldn’t now that he was dying.
It was late. He was scared of what the afterlife had in store for
him. He feared the afterlife wasn’t going to be as enjoyable as his
life had been if everything Inzperu preached about was true. With
each breath he took, it became darker than before, darkness he had
never seen nor imagined engulfed him.

I’m dying. Fuck. I haven’t done all the
things that I wanted to do...

Everything went black.

He didn’t hear the shouts of his bodyguards
as they entered into his quarters breathless to find him motionless
in a pool of blood. He didn’t hear them carrying him as fast as
they could across to the far side of his ship to the fully equipped
and operational, first class clinic aboard the
Lilzaint
staffed with ten very skilled alien doctors of different races
money could buy.

An hour later Cede had regained
consciousness.

His back was hurting though – he had been
lying on it for a while and it was complaining. He shifted a little
trying to ease the ache on his back. Unimaginable pain seared
throughout his entire body.

He shouted an insult equivalent to “Fucking
sick fucks!” to his doctors in Ekcyrien.

“Fifteen minutes ago you said the pain would
go after ten minutes. It still hurts you good for nothings. Tell me
why I hired you. You haven’t even a single clue as to what you are
supposed to be doing. Your painkillers don’t do shit.”

He was still in the clinic aboard the
Lilzaint, lying in a hospital bed where he had been since after the
operation. Fifty minutes prior, he had come to from the depths of
hell to find himself on an operating table surrounded by his
doctors who were busy surgically re-attaching his penis. It took
them thirty full minutes. Tilyhn had cut it straight from the
middle, but that didn’t matter now, his penis was back where it
belonged, although it still hurt like hell.

The castration was by far the worst and most
painful highlight of his entire life. A man should never have to be
separated from his penis. He felt inhuman and worthless those many
minutes his dick was lying on the floor across the room from him.
Away from its master.

Tilyhn was going to pay.

He was going to see to it. He would not let
her get away with it. She was going to pay with her life at his own
hands. He would enjoy killing her so much. He shall choke her to
death while he raped her. How could she cut his male organ like she
did? He was Cede; nobody would never belittle him like that and get
away with it.

“Don’t worry sir, it shall be over soon. And
by tomorrow your package will be as good as it was and you will be
ready to use it.” The older doctor who had led the operation told
him.

He wasn’t lying. By tomorrow his penis would
be okay, Cede knew that. But tomorrow was far. He wanted now. His
bodyguards were out hunting for the whore. There was nowhere she
could escape to. This planet was dead and lifeless. They would
catch her in no time. He was certain of it. They were bound to
return with her any moment and he would have loved to perform the
ritual of choking her to death while raping her today, not
tomorrow.

“Do I look like a patient man?” Cede asked
the doctor. “You better be right, if more than fifteen minutes
passes and this pain is still there you are a dead man doctor. You
better pray you are right.” Cede growled.

He hated pain. He wasn’t used to it. Usually
it was he who caused people pain, not the other way around. And he
was good at it. If the pain wasn’t going to stop soon then the
doctor would be a cursed man.

She wondered where the alien man and his
dead partner could have come from, and what they were doing out
here on the wandering planet. Others were probably lurking
somewhere close by and were bound to come looking for them
soon.