Planet Chimera (13 page)

“Oh sure, my good lad, I am a man of my
word, and I will give you two choices since I am being generous.
Would you like to go by a bullet in the head, or a spear in the
heart? The choice is obviously yours to take.”

“But you said you would let me go?” he
pleaded, his voice weak and low.

“I never specified how I would let you go,
besides, I can’t just allow you to run amok impaling everyone you
come across. I will give you thirty seconds to decide,” I smiled,
standing up slowly, and walking over to pick up a long spear he had
dropped against the bark of the tree

“Give me the bullet to the head,” he sighed,
tracking me with his head, making another attempt to rise, but
failing again. “I would rather you take my life, than to let Mrs.
Craft have her sadistic way with me.”

“I will make it quick,” I replied, dropping
the long spear, and retrieving my rifle. “Sorry, lad, but this
isn’t personal at all. You are just simply standing in the way of
my future plans, and I cannot have that.”

Smiling, I took three steps towards him,
pumping one round into the bullet chamber, and pointing the muzzle
at his head. Considering that his face was missing, or it was an
illusionary trick my brain was playing on me, I had no way of
knowing if that shot would kill him or not. But, I could always
impale him when I was done, just to be certain. Hunching down, my
breath held, I pressed on the trigger lightly, ready to deliver
that final shot, but before I had the chance to shoot him, my gun
was yanked away from my hands by some unknown force. Wide eyed, I
looked at my hands, confused, and turned around in every direction,
unable to explain what had just occurred to me. The gun was not
longer in my possession, I knew, but things don’t just disappear
without any reason.

“That man is not yours to kill,” a cold
voice echoed into the wind, but without revealing the direction it
was coming from. “He belongs to Dead Planet, a fate worse than
death, so his life is not yours to take, you hear?”

“Show yourself, please, so I may speak with
you on pleasant terms,” I replied, bowing my head, and lowering my
other rifle. “On my planet, we consider it to be rude to speak to
people, whilst hiding in the shadows.”

“Please forgive us for our bad manners,” the
voice said, in a softer and gentler tone. “Allow us to introduce
ourselves to you. We are the Vandrel Guards, the keepers of Dead
Planet, and defenders of Justice and Law.”

Like ghosts, they
manifested out of thin air, all eleven of them, wearing silver
coated armor, and titanium reinforced headgears. Long, silk capes
hung from their shoulders, magazine bandoliers attached around
their waist, wearing long boots that reached their knees, and
carrying powerful guns that made my rifle look like a joke. They
were right in front of me this whole time, watching me torture this
man, and that was bad.
How did I not sense
their presence? What will they do to me?

“What is your name, sir,” a feminine voice
asked me, as one of them, in a brighter armor, stepped forward. “I
am Cornelia Craft, the captain of the Vandrel Guards, but everyone
calls me Mrs. Craft for short.”

“Charmed to meet you, Mrs. Craft,” I
replied, taking back my other gun from her, and placing it on my
back. “I am Rave Fireheart, a simple traveler passing by from
earth.”

“What is an earthling like you doing on this
planet?” Mrs. Craft asked, folding her hands above her chest,
looking down at the fallen prisoner. “This planet is restricted to
chimeras; it is a place where normal humans must not enter, under
any circumstance.”

“It is as you have explained,” I added,
tweaking my neck, as my feet felt cold. “But much like yourself—I
am also stranded on this planet, because my ship was also shot down
by the inhabitants of this planet.”

“It was a neutron plasma round,” a soldier
whispered bluntly into her ear, whilst keeping his gun trained on
my legs. “Should we call base for reinforcements—perhaps, ask them
if they could also lend us another ship.”

“No, that would not work,” she replied,
pulling out her pistol and shooting the prisoner in the head. “As
long as they have that weapon, any attempts we make to send for
help will be voided. If they were confident enough to shoot down a
Galactic government vessel, despite knowing the consequences, they
must have something powerful enough to block transmission signals,
and powerful enough to capture or kill us. Tell me, Rave, what do
you know of the inhabitants’ intentions for shooting us down.”

“Terrible things, I suspect,” I began,
biting my lip, as I turned my head around. “I have a few of them
travelling with me; we were headed to the lair of the madman, the
beast responsible for this entire calamity, when we came across
this foul prisoner.”

“We know,” Mrs. Craft said, bending down,
checking the dead prisoner’s pulse with a scanner. “We watched you
engage in a duel with this animal from the shadows.”

“That’s cruel, even for a galactic
official,” I smirked, shaking my head. “If you were defenders of
justice, then, why didn’t you aid us in our battle against
him?”

“We are under orders to capture and kill the
prisoners,” she replied, standing back up, turning her body around,
and gazing towards the mountains. “We will not risk our lives to
save a few people.”

“Rave, are you okay?” Salyanna cried,
appearing abruptly without warning, her gun raised in the air. “Who
are you people?”

The guards turned their attention towards
her, marching around to form a perfect defense formation around
Mrs. Craft, all of their guns aimed at Salyanna. And to my
surprise, Salyanna, without fear, moved in closer, looking at them
without faltering in terror. A twig snapped, forcing half of the
guards to revert their guns towards the opposite direction, as they
tracked the source of the noise. Nothing but the wind stirred in
the air, the snowflakes falling heavily to the ground, and the sky
still dark and gloomy. I don’t think the sun was coming out any
time soon.

“Relax, Salyanna, they are not our enemies,”
I responded, gesturing her with my right hand to lower her rifle.
“They are prison guards from the Dead Planet, roaming these frozen
woods in search of their missing prisoners.”

“A pleasure to meet you all,” she nodded,
placing her gun on her back, as her claws reverted back to
fingernails. “I would welcome you with open arms, food and
lodgings, if the situation was not so dire, but I am afraid our
troubles render us unable to accommodate you all.”

“Oh, you are so generous,” Mrs. Craft said,
walking up to Salyanna, and placing her right hand on her shoulder.
“And here I thought that chimeras were a vicious and murderous
bunch, who only capture and kill anyone invading on their
territory.”

“Not all chimeras are like that,” she
replied, a faint, nervous smile on her face.

“I see,” Mrs. Craft concluded, her voice
cold and heavy. “I am beginning to understand the situation a
bit.”

Grabbing Salyanna’s shoulder, she shoved her
roughly to the left, felling her into the deep snow. Salyanna,
blinking, sat up, looking at her gun first before gazing at Mrs.
Craft. She rolled up to feet, making a break for her rifle, but
Mrs. Craft shifted into her way, both of her arms folding, taunting
the chimera girl. Salyanna panted, gazing at me, unable to
understand what was happening in front of her.

“What’s the meaning of this?” she asked,
wiping the snow from her face, her hair swerving from her back.
“Why are you attacking me?”

“You are a resident of this wretched planet
and I want to release my pent-up frustrations on someone,” she
shrieked, plodding on the snow, drawing her short blade out. “Do
you know how much time we lost with this interruption? Do you even
have any idea of the dangers you have unleashed upon this miserable
planet. We were transporting some of the most dangerous criminals
away from civilization to an isolated planet, where they could do
no harm to the innocent.”

Salyanna, reaching for her
left boot, drew her dagger and deflected Mrs. Craft’s blade, as she
paced back. She stumbled against the bark of the tree behind her, a
bit of snow landing on her hair and shoulders, her dagger still
extended outwards. She stood up straight and walked back towards
us, brushing some snow from her head, with a serious look on her
face. Spinning, Mrs. Craft swung her short sword down at her,
hoping to maim Salyanna in her leg, but the chimera girl jumped
back, dodging all of her lethal blows.
This is really stupid
, I
thought.

I was wasting time with these idiots—time
that I could have spent looking for the madman. Ignoring everyone
else, I glanced down at my numb fingers, inhaling in cold air, as I
flexed my fingers around. For quite some time now, I had been
losing feeling of all the limbs on my body. It was this foul air,
this bad weather, and this unending night, that were causing me
this misery. The true enemy on this planet was this blizzard, and
if we continued to venture through this weather, we would all
perish long before we reach the lunatic’s hideout.

“Enough of this,” I screamed, moving between
them, stopping their blades with my bare hands. “Please stop this,
Mrs. Craft, or I will be forced to intervene on her behalf. You
have wasted most of our time, so if you don’t mind, we will be
taking our leave. You are more than welcome to come with us, if you
want, but do not get in our way, I beg of you.”

“You are brave,” Mrs. Craft pointed out,
drawing her blade out of my bleeding hand, as she looked at me with
fascination. “I have seen a lot of men cower away from the sheer
might of my blade, but not you, Rave. When this situation is
straightened out, would you be interested in joining our ranks? To
become a member of the Vandrel Guards is a great honor indeed, so
what do you say?”

“Thanks for the offer; however, I already
have a job,” I replied, releasing my other hand from Salyanna’s
blade, the pain intolerable. “She is not your enemy; your true
enemies are the creatures lurking in these woods and this cold,
unending weather.”

For the next twenty minutes, I told them
everything that had happened to me since arriving on this planet,
skipping out on the part about the whole town helping the madman,
in attempt to get a bit of leniency for them. I didn’t really care
for them, but for some reason, I felt a tiny bit of compassion for
the children trapped on this miserable rubble of rock. After I was
done, Mrs. Craft and her soldiers shifted out of hearing range, to
go over all of the facts I had explained to them, as they tried to
come to a mutual agreement.

“The cannon fire stopped, several minutes
ago,” Salyanna murmured to me, turning towards the direction of the
outpost. “They must have gotten Cleiver.”

“Yeah, he is probably dead,” I replied,
reaching into my pocket and pulling out a cloth, and wrapping it
around my bleeding wrist. “His fate was inevitable.”

“Why do you always do that?” she screamed at
me, raising her voice. “Why do you always say such cold words all
of the time? Don’t you feel any compassion, love, or remorse?”

“No, I don’t,” I turned away from her,
unfazed by any of her questions. “There are just some people
without hearts in this universe—people like me, Salyanna.”

At the moment, Mrs. Craft and her ten
soldiers returned to us, gun holstered up, and stopped within a few
meters from us, in silence. Mrs. Craft, squeaking her boots in the
snow, tramped forward towards us, and halted within inches from
Salyanna. Her visor reflected the chimera girl’s face, and it
unnerved Salyanna deeply. She held her breath, placing the tip of
her fingers on the butt of her rifle, taking one step back. There
was a lot tension between them, I noticed, and it was it boiling up
to epic proportions.

“Very well, we shall assist you in this
quest of yours,” Mrs. Craft said, before turning around, her cape
dancing in the blizzard wind, and returning to her men.

10

The strong gusts of winds rippled over us
without mercy, the cold slowly creeping on us from the feet up. The
snow on the ground had increased greatly by another few inches,
making our journey even more difficult. Together with our new
comrades, the Vandrel Guards, we hiked through the snowy terrain,
cutting across the trees, rocks, and a few, annoying depressions in
the ground. Siron, along with three guards, returned back to the
town, to alert the mayor and the remaining residents of the new
developments. Mrs. Craft was concerned that her escaped prisoners
would reach the town first, plundering whatever they could get
their hands on, before slaughtering the defenseless men, women, and
children.

But the weirdest part in all of this, I
noticed, was that we hadn’t encountered a single mutant chimera for
more than two hours. It was rather strange—almost nerve wrecking,
considering how close we were getting to their hideout. Were they
baiting us to approach? It was simply too easy. An animal howled
into the wind, a shadowy figure standing over the peak of the
mountain in front of us, the moon behind it making it more
ferocious. It stood on its hind legs, resembling a wolf in nature,
howling into the moon, before a dozen or so joined it. The monsters
looked our way, barking in a threatening manner, before storming
swiftly in our direction.

“Wolf mutant chimeras are the worst,”
Salyanna commented, nudging me from the side, her rifle drawn out.
“They are strong, fast, and very agile, a truly lethal
combination.”

“Alpha formation,” Mrs. Craft boomed,
drawing out her bow, and placing an arrow on it. “Do not let them
break our ranks, okay?”