Star Brigade: Resurgent (Star Brigade Book 1) (9 page)

As soon as they disappeared from his sight, Habraum steeled his emotions away and focused on what lay ahead. He then strode out of the foliage, past the terrified patrons running in the other direction, past the smoking corpses. Habraum focused on the approaching Children of Earth, eight in total. His stomach felt as if angry bees were bouncing around, enough to give him pause. The anxiety wouldn’t be from inexperience; Habraum had been a field-active Brigadier for nearly seven years, a year and a half of that time commanding his own combat team. And of course, his tenure as an AeroFleet fighter pilot three years before that came into play. So throwing himself headlong into danger was not a new thing.

Sammie’s right. I’ haven’t been field active for a stretch.
Habraum couldn’t second-guess now with lives at stake. The Children of Earth gunmen marched through the area of tables. Any remaining beings had cleared out. Habraum’s stomach roiled inside, but externally he stood his ground, contained and unflinching. The gunmen, each sheathed in light-armored suits, stopped in mid-march at the sight of him.

Only a far-off, sonor-amp-enhanced warning to evacuate the zoo echoed through the barren commons. The same hatred that the Union was founded to oppose had sullied this bastion of harmony and diversity. All the gunmen aimed their pulse rifles at Habraum’s head and chest. Some distance and a table stood between them. Habraum calmly closed his eyes, focusing on the biokinetic energy inside him. A potency jolted through his body like a water dam bursting open, intensifying his senses. He had greatly missed this feeling—the charging up, that eagerness before combat. His closed fists now crackled bright crimson. Habraum sized up the remaining eight soldiers. Unfair odds.
For them,
he mused.

The Children of Earth speaker, confident behind his lackeys, was the only one without a mask. “A maximum, and crimsonborn by those eyes,” he spat disdainfully. “
Tainted
human. Kill—WHOA!”

And Habraum exploded forward, snapping his arm up as he fired off a crimson burst of pure concussive force. The blast hit one gunman off his feet like a jackhammer and out of the fight.

That was Habraum’s only planned surprise. The gunmen opened fire now in blistering abandon, shattering the zoo’s silence again with the repeated bark of pulse rifle fire. A wide flurry of photonic bolts shredded the ground and sprayed chunks of blackened soil in all directions. Some shots actually streaked at the Cerc himself. But Habraum kept running— his agility boosted through biokinetic energy, dashing left and right to avoid those volleys, swiping aside stray bolts with an energy charged forearm.

Habraum, almost at the table between him and the Children of Earth, leapt up. One foot hit the table, and he backflipped over the white-hot rifle blasts. In mid-flip, he snaked his arms out, drilling two gunmen on either side of him with biokinetic blasts. As the two slumped forward, Habraum landed in the midst of his foes and dodged left, catching the rifle a gunman swung at him. A pivot to his right and Habraum ripped the weapon from her grasp. The Cerc spun and whipped the rifle like a club, cracking two gunmen across the skulls. Both crumpled, already forgotten as Habraum tossed the weapon.

The Cerc twisted back around to face the unarmed sentient. A stiff, biokinetically charged uppercut snapped the gunman’s head back, shattering her mask and dropping her. Suddenly Habraum sensed a gunman on either side, their rifles pointed at his head. On instinct, he dropped to a knee, crossed both arms and fired off dual energy torrents. Both assailants were knocked backward, unconscious. Habraum grinned and stood up slowly, consciously cutting off the power flowing inside him. As his senses returned to normal, he looked around at his motionless foes.

“Guess I’m not so rusty,” Habraum smirked to himself. The rush of combat was a drug that couldn’t be overcome…even after last year’s tragedies. His gaze fell on the miniscule speaker for the Children of Earth, no longer confident or smug. He was trembling with anger.

“You defend these…abominations?” he cried, his face as beet-red as his hair. “They’re not even human!”

Habraum crossed his arms and laughed. “I’d say the same thing about you.” He laughed even harder when this man half his size lunged forth to tackle him. The Cerc deftly slapped the speaker’s hands aside and back elbowed his jaw with a rewarding crunch. The speaker’s face rocked back, now a bloodied ruin. Habraum caught him by the collar before he could sink into a heap, delivering a swift field goal kick between his legs. The speaker hunched up in pain, a groan escaping his busted lips.

“Cranker,” Habraum snarled contemptuously, tossing him aside like trash. These vile thugs deserved worse for what they did.
Not my job anymore.
A siren’s call caught the Cerc’s ear, meaning Conuropolis MetroPol was in route. He eyed his wrist chronometer, also a comm device. Pressing on the chronometer’s transmitter button connected him with Sam’s comm device. “Sammie? You there?”

When only silence answered, Habraum’s paranoia rushed to the surface. He almost called again when Sam responded. “Flyboy…Jeremy’s okay.”

Habraum almost thanked the Holy Gemini at that news, until he caught the strain in Sam’s voice. “Where are you?” he frowned. The MetroPol siren rang closer now.

“We’re in the…Garden Sector. Wait…how’d you get…past—?”

“Be right there,” Habraum whirled and ran, sprinting across the zoo walkways. His chronometer also allowed him to track whoever he spoke with on it. Dashing through the zoo, he saw sentients huddled together. Most were shaken up but unharmed. His heart racing faster than his feet, Habraum was almost upon Sam and Jeremy’s location—just beyond a thick wall of greenery and tangled branches. He broke through the shrubbery mesh and skidded to a halt in a grassy clearing. White curls of smoke lazily rose to the sky from three Children of Earth corpses sprawled across the ground. In the middle of this scene lay Sam and Jeremy. At a glance, Jeremy looked okay. A world of worry lifted from Habraum’s heart. But Sam was kneeling, her face wrinkled up in pain. With one arm, she clung to Jeremy and tightly gripped the right side of her lower back with the other. “Jeremy,” he breathed in relief, dropping to one knee and scooping up his son tightly.

“Daddy, I knew you’d come,” the child cried, the terror on his face clear as day. Aside from that, he looked uninjured. Habraum turned to Sam, at first not seeing any injury. But on closer inspection, the Cerc couldn’t miss the slim, shiny spike sticking from Sam’s right side. The sight sent a cold shock through Habraum. Suddenly he was back on that battle-ravaged Beridaas grassland, and the horror of Sam lying near death.
The only other survivor.

Jeremy’s frightened fingers digging into Habraum’s chest jerked him back to the present with urgency. Still holding his son, the Cerc moved closer to examine Sam’s wound. A dark stain was blossoming on her white tee around the silvery spike. “What happened?”

Sam gritted her teeth and brushed back her long hair. “Was trying…to get Jeremy away from the danger when more ass—.” She glanced at Jeremy and corrected herself. “—more Children of Earth goons sprang out of nowhere. They must…must’ve been attacking another part of the zoo.

“I took out two of them, but couldn’t really go full-flame…holding Jeremy. So I got nailed from behind by that guy.” Sam pointed at the Children of Earth agent, twitching and charbroiled, lying closest to them. Jeremy turned to look, but Habraum wouldn’t let him.

“Got him after…the fact.” Her taut smile faded. “Pull it out.”

Habraum stared at her like she had grown a third eye. “Are you skittery, Sammie? I’m no doctor!”

Sam closed her eyes, trying to maintain her composure and utterly failing. “Habraum, I don’t know what…the hell this thing’s laced with! But by the stars dancing in front of my eyes I know it’s something. Plus, its not that deep.” Sam growled, gesturing toward the spike. “
Pull it out
.”

Habraum stared at her for a long moment before finally relenting. “Alright, then. Turn around, Jeremy. And cover your ears.” When the boy did as told, Habraum got a solid grip on the spike.

“On the count of three. One, two—.” Habraum yanked out the spike and a spurt of blood on himself.

In her shock and pain, Sam screamed a choice expletive that made Habraum clamp a hand over her mouth. She slapped it away, clutching at the bleeding gouge in her side. “You said
on three
, you ass!”

Habraum tossed the bloody spike away. “If I actually said three, it woulda hurt more. Now keep pressure on that wound. Your regenocytes should help staunch the bleeding.” Even with the regenerative neuronanocytes in her system, which most Union citizens received at birth, Sam’s continued blood loss concerned Habraum greatly. He slipped out of his shirt, balling it up and put pressure against Sam’s wound. In no time, a dark red wetness saturated the garment. Tattooed on Habraum’s broad left shoulder was the Union AeroFleet roundel; a narrow eight-point star, pitch-black and sprinkled with white dots against an ivory background, all bordered by a wide crimson sphere-shaped outline.

Sam gazed lustfully at Habraum’s strapping torso. “If that’s to help me forget the pain, it’s working.”

“
Stop
it,” Habraum snapped, keeping an arm around Jeremy and the other pressed on Sam’s wound. The amount of blood she was still losing troubled him. “Keep pressure on it while I call—.”

“Don’t worry, I sent an SOS to a Medcenter just before you came.” Sam smiled. Habraum could see her brown eyes clouding over. “So you took on those guys back there without even getting a scratch on you?” she shook her head in amazement. “Talk about not having any field rust.”

“I got an HLHG training suite at the Albion address,” he replied. “I've been known to take her for a spin—.”

“DADDY!” Habraum didn’t even look up. He calmly aimed his fist and shot off a bright crimson blast over his son’s head. A shocked grunt confirmed his aim struck true. He glanced in that direction and saw the prone Children of Earth agent from earlier, now crumpled against a tree. Habraum turned back to Sam, who stared at him. “A spin or two,” he admitted diffidently. “Or three.”

Sam’s shock gave way to a knowing grin. “Just like old times out in the field, no?”

Not if I can help it,
Habraum frowned. Before he could reply, the blinding flash of lights and the familiar medtransport siren flooded their senses.

Jeremy recoiled from the discord, but Habraum held him close. “It’s just MetroPol and the Medcenter Transport, sprout. We’re safe.” The child nodded mutely. He marveled at how well Jeremy was taking all this mayhem. “Can you stand?” Habraum asked Sam, taking a knee.

She grimaced. “I can try.” Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead as she struggled to her feet.

“I’ll help.” He slipped an arm around her waist while holding onto Jeremy, waiting for the medics to reach them. In short order, all three were met by a cadre of metrocops and medimechs, ushered into the red-and-blue medtransport and whisked away to the nearest Medcenter.

The GUPR Bicameral Hall was the epicenter of everything political in the mega city-state of Conuropolis and on Terra Sollus. One look at the nightmarish traffic lanes parked in the surrounding areas and anyone could find the building. But it wasn’t because of its simple yet magnificent design or how the domed top reflected Rhyne’s starlight at all times of the day that made many hold it in such reverence.

Most of the Bicameral Hall’s neighbors were starscrapers, towering over it by several hundred stories, punching through the clouds like blades. The Hall didn’t even reach skyscraper height, so its squatness clearly wasn’t the reason either. What made this edifice so compelling had more to do with the potent decisions that took place within; decisions that could literally shape worlds or tear them apart.

From the outside, any sentient could see the influences from several Union member-races in the Bicameral Hall’s design. The ocean-blue dome roofing the complex, mimicking constantly fluid water, and the streaming fountains around the property were of Galdorian origin. Statues of famous lawmakers from the Union’s past, placed all around the building, came right out of Earth human history. The building’s basic square design, wide but low to the ground, along with the marble-white hue of the walls had Kudoban style written all over them. The most celebrated piece of the Hall’s exterior came from more than one race. The names of each Galactic Union memberworld and dates they joined were all etched into the hexagonal foundation of Bicameral Hall, with plenty of room for future memberworlds.

The Hall’s insides were equally arresting, designed to fit in two separate assembly rooms. The first was for the Union Delegation, much larger but more understated in elegance. The stadium-like setup fit perfectly to situate the hundreds of delegates from each Union memberworld, territory and colony-world. Still, the Delegation Chamber was seen as a cut-rate knockoff of its sister hall—the Senatorial Chambers.

With walls covered in prolific designs from all the memberworlds, this second amphitheater seated the vast body of Union Senators. Three Senators from each of the eighty-seven memberworlds sat in oval-bottomed divans, row after raised row encircling the centermost platform on the floor.

Chouncilor Ari Bogosian sat on the highest chair on that platform, eyeing the sea of Senators before him. The years had peppered his black mane with streaks of grey and creased his face with lines. Being the leader of a star-spanning hyperpower will do that to anyone. Despite this, Bogosian still looked as hale as when he first took the office of Galactic Union Chouncilor six years ago.