Supreme Leader of Anstractor: A Sci-Fantasy Space Adventure (The New Phase Book 3) (14 page)

A
S THE EXCITEMENT on the thwarted Geralos attack died down, Maes Van Senthyn, now inside of the mind of the Phaser, Laern Cobo, stood starving inside of a dark, empty hangar. For a Geralos this was the worst kind of death and despite his typically proud nature, he found himself wallowing in self-pity.

Why had that stupid girl rescued him and forced him to occupy this disgusting body? He thought back on the fight that he’d had with Rafian, and how helpless he’d felt when the warrior countered everything that he threw at him. With the time that he now had, he tried to reason through it. He had been in countless fights, both bare-knuckle and with weapons, yet he had never seen a style like the one Rafian used. The girl, Dott Toga, had shown some skill using that same technique, but he had beaten her, forced her to run, whereas Rafian was on another level.

“The master and his apprentice,” he scoffed out loud, chuckling to himself. “The ancestors were waiting, and then that stupid woman let me live.” He wondered if he were to chew off his tongue if it would be enough to cause him to bleed out. It would hurt like hell, but it would be an excellent way to feel the life pass from this enemy whose body he occupied. As far as he was concerned he was already dead, and this was the ancestor’s gift of allowing him to wreak havoc from the afterlife.

It was midday on the fifth day of his capture when the door cracked open and a new human appeared. When she moved away from the light of the doorway, her silhouette revealed a familiarity that made him wince. This was the same human that had been on
Helysian
, back when he was wearing his disguise and trying to find out about the Phasers and Rafian VCA. She had blocked him when he had a chance to talk with Rafian, which had led to him being revealed on the bridge by two Phasers. 

It wasn’t long after his exposure that he was locked up and left to die—just like he was now—only to barely escape to the planet of Meluvia. Phasers again thwarted the victory that he hoped to gain over Dystalis, Meluvia, and then there was Rafian VCA to finish what his annoying little sister had begun. Now the ancestors had spun the wheel of fate, and the woman he hated the most had entered the room.

She gasped when she saw him and her eyes took on a questioning look. She then fumbled for the power panel and activated the lights. Small hands came up to cover her mouth when she recognized who he was. “Laern, who did this to you?” she asked, her right hand still covering her mouth.

Maes considered the situation quickly and then answered, “One of those damned lizards did this to me. I’ve been screaming for help for days but nobody heard me. I am so hungry and weak.”

Aurora stared at his chains and then looked around once again. “Wait here and let me alert Tayden! If a lizard did this to you then he could still be running around hurting people.” She made to leave but Maes screamed as if in agony.

“Please, cut me down. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

Aurora walked back to him and loosened the chains after lowering him to the ground. “Hold on, Laern, while I get help. I’ll bring back some food for you, and water. Just stay strong and fight to stay alive. I know it hurts but help is coming.” She squeezed through the door and took off running while a satisfied Maes smiled at his success.

He slipped out of the chains and made to move his injured leg, which was swollen from the las-sword’s cut. A shot of pain stopped him in his tracks and he could feel sweat collecting on his cold brow. Something was really bad about the leg, but with the little knowledge he had on Meluvian and human physiology, Maes didn’t really know what was going on and what he would need to do to treat it.

Gritting his teeth, he dragged the leg along and groped until he found the rear of the hangar, which turned out to be unlocked. It took him less than five minutes to hobble his way to the rear of the numerous buildings. By the time he got to the tall grass that bordered the barracks, he was seeing dots and had to fall to his good knee in order to vomit in the grass.

The fever was taking him over and he knew that if he wasn’t treated there would be a chance that his human host would die. Desperately, he dragged himself through the grass till he came to one of the many garbage cans that bordered the city and military grounds. A half-finished leg of fowl was buried among several other colorful forms of foodstuffs. He pulled it out and bit into it, using the juices to moisten his throat and scarfing it down before returning to the can to see what else was there.

The feast lasted for five minutes before he was expelling fluids from every orifice. He didn’t know how long the food was in there, but as a Geralos, he didn’t know the Meluvian’s inability to digest certain human foods. He lost a lot of fluids and his consciousness waned, so he passed out in the grass beside the dumpster for an hour.

When he woke up he could hear the sirens as the Phasers began to look for him. His rescuer must have panicked when she realized that she had helped an enemy. If he could smile at her misfortune he would; she had been such a pain to him back when he was playing the part of her underling on
Helysian
. He imagined that she would be thrown in stasis cuffs and made to spend some time in a cell. The thought pleased him, and he relaxed a bit as he stared up into the sky at the numerous stars and distant planets.

Then the droning of the bikes caught his ears, and then they grew louder and stopped. Maes rolled over to his stomach and pushed his body up to investigate. Bearing down on him was Frank, with his las-sword flashing cruelly beneath the moonlight. Maes turned his head to see Marika coming at him from the other direction and he knew immediately that they were not planning on capturing him.

He waited for Frank to swing his sword, then timed his roll to make it miss while delivering a blow to the outside of his knee. The Phaser went down immediately, and as Marika closed to deliver her cut, he reached for Frank’s sword and rolled once more while cutting her in the abdomen. With no 3B Suit or armor to protect her, Marika screamed in pain and fell to her knees. Maes seized the day and lifted the blade, but thought better of it when he heard more bikes closing in.

Looking around frantically, he hopped back towards the barracks, keeping to the shadows as he tried their doors to see if any of them would give him entry. In the distance he heard screams and angry shouts, and he could feel the time running out on his survival. Finally a hangar door opened up and he pushed his way inside of the small building. Parked in front of him with the spectacular glory of a bird at rest was Constance’s whyte, a fighter ship that Maes recognized.

He counted his blessings and pulled himself up and climbed onto the wing. His breathing was shallow and he could feel his body getting weaker, but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t enjoy the sheer adrenaline of playing the hunted. He had managed to wound two of their best warriors, both using weapons that they didn’t seem comfortable with. The las-sword was a Geralos weapon, and he disliked the fact that the Phasers had adopted it. Cutting the woman the way he did was a cut that he wished he could deliver to them all.

The hunt was getting desperate and he heard more vehicles pulling up. The majority were tending to the wounded while the others paid little attention to the barracks. When they finally found his building they merely glanced at the whyte. None of them bothered to climb it to see if he was in the cockpit or on top of the wing. Maes laughed internally at their sloppy effort, and he wondered why they didn’t bother to put cameras inside of their barracks buildings.

Still, his heart thumped happily as he relished the hunt and after two hours passed without being discovered, the noises died down as they took the search towards the city. Counting down from one hundred in his mind, Maes scrambled to the cockpit, opened the panel beneath the seats, and used his teeth to split a wire that was connected to the security recognition interface.

He waited thirty seconds and then reconnected it before taking his seat. The ship began a new sequence of facial and body recognition in order to tie the controls to him. Had he taken the seat without hacking the interface, the whyte would have shut down temporarily until the true owner took the seat and unlocked it.

Just like Rafian had to learn a variety of alien ships in the Alliance Marine Corps, Maes was made to learn every Alliance fighter ship so that in situations like this he could make an escape. He powered on the thrusters and lifted the whyte off the ground, then he flew it forward until the automatic doors descended, allowing him to fly a few feet out of it. He hit the thrusters and shot out towards the mountains when—

Maes woke up amidst smoke and sirens as hot fire licked at his already throbbing leg and the damaged whyte did its best to try and repair itself. He pulled himself from out of the rubble and tried to limp his way to another building. He didn’t know what had happened; he had been on his way and now he was here. As he looked up at the sky he saw that the moon reflected off of the surface of the Phaser’s shield. He had crashed into that same field on his way out, which was as invisible to him as it was to anyone that would attempt an invasion of the Phaser stronghold.

He cursed his stupidity for not remembering and as he glanced back at the path he had made through the bushes, he saw the red droplets of blood he was leaving. Focusing on the blood had taken his attention off of the path and he didn’t see the big shadow sink into the bushes in front of him. He quickened his pace to gain the gates, and he hoped that the Phasers would avoid the brush just like they avoided it when he’d hid there earlier on.

The gate drew closer, and he quickened his pace, and then in the blink of an eye he was seeing the world upside down. He heard the bones of his spine crack as Vallen Tracker planted him at the end of a suplex. He scrambled to try and right himself but the metal sole of a marine-issued jackboot came crunching down on his face. He tried to grab his leg but the man was too powerful. The boot came down another time and he was unable to do anything.

The men that the world knew as Laern Cobo and Maes Van Senthyn were both sent home to their respective versions of the afterlife with that last stomp. For a Geralos like Maes, that final night of injuring and damaging the Phasers would have been enough to earn him the
il ad ach tchi
. For Laern, a Phaser, his life force would return to the beaches of
Lauche
before moving on to join the oceans of existence where he could return as part of someone else.

Two men, two beliefs, but for Vallen Tracker they were both gone, forever. He had liked Laern, and had watched the young man show true quality on the battlefield. For the Geralos that corrupted his friend, it was all about revenge. The lizard had wounded the love of his life and destroyed the cloner that would have saved his friend Laern.

He continued to stomp until there was nothing recognizable of the bloody body that had run from the wreckage. Phasers came around him, many crying for Marika’s fate, and others angry at the violation. Constance ITO ran over to her disabled ship and walked around it, looking helpless. But Vallen just kept on stomping, uttering the curses of several different nations.

* * *

It took two days in the healing tank and meticulous work to fix the gash in Marika’s stomach. It was a long, painful recovery for the Phaser and she didn’t want to speak to anyone. Despite Val’s multiple attempts to check on her, she denied him coming into the room—patients were allowed to control the room door—and only the androids knew how well she was doing.

Her mind was on Laern, and how he had gotten to her so easily. As an assassin she had been notorious, an unstoppable, invisible force with a track record that many of her competitors would give an arm to match. She had scars but there was no record of how she’d gotten them. Numerous marks, both powerful and weak, had fallen victim to her guns and knives.

She was not a woman anyone could hurt easily, yet a corrupted Laern had cut her in the abdomen. The gash would have caused a human to spill her intestines and die, but she was Casanian and her anatomy was slightly different. The cut was still near-lethal, and she had stopped moving in order to hold her insides in. Frank had fared better than she did, his wound being a torn ligament in his knee.

The Geralos impressed her; he had managed to put her out of commission and she lay there thinking about it.

After another day passed she decided that she needed Val, so when he came knocking she opened the door. She saw him in the entrance and noticed that there were many others behind him. Val crossed the room and she triggered the lock on the door. His face was lined with worry and his muscles seemed to bulge more than they normally did. “Let me look at you,” he whispered as he came up to the bed. He pulled up a chair and laid his head on her chest.

The touch of her lover relaxed Marika, and for the first time she allowed herself to feel loved. He sat up and kissed her forehead, then kissed her lips as she reached up to hug him tightly. “Where’s that
cruta
?” she whispered into his ear, and he pulled back to make a breaking gesture with his hands. “Who did him? Was it you? Tell me that you did it, Val. It’s the only thing that I can accept.”

“Of course it was me. He hurt my girl,” Val said, but the standard bravado was absent from his voice. This let Marika know that he was suffering, and she reached up to touch the outline of his jaw.

“You beautiful human,” she whispered to him. “I don’t know what you see in me but I’m grateful.” Val made to object but she shook her head and then looked past him towards the door. “I’m vulnerable, can you believe it? It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way. The lizard’s las-sword made me realize that I’m starting to slip.” She tried to laugh but it was painful, so she exhaled slowly and glanced at Val. “Any news from Raf?”