Supreme Leader of Anstractor: A Sci-Fantasy Space Adventure (The New Phase Book 3) (2 page)

M
ARIKA TSUNO burst into the hospital room looking around frantically until she found Vallen. He was trying out his legs for two android doctors but froze in place when he saw her. She ran over to him and they embraced, and though he expected her to slap his face, she instead covered it with kisses.

The doctors seemed satisfied with his recovery so they turned around and left the room. When they closed the door, Marika squeezed him tight and then stepped back to examine the big, blonde-haired warrior.  “Where is the
cruta
that did this to you?” she asked, but Vallen merely shrugged and began bouncing around to test his limbs.

“Apparently dead,” he said. “Dott put a bullet in him, right after he tried to cut Frank up. Then Rafian jumped in and finished him off.”

“That must’ve been one badass Geralos to not only get with you, but Laern, Dott, and Frank, too?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. He did not ‘get with me.’ I fell through a sewer hole and messed up my back. Laern was already missing an arm when he fell down there with me. Dott was the one who fought that thing toe-to-toe, like some sort of warrior goddess. Geez, Rika, you should’ve seen her. That Geralos was nothing special, he got handled, just like they all will get handled, eventually,” he said and stopped to look at her with a look of aloof annoyance. “If anything was ‘badass’, it was that Meluvian sewer system.”

“So, how’s Laern?” Marika asked as she ducked a playful hook punch thrown by Vallen and countered with several punches to his abdomen and a roundhouse to his arm.

“Laern’s in bad shape. The kid’s going to be in a tank for a few months. This is why we have to keep this hospital safely away from the Geralos. I’m not sure if you saw the force that’s parked up there in the skies, but we’re about to be invaded.”

“Nothing a ‘little bit’ of firepower can’t help,” she said to him with a smile, and then brandished her trademark cannon with a pose that forced him to give her one of his deep laughs.

“Alright, Red, let me get my gear and get acclimated to whatever the hell is going on,” he said.

“There’s something else, Val,” Marika said, and the way she sounded made him stop what he was doing to stare at her. The banter between the couple was typically laced with jokes but this time Marika Tsuno was serious.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Vallen, I want you to don the red and black,” she pleaded. “I want you to become a Phaser Ace so that we can be together, for real. I was half a world away tracking down a lizard when I heard that you had died. Died, Val, died. Do you know how much effort it took for me not to jump back, say ‘screw the mission,’ and risk everything just to get one last look at you?”

Val sat on a chair and ran his hand through his hair. He had been practically dead if not for the strange alien technology that the Phasers had within the tanks. If he had been on
Helysian
or any other standard military ship, they would not have been able to heal him. He would have died painfully in a hospital bed, or put on life-support long enough for them to debrief him on the new enemy.

He loved a woman who was a Phaser and he trusted her with his life.
Why not join up to be with her, to be useful to the fight for the long-term and to get an edge on the Geralos?
he thought.

Marika saw the doubt on his face, so she walked up to him and placed her hands on his cheeks. “Do you trust me, Vallen?”

“Of course I do. You know I do.”

“Then give Rafian the go ahead to make you into a Phaser.”

* * *

When the Crak-Ti came at the Phasers that protected the park, they attacked the area where there were more marines than Phasers. Having fought against the humans for so many days, they had come to the conclusion that the ones dressed in blue were not as good against the las-sword as the rest. The Phasers fought differently, they were elite, and they moved in ways that were quite mysterious.

Rushing the weakest point would yield access to the civilians and if they could take out the civilians, it would devastate the soldiers. They poured out into the streets like thick black and yellow fluid. The marines saw them coming and began to fire their star guns. It was a violent, bloody answer to the first wave of Crak-Ti.

This was not enough to stop the assault, however, and several of the Geralos began to fire back into them. Some threw las-swords with impressive precision, and others lobbed bombs that mostly ricocheted off of the force field. But the field could not stop the las-sword’s slower velocity, and many marines went down from the hot-edged blades. It caused enough confusion to make the area vulnerable and the enraged Geralos ran at them again and again, some getting close enough to cut a soldier or two.

“HOLD THE LINE!” Marian yelled, as many of the Phasers left her side and ran over to the marines to help with the breach. Almost immediately, a group of Crak-Ti burst through a building that stood across from Marian’s area. It was what she feared when the Phasers abandoned their post. Now she and a handful of recruits would have to take on several highly-trained Crak-Ti warriors.

She pulled out her las-sword and powered it on, knocking away a sword that was thrown at her from the attackers. “TO ME!” she screamed at the Phasers near her, and several men and women ran over to her with their las-swords and pistols ready.

The rush happened almost instantly and Marian found herself fighting for her life against two large Geralos.
Where the thype is my husband
, she thought as she deflected one blow and slid out of the way of another.  As if in answer to her thoughts, he appeared mid-air above them, falling with his las-sword pointing down. He skewered one of her attackers and decapitated the other.

Rafian had two las-swords working now, using the Mera-Ku technique of constant movement. Spinning and twisting amongst the Crak-Ti, he seemed like a deadly dervish that left death in its wake. This rallied the Phasers and the marines to fight even harder, and even Marian got caught up in the fever as they began to get the upper hand on the Geralos. Before long the force field was down and the park became a melee of flashing swords, gunfire, and screams of pain.

“Commander, we are getting overrun. There are just too many of them!” a marine captain screamed.

“Our lives for the civilians, Captain. Stand strong. The Crak-Ti are only so many,” Rafian said. “Stand with me and empower your marines. Don’t let them see doubt in your eyes.” The woman looked up at him and when their eyes met, she found something in the way he looked at her.

“FOR MELUVIA!” she screamed as she hoisted her rifle into the air. The marines that remained picked up on the scream and echoed their own as they fought back harder. She shoved Rafian’s shoulder with a bloody grin and he nodded solemnly before turning his attention back to the chaos.

As he made to run to fall into the Geralos, his comm lit up with the face of Yuth Varience. He hadn’t heard from Yuth since they rallied the Phasers into Meluvia and he didn’t know how long ago that was. Yuth seemed surprised when he answered, and let out a little laugh, as if he was relieved that Rafian was still alive.

“Supreme Leader!” he shouted.

“Yuth!” Rafian replied. “Where are you, brother? We need your superior las-sword skills.”

“I am above you, and I can see that you don’t have time for a full report. Listen, Commander, I need you to jump all of our people out and as many civilians as you can. I can’t even explain what I am about to do, but you need to move, as fast as a Phaser.”

Rafian tried to guess at what Yuth was planning but the only thing he had time for was trust.
Was he going to call in an airstrike to level Dystalis, or had he planted a bomb in the city somewhere?
It didn’t matter. Yuth was an ace, so he called Marian over to tell her the plan.

“We need to drop crystals and get everyone out. Most of the soldiers know nothing of the crystals, so prepare for resistance from them and the civilians,” he said to her.

“Sounds like we’re about to level the city,” she said and turned away, motioning for the soldiers to come around for a quick meeting. The Phasers dropped crystals to open teleportation portals, which caused the civilians to react negatively. They assumed that it was a Crak-Ti weapon that was causing the Phasers to vanish, but Marian did her best to explain.

The Crak-Ti began to see the humans blinking out of the fight into nowhere. The sight of it was shocking and amazing, but as they saw them leaving they rushed at the few remaining ones, cutting into them as quickly as possible without care for their own lives. This left them open to the likes of Rafian and Marian, who had made sure they would be the last to teleport out.

They countered the Crak-Ti, moving in tandem, cutting into them as they showcased the skills of the Phaser agency. Their ploy worked and the remaining Crak-Ti rushed at them in the center of the park. As their enemies crowded in, Rafian grabbed Marian and dropped a new crystal to vanish and appear on the roof of a skyscraper overlooking the park.

The sky began to show sparks as a large portal opened up and what appeared to be a YV-900 assault ship emerged from it to hover for just a moment. Marian and Rafian turned to one another with smiles on their faces and, as they simultaneously uttered the name “Yuth,” the ship turned on its thrusters and flew down towards the ground at tremendous speed.

When the ship hit the park, the explosion was deafening. Every Crak-Ti was killed immediately, along with any civilian that had refused to use a portal. The fire and dust from the crash ripped through the streets like an all-consuming snake, hungry for the lives of any living creature it could find.

“I waited, and waited, and waited, Commander. I saw no other choice for the Phasers to make,” Yuth said as he appeared next to them on the building and looked down at his handiwork.

“As long as we make it worth it, Yuth,” Rafian said. “For the innocents that lost their life in that crash.” He walked to the edge of the building to look down on the smoke, as well. “That maneuver. I have always wondered if it was possible. I imagined dropping an entire starship on Geral. Tearing a hole into their planet, and letting the fires just burn the entire thing black. I wonder, would it lead to people celebrating the Phasers as saviors of the galaxy, or would it give us a reputation as being as ruthless as the Geralos?”

Yuth spoke. “Commander, I know that it was too much, but consid—”

“I don’t want your apology, Yuth. What you did was brilliant and necessary. What I want us to do, as leaders of this organization, is to consider what will happen once the dust starts to clear.”

“What do you mean, Raf?” Marian asked, coming up next to them to observe the destruction.

“I mean that the age of the Geralos will come to an end. We have made ourselves into the necessary weapon to cause their destruction, but in the aftermath, where do we stand for Anstactor? A weapon is sheathed, but kept around during times of peace to be at the ready when needed. When it’s peace time, we put them away in tight, secure places. We don’t want children getting to them and we don’t want them used to settle petty squabbles. A weapon is only useful for combat. Do you hear what I am saying?”

“Speak clearly, brother,” Yuth said. “I am a Louine, after all. The basic language can be confusing when used metaphorically in the way you do now. I want to be sure that you are not upset with me and that we are going to do something about Zallus.”

“Marian’s first language is not ours, either, so I fully understand, my friend,” Rafian said. “Tayden, Frank, and Camille need to hear this too, but I speak now out of concern for what we did today. The more people see us, the more they know about us, and the more they will try to analyze us. The more we jump in clear view, send ships into an atmosphere to wipe out the enemy, and display our superior fighting technique, the more people will begin to wonder, ‘should we be worried about them?’”

“I want to show you something, Yuth,” Rafian said, turning to look at his blue friend. He opened his palms to show that he held no crystals. And as Yuth made to look him over, he jumped from the edge, avoiding the Louine’s quick attempt to catch him. As Rafian plummeted to his death he vanished and appeared on the rooftop next to Yuth.

“You are able to jump without the crystals?” Yuth asked with a confused look on his face.

“I figured this out when I was away with Marian on her home planet. Come close to me and look at my eyes,” Rafian said.

Yuth walked over and examined Raf’s pupils, which looked just as strange and mysterious as Marian’s. Rafian had become something beyond human, and it caused Yuth to take out a mirror and look at his own eyes to see if he, too, was changing.

“What is happening to us, Raf?” he asked suddenly.

“The price of our immense power, Yuth. As we play around with the crystals, jumping, cloning, teleporting, they are slowly changing our physiology. I don’t know if the change is dangerous, or what it means for us in the long run, but the crystals have started to become a part of us, which is why I am able to jump short distances without their use.

“Yuth, Rhee, we need to slow down. I don’t want the Geralos war ending with our own people hating and distrusting us just because we possess this power. We are meant to be a secret, used only when necessary – just like an extremely deadly weapon. Everyone here that survived this battle has seen what we can do.”