Supreme Leader of Anstractor: A Sci-Fantasy Space Adventure (The New Phase Book 3) (22 page)

He stumbled over to the screen and looked at the readout. Tayden Lark was in recovery along with Frank, and Dott Toga, Marika Tsuno, and Val Tracker were in a stasis tank, recovering. He scrolled down further and the screen froze and scrolled up automatically. The entry of Laern Cobo appeared above the rest. “Welcome back, Phaser,” he whispered through dry, chapped lips.

T
HE LEADERS of Zallus city held a memorial party to honor the fallen of the Crak-Ti attack on their city. Val Tracker was awarded the Hero’s badge but he was too injured to receive it. By the strong suggestion of Marian VCA, a large memorial building was generated in honor of the dead. The construction program used blueprints from old Vestalia, and within a week the machines had it all built, towering above everything else.

This was where the party commenced and the citizens were getting drunk and dancing while the friends and family of the deceased went up to a podium to tell lighthearted stories. Periodically someone would break down but they would be consoled and given a drink. To onlookers it would not seem to be a memorial but the largest party of the year. But this was Vestalian tradition, borne from decades of tragedy.

Rafian sat with his wife at a table near the rear of the memorial in a special designated area. Unlike the citizens, he wasn't drinking, but Marian was sipping on tea. “You okay?” she asked and reached over and squeezed his hand.

“Actually, Rhee, no. We got our butts kicked and I can't help but blame myself for it.”

“Well you shouldn't. What could you do? You were teleported to another planet. This was just an unfortunate turn. We knew the risks when we settled here.”

He looked over at her, then raised her hand and kissed it. “Listen, things are going to be even more tragic in the next few months of the war. I spoke to the council and asked the leaders to return to their planets to fight the Geralos there.”

Marian suddenly seemed confused and said, “What about Geral?”

“I am going to destroy it. I am going to commit the most important and immoral act that a living being can commit in his lifetime. There will be questions afterwards as to whether I am a good person or a dangerous tyrant with too much power. They will question your being with me, and they will try to blame your Tyheran race. We, the Phasers, will need to disappear, disassociate ourselves with the Alliance.”

“You are our leader, Rafian. We go with you no matter what. You look so tired and worn through, my love. I think that you're carrying a needless weight over this.”

Rafian nodded and forced a smile on his face, then kissed her hand again. “War and rage have been my reality for so many weeks leading up to this,” he said. “I've missed you and now I don't have any real time to spend with you. I have to see about our cloned and wounded, then meet with Val’s commander to explain why he's in critical condition.” He sighed. “It's just going to be a lot and I have to do it.”

“So do it,” Marian said. “You don't have to explain the responsibilities of your office to me. I will just cherish the time I have with you and we will make it work.”

Rafian examined the veins that lined the top of Marian’s hands and traced them with his forefinger playfully. The veins were a telltale sign of the strength that Marian had.
She is wanted on her home world for killing a tyrant
, he thought.
Of course she understands my plight
.

“Hey, Rhee, listen. There will be a time when we can truly take a break. The lizards will be running and the Alliance will finally be able to take the reins. When it happens I want us to ditch our comms and vanish into the Vestalian countryside. I want to relax and learn to be a good husband to you. To regain the type of connection we had when we were in Luca.”

Marian quickly sipped her tea and removed her hand from his to grab a napkin and dab her eyes. “I would like that, Raf, but it isn't necessary. After losing you for so long, I am just glad that you're back. We all fought bravely; you would be proud. That Geralos, man, he was the stuff of nightmares. He fought four of us at the same time and we couldn't get any advantage. I was sure that I was going to die once I saw Dott and Frank go down.”

“He was the leader of the Crak-Ti. You were fighting THE Geralos. I'm sure he thought that his skills would allow him to walk in and take the city. Val didn't need a sword to squeeze the pulp out of him, though.”

“When Val recovers I don't know what I will do, but he's going to understand how much we appreciate his service,” Marian said.

They continued to watch the drunken people dance as fireworks began to burst. The sun was setting and four Phasers flew patterns in the sky. It was a beautiful scene for such a tragic occasion, but they wanted to believe that the dead were appreciative of it.

* * *

The next day Rafian went back to the agency to check on his wounded friends. He touched the panel on the door and stepped inside slowly. The bed in the center of the room showed the impressions of someone having been in it but there was no one in sight. He looked around and checked the readouts, and it indicated that someone had been there an hour before.

He exited and crossed to the larger room that held the healing tanks and pods meant for cloning, steeling himself for what he would see there.

The door slid open to a cold, misty atmosphere which was a result of the condensation of the tanks mixing with the heat generated from the pods. There was a figure standing in front of one of the glasses and he walked up to it until the features of Marika Tsuno stood out to him. She was checking in on Vallen, who floated peacefully in the blue-tinted waters of the tank.

When she saw Rafian, she walked up to him and embraced him warmly, burying her head against his chest. He held her close and kissed her bald, spotted head, and then he held her for a time. When they separated she took his hand and led him outside.

“Why him, Rafian?” she asked suddenly. “This was our fight and he almost got himself killed fighting off the lizards.”

“I don't know many people in the two galaxies who can fight like Val. That lizard ran into the wrong man when he threatened your safety. I've fought with Val, and I'd like to think I know his motivations. This thing he did… he did it for you, Rika. He loves the hell out of you.”

“I know,” she said quietly and looked down at her feet. “I don’t deserve that sort of love from anyone.”

“Nonsense. Don’t start with that. We’re your family, and I won’t allow you to go to that place where you think that you’re the lone assassin again. I was lost in a desert with no way out and you know what? I was worried about you. ‘Where’s Rika?’ I asked myself. ‘We haven’t talked in a while.’ Then you have Val, who talks about you so much that I fight to not roll my eyes. And Marian. What about her?’” He looked down at her to gauge her response.

Marika flashed him a glance, her large black eyes bulging out, and he shrugged and nodded in defeat. “Yeah, I know, Rika, I know about you two. I’ve known for a really long time. The thing is, you and I, we’re the same person. It’s just that the creators made me a lot more handsome.”

Marika feigned a snicker but didn’t look up at him and he placed his forefinger under her chin. Lifting her face gently, he saw that she was crying and he hugged her closely, massaging the back of her neck. “I want you to say it,” he said finally and she leaned back to look up at him curiously.

“You want me to say what?”

“That you deserve his love. That you deserve the love of all of us who care about you. Marian, me, Vallen, Camille … everyone you’ve hugged, kissed, and shared blood with on the battlefield.”

“Raf, this is stupid,” she began but he held up his hand.

“It’s important and I want you to say it.”

“I deserve Val’s love, and I deserve yours, Marian’s, Camille’s and whoever else.”

“See, not so hard,” Rafian said, then looked at Val’s glass before looking away. “He’ll be fine. He always lands on his feet,” he said as if he was trying to convince himself. “How’s your stomach?”

“Pain is on and off. I want to get back out there and crack some lizard skulls.”

“Get better first. Don't overdo it,” he said and then stood up to leave. He went back into the room to look at the tank where Dott Toga was healing. He placed his hand on the glass and felt the coolness as he watched the woman's body floating in stasis. Her wounds were bad but she was healing rapidly from the tank’s chemical properties.

“I'll see you in a week, kid,” he said to her and then tapped the glass gently with his fist. “I wish we had one hundred like you. We’d win the war. But since we only have one, get better so that I can teach you some more skills with the sword.” He stared at her to see if there was any sign of comprehension, but her body was in stasis and too far gone to hear.

So many injured and so many cloned. It was a day that he never had imagined he would experience on Zallus. He thought about how much worse it would have been if Marian had gotten hurt. He thanked fate that she had been spared the terrible trauma that her fellow Phasers had suffered.

Why did he think that they could survive it alone? Why did he stay on Geral for so long even after he was given the means to return home? He thought about these things for a long time and no matter what he did to justify his actions he still could not shake the guilt. He could have come back, fought, then left again to return to Geral, but he stayed and let his people get butchered.

His comm lit up and Marian’s face hovered before him. “Come to the command center. I want to show you something,” she said.

“If it’s bad news I want it to wait,” he replied with a grimace.

“If it was bad news I would have told you, Commander,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

Rafian nodded and made his way up to the passageway that held the door to the command center. He passed by a few recruits who literally did a double-take when they saw him. There had been no formal message to the agency that he was back, and many of them had never seen him up close before. It was a tall, dark, brooding version of himself that they saw walking briskly past them, so they did their best to get out of his way.

When he entered the command center, Marian was looking over the Vestalian globe, examining a few vessels and typing in her notes. “Do you know that there are
Helysian
marines surveying our country?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m the one that requested them here. You will see
Aqnaqak
fighters and a few dropships, as well.”

“Why? What are they up to?”

“They’re the head of the spear. The attacks on Geral were a distraction to soften up their cover here on Vestalia. In a few days those cruisers will be sending in their troops. Others will begin the bombing of lizard compounds, and the fighters will be shooting down the atmosphere-generating towers. I had hoped to ask Val to march his warriors on the Geralos camp near here, but we will have to stall that plan until he’s back on his feet.”

Marian switched off the hologram and powered down the console, leaving the room in relative darkness except for the control panels. “You’ve been busy, it seems,” she said to him and slid towards him on long, graceful legs. He touched the small of her back and pulled her in. His left hand tangled in her thick, black, mane as he suckled her lower lip. “You haven’t kissed me in two days. Not the way I want to be kissed, at least,” she whispered.

“Everything’s tragic. Makes it hard to see beauty, let alone the woman that I had to get back to.”

She threw off her cloak and wriggled out of her 3B suit. It happened so fast that he was stunned and only went for his own belt when she was fully nude. “Door’s not locked. Anyone could come down here,” he said to her as she helped him out of his 3B suit.

“Everyone who comes down here is in the cloner or floating in a tank. I haven’t felt you in months, and I want you now. That is all that matters.”

He cupped her buttocks and lifted her into his arms, biting into her neck firmly but not strong enough to break the flesh. She in turn hugged him and he could feel her nails digging into his back. He tried to talk but his voice caught as they united for the first time since the week of his disappearance. It was angel heaven and devil hell wrapped in a vortex of guilt, pleasure, and pain.

This was Marian, the woman he would be with for an eternity. A Felitian debutant turned Phaser Ace who was the only Tyheran in his galaxy. Her glittering eyes excited him. He had dreamed of this for so long on Traxis. Unlike Jinay, this wasn’t just lust. This was everything he needed with the person he cared for the most.

It made his head spin and his heart race and it didn’t feel like enough. He wanted to bite into her and consume her like a Geralos would. He wanted to make her a part of him, to become what he felt in his lower half and absorb every single inch of this creature that was Marian VCA. For this he felt more than the urge to make up for lost time. He wanted to make up for all the times that he wasn’t with her, but the most he could do was love her.

They did it the Tyheran way: kisses, bites, and scratches. She cried tears of happiness at one point and he tried to force back his. Their spinning, thrusting, and moving put them on the console, triggering the map on and off several times, and by the time they had consummated their violent joining it looked as if a bomb had detonated inside of the room.

They lay on the cold floor with him staring up at the ceiling and her still straddling him, her knees on the floor. She lay with her head on his chest and rested her hands on his massive shoulders. He raised his right hand from off the floor and used it to stroke her hair. “This brings me back to Veece,” he said quietly, and she laughed hard, causing her chest to heave against his.