Supreme Leader of Anstractor: A Sci-Fantasy Space Adventure (The New Phase Book 3) (7 page)

Next Rafian was taken back to his youth, where he was digging inside of a garbage can, looking for anything edible—but not too rotten—to still the pain inside his belly from the hunger. Time seemed to rewind, showing him on board a transport ship. He was in the arms of a beautiful, dead woman, being pulled away while a number of other people wept and covered their mouths. This scene rewound, and the beautiful woman was running for her life. She was very pregnant, and the ones chasing her were Geralos.

Rafian made to protest but was muted again as the scene changed to him onboard a psyche ship looking madder than a snake with a back itch. He shoved open a door and saw Camille on a bed with wires everywhere. The tough woman was crying, her torture too much for her to maintain her composure. Again the cause was the Geralos, but this scene had only been a year ago so Rafian remembered it quite vividly.

The Makers took him through a sordid history of atrocities by the Geralos, and showed him a touching scene where a child defended one of them from her murdering father. The Geralos feigned gratitude, but bit into her head and sucked at her brain only minutes after killing her father.

When it was all finished his true vision returned and he was back floating above Vestalia. He could see the other planets and the blazing sun, and he could make out Alliance battleships blasting away at their Geralos counterparts.

“Do you remember now, Rafian? Do you remember what they are and what you must do?” the thought pulsed, and Rafian closed his eyes and nodded.

“No mercy, I know. I get it. No mercy for the Geralos. I will wipe them out and terraform their planet for the Alliance,” he said. The Makers grew quiet and as Rafian drifted through space, looking at the clear picture of Anstractor laid out in front of him like a holographic image, he focused his eyes on Vestalia. He remembered the explosion and what his goal was before appearing here. “What about us?” he asked suddenly. “What about the Phasers? When the Geralos are destroyed, and the galaxy saved from their terror, what will become of us? Will you take away the crystals, and will you destroy us in order to keep the secrets?”

A sharp pain pulsed through his head and he couldn’t help but feel that it was done to punish him somehow. He regretted the question, but the thought of his friends going the way of the Geralos did not sit well with him, no matter how much he pushed it to the side.

The thoughts that were like voices pushed through his head again and this time they were impatient and harsh. “If it is sight that you’re asking for, Rafian VCA, you are a seeker; you do not need us to see. We have stated our concern, and you have given us your word. Remember your promise, and earn the privilege that we have given you.”

A light emerged from the back of Rafian’s vision and pushed it self painfully to the forefront where he could see nothing but white. It stood like this for minutes, and without the ability to move or speak, he felt trapped inside of his own body. He focused his mind on the Geralos and let the panic pass. There was no point in letting his mind go along with his body, so he kept it steady and made mental plans for the future.

After a long time had passed and Rafian’s patience was at its end, he found that the white was dissipating and he was standing in front of the looming black crystal that was inside of his Phaser agency back on Zallus.
Was I standing here this entire time?
he wondered, frightened at the implications of his mind if the Neeraki Sentients had not been there and that it had been his subconscious instead, scolding him about the Geralos.

He could hear nothing inside of the agency halls, and though a part of him wanted to open the door, walk outside, and find his comrades, he just stood where he was, staring at the crystal. Without thinking better of it he walked forward and placed his hands on the cold surface of the black, translucent gem. A light appeared in the core of the crystal, seeming to react with his touch. He kept his hands where they were, and as he did this, he felt his body falling forward, into the crystal and into nothingness.

In this nothingness was a myriad of colors, flying about like rainbow-tinted fireflies, each on their own mission that had nothing to do with him. He fell through this muted whiteness and then froze. In front of him was a collection of dust. The dust seemed to be held together by some sort of magnetic, or gravitational pull, making it look like a distorted orb, though he could look in and see different shaped dust particles: some big, some small, some on fire. This latter observation made him peer even closer, and as he studied it he slowly began to realize that this wasn’t dust at all; this was a tiny replica of the galaxy of Anstractor.

There were many galaxies floating in front of him. He recognized Luca with its numerous suns and twelve planets. There were several others, some comprised of just one planet and one sun. Rafian was fascinated by all of what he was seeing and wished that they were labeled. He wanted to learn all the names of the galaxies, but as he looked up from the one he was observing and took in the entire space, there seemed to be an endless collection of them, impossible for him to know them all.

He watched their movements as they went along. They all seemed to spiral around one another like an endless vortex, pushing on into infinity, breeding life, death, and whatever came along with it. Good people like Aurora SYN, beautiful people like his wife Marian, evil people like the Geralos, and heroes like Yuth Varience and Hellgate to push back against them.

Life seemed less important to Rafian as he saw this, and it drove home the insignificance of humanity in the grand scheme of things. So much life, so much beauty, yet they were forced to learn and know war. The art of death took precedence over everything in their world, and they didn’t even make up 1% of life in the universe.

“Surprised?” a voice intoned, but this time it didn’t come from telepathy. “As Phasers your responsibilities must extend past the Geralos once they have been destroyed, Supreme Leader.  The crystals belong to Anstractor but the power of the crystals belong to the universe. Like Luca and Anstractor, there must be a force to keep things moving along in the way they always have.”

It was as he feared. No end would come to his Phasers and their charge. This meant that he and the Aces would go on living for years; a few hundred years, perhaps, or even longer. They would be required to jump to different galaxies. It seemed absurd, but now they would be in charge of policing the universe. The voice didn’t say that he had to comply but he knew deep down that it was what he was chosen for.

“The Geralos are a mere speed bump on this highway of fate,” he said out loud before losing consciousness and the connection to his masters.

“C
OMMANDER, the Geralos destroyer,
Faizon
, and the battleship,
Huythen
, have just jumped from their locations,” a curly-haired brunette announced to her commander as she spun around in her chair to face him. The uniforms of the battleship
Rendron
were fitted, long-sleeved jackets, with berets and helmets, all in a dark-maroon color. The rest of the uniform consisted of black pants, shoes, and gloves, and like every other officer on the bridge, Phimanila Dawn looked flawless in her uniform.

The captain of the
Rendron
was an old, hardened veteran of the galactic war whose name was better known than the invincible ship he captained. Cilas “Rend” MEC had been killing Geralos since his teenage years, when he was friends with Helga “Hellgate” ATE. Now he was on the eve of humanity’s greatest moment as they placed the lizards under siege and took the fight back to them.

“Thank you, Miss Dawn,” Rend replied gruffly. He nodded to his executive officer, who raised a shiny black microphone to her lips. “To battle stations, everyone!” the officer shouted, her voice sounding oddly soothing despite her beyond serious tone.

The ship took on a spirit of movement as the soldier scrambled. Infantry men and women jumped into the seats of gun batteries, and the fighter pilots took to racing one another to the dock to climb inside of their sleek, silver ships.

Rend removed his maroon jacket and replaced it with a black one, then took his seat, facing the main display screen of the bridge. When he was seated and calmly sipping the coffee that his assistant had brought him, he looked over his arm at his navigator, waiting to see what she would say.

“It’s
Huythen
, Commander, on our starboard side. It just appeared at five hundred hops!” she shouted.

“Okay, Phimanila,” he said calmly,” bring us alongside that bastard, and let’s bring ‘er down.”

Nodding to the tall, raven-haired statue of an officer who held the microphone up in her hands, Phimanila touched a button and whispered something to the engineers.

“
RENDRON
SHIELDS ARE FULL AND WEAPONS ARE ARMED!” a shrill voice screamed over the loudspeakers. Rend looked up at Constance, his executive officer, and gave her a confident smile. She tried to return the gesture as best she could. Her expression forced the old man to laugh, as her face took on the mask of someone who had smelled something foul.

“As you know Connie,
Huythen
is one of the Geralos’ big boys. This will be a grand day if we can crack her defenses and send her running to deep space with her tail tucked between her legs,” he said to her in a voice so soft that only she could hear it above the noise.

“Let’s crack her then, Captain,” Constance said mechanically and Rend could tell that she was frightened. He couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t stared down death over a hundred times like he had, and with Geralos ships jumping in to save the planet she probably felt like a fish out of water in a room full of cats.

“Trust your captain, young Connie. This isn’t my first dance, let alone my fiftieth. I know lizard like I know my own—” He froze, smiling, realizing that if he finished the statement he would be defying his own rule of professionalism on the ship. “Just pay attention, Major,” he said before gulping down the last of his coffee.

The lights on the ship’s bridge dimmed to the point of darkness, and the front of the bridge took on a transparent effect that made it look as if the officers were standing and sitting in space. This disconcerting effect was one of the secrets that the
Rendron
held, and it allowed the warship a better insight into what was going on around it.

Connie hardened her features as the ugly, organic-looking hull of the
Huythen
loomed close. They were moving towards it now, the bow of the
Rendron
facing what could be considered its belly, and from what she was seeing, the Geralos were either allowing them to get in close or priming their weapons to unleash something nasty. She glanced over at Rend, who was still calmly observing the ship, and she moved to say something but bit her tongue at the last minute.

“Trace the hull for fifteen minutes and deploy our fighters immediately,” Rend commanded.

A Meluvian man slid his hand up on a screen and placed an icon into another before touching a few numbers while indicating points on a diagram of the enemy ship. The
Rendron
shook and a long, bright, yellow light shot out from somewhere below them and began to move across the bottom of the
Huythen
. This was a trace laser, a weapon that would split anything if there was no shield to protect it.

The laser shot a prism of colors off the ship’s shields when it touched it, and it gave the
Huythen
the look of glass as it repelled the deadly light. As soon as the laser touched, the Geralos began to fire kinetic missile shots back at them. The Geralos had learned ages ago that the Alliance’s shield technology was built specifically for light weapons. Kinetic payload always made short work of Vestalian cruisers, and since
Rendron
was one of the original motherships built by human hands, it would be vulnerable to nuclear missile strikes.

“Evasive maneuvers, take us away from those missile bays, Miss Dawn. Eject our trash, launch our disabled cargo! I want the space around this beast dotted with so much debris that the Geralos have nothing to aim those bombs at,” Rend commanded.

“Dawn!” Connie screamed, and Phimanila shot her annoyed glance. “How many missiles do you estimate are on that ship?” she asked.

Phimanila looked at a slender man pouring over one of the screens and he looked back at her after feeling her eyes. He seemed to have been gone out of their reality mentally and it was taking a few long seconds for the questions and situation to register inside of his head.

“Colin, that is your area. Answer the XO!” Phimanila screamed at him, and he spun around to face Connie and stammered out, “O-over two-two hundred missiles if we’re lucky, ma-ma’am!”

Connie gave him a nod and then looked over at Phimanila distastefully. “The next time I ask YOU a question, Lieutenant, you answer me. Do you understand?” she asked. Phimanila replied affirmatively and gave her a salute so hard that it almost looked as if she were trying to punch the life out of her own chest.

Trash, old ships, cargo, whatever was unnecessary on the
Rendron
was ejected, and the missiles began to find them instead of the shields to expel their payload onto. While this was going on, the pilots drifted the big ship around to the port side of the
Huythen
, where more junk was deployed to distract the missiles of the Geralos ship.

After two hours of this the Geralos gave up on the missiles and switched to lasers, mincing up the debris like tissue paper before a roaring fire. Lights of white, yellow, and cyan crisscrossed between the ships as they tried to wear each other’s shields down. Then Rend looked over to Constance ITO and made a motion with his hand that emulated the flight pattern of a ship.

Multiple vessels exploded from the side of the ship like confetti, and simultaneously the
Rendron
ejected its own fleet of fighters to combat them. Several of these fighters were shot immediately but the rest flew like aces, and a blossoming of lasers erupted from the numerous dog fights. The hull became translucent, then solid again, and Rend got up and walked to the big screen in front of him.

“I want you to prime a void projectile, Mister ABA and launch it as soon as it is ready!” Rend barked into the air.

Mayvon ABA was the head of the engineering team on
Rendron
, and as soon as he heard his captain, he hustled the men and women who were standing around to rack a vacuum bomb and prime it. They moved like a well-oiled machine, coaxing the droids to lift the payload into the arming device, and then to carefully walk it over to the loading shaft.  Within five minutes it was ready, and the crew got back to their stations, eager to take on the next challenge.

The appropriate commands were made and the missile flew out into space at an insane velocity, narrowly missing a barreling Geralos fighter before catching the shielded stern of
Huythen
and detonating. A circular ripple of suction formed where the collision had occurred, and the shields on the Huythen struggled to stay relevant as the trace laser took advantage of the brief malfunction. A deep gash was cut into the center of the ship, and fires began to erupt on the inside.

“Got you, you
cruta
,” Rend mumbled. “Any captain dumb enough to sit idly while the
Rendron
bears down on him is a fool, and you’re going to lose that beauty today. All because of your foolish Geralos pride.” He raised his voice. “Break our fighters off of those mosquito ships and put all fire on the
Huythen’s
shields!”

“But they will be open to enemy fire,” Connie pleaded, too quickly to contain herself, and Rend shot her a look of impatience that made her stand at attention and shut up.

The fighters did as they were commanded and while a number of them were torn apart by the Geralos zip ships, the
Huythen
’s shields were decimated and the
Rendron’s
trace laser continued to cut into its hull.

“They’ve fired up the engines!” Phimanila announced, and then glanced at Rend to see if he was happy.

“Put another void on that’s bird’s aft feathers. I don’t want her fleeing; I want her stalled and ready for boarding as soon as possible. Put some damn fire on that bird!” the old captain commanded, and as they had been doing for over thirty years of his life, the crew of the
Rendron
complied.

The next void missile sucked in a sizable chunk of the
Huythen
’s thrusters and destroyed the FTL drive along with any poor soul that worked in its engineering wing. Escape pods began to deploy, and the zip ships broke off to make their way back to Geral in order to escape capture.

The
Huythen
stood sparking, a lifeless, pathetic shadow of its former glory, and Cilas “Rend” MEC turned around and looked at Connie. Their eyes met briefly and she felt young and foolish. She averted her gaze and saw that Phimanila was regarding her with a look of cynicism that made her want to pull her sidearm and plug her in the chest.

Cruta
, she thought and then brought her attention back to Rend. He was looking at her, and so was everyone on the bridge. She didn’t realize that they had all heard her question the legend whenever he gave the order to weaken the shield. She glanced again at Phimanila, the Captain’s brat of a favorite apprentice, and she felt her role being questioned in his hard eyes as he regarded her. The stare was only a mere second or two but it felt like an eternity. He was giving her a chance to make it right and she knew it, but what could she do to fix insubordination to Rend MEC?

Connie placed the microphone down on her desk and faced her commander. She then bowed deeply to him until he asked her to stand and retake her command.

“Put traces on that thing and begin the process of transferring their fuel reserves over here,” Rend commanded, and the bridge echoed with words of obedience immediately. If Constance had doubts that the officers on the bridge had noticed her insubordination with the commander, it was made clear by the way they all snapped to their duties. The former air of friendliness despite professionalism had dissipated, and now everyone’s concern was not to further upset Cilas ‘Rend’ MEC.

The commander got up from his seat and walked past Connie without looking at her. She stared at him the entire time, begging him mentally to meet her sorrowful eyes. If he could pick up on her telepathy, he didn’t show it, but as he passed her he paused and said, “Miss ITO, the bridge is yours until my return.” He was gone by the time she recovered in time to acknowledge his command.

When Rend was gone from the bridge, Connie motioned Phimanila over and then walked her into the main elevator shaft and locked the door. The room was soundproof, and since it was really only used for emergencies—when the captain needed to get to engineering in a hurry—Connie knew that they would be left alone. What she had to say was brief, but she didn’t know how Phimanila would react to it.

“Do you think I’m blind or stupid, Phimanila Dawn?” she asked as soon as the slender brunette had crossed the threshold and the door had slammed shut.

Phimanila didn’t answer immediately, but looked at the woman with a bit of pity and a lot of disgust. Constance ITO was a robot by all senses of the word. She only played things by the book, and she had no imagination or answer whenever things didn’t go the way they were ‘supposed to.’ She was also a huge bore, a fact that had become the subject of gossip all over the bridge.

Physically, she got a lot of attention for her looks. She was tan, her eyes were large and dark, and the officer-styled bob that she kept her black hair in complemented her handsome features. Men and women wanted to know more about the mysterious XO, but she was so focused on her ambition—and being the best robot follower of Cilas MEC that she could be—that she avoided her social life, and it was evident, at least to Phimanila. She wondered what she would do if she leaned forward and planted one on her lips. She’d probably swing at her, or fall down in shock and embarrassment. Either way it would be worth it but Phimanila kept her mischief to herself.