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“Welcome back to Ur Nightly News. I’m your host, Sylva Greene. Our top story tonight continues to be the string of terrorist bombings that has left the city in the grip of fear. Last night marks the third straight night of attacks and one can only wonder whether tonight will continue that pattern. The bombings have claimed a hundred and six lives to date, with over a thousand injured. Two hundred thirteen of those remain hospitalized, eighty-seven in critical condition.
“Meanwhile, frustration at local police continues to mount as the search for a suspect—or suspects—continues. Though no one has come forward to claim responsibility, certain members of the Executive Council have hinted at evidence linking the attacks to the criminal syndicate known as KAI-OS. If true, this would mark a major shift for a group that has traditionally operated behind the scenes. Led by the elusive Four Kings, chieftains who helm the disparate factions within the group, KAI-OS has risen to become one of the leading criminal organizations in the galaxy. Their activities range from illegal arms dealing to the extortion and bribery of public officials.
“To discuss the recent bombings and their connection to KAI-OS, tonight I will be talking via satellite to Councilor Kenneth Zardana of the UEC. Councilor?”
“Good evening, Sylva.”
“Sir, it’s an honor to have you on the program. To start with, let’s talk a little bit about KAI-OS. They’re a group that has, historically, preferred to keep a low profile. Now it appears that may be changing. KAI-OS previously made headlines last year when one of the Four Kings, Janth Dyson, was killed during an ARKS raid on the frozen moon of Cryos.”
“That’s right, and we need to consider taking that same proactive approach now. No one on the UEC has the desire to turn the ARKS into hired assassins, Sylva. That’s not our goal. Nevertheless, we cannot and will not sit idly by while these thugs and terrorists bomb our city. Something needs to be done, and I for one believe the ARKS are the people to do it.”
“You informed me off the air, Councilor, that you have evidence linking the bombings to KAI-OS. Are you willing the share that evidence with the public?”
“Not at this time, I’m afraid. Doing so could compromise our ongoing investigation, but I assure you—and the public—that the evidence is real and incontrovertible.”
“And what of Janth Dyson’s replacement, a man known only as ‘Mr. Okada’? I understand he has yet to be seen in public. What can you tell us about him?”
“Again, the nature of our investigation prevents me from revealing any details, but what I will say is this: We are going to get to the bottom of this. We will identify the killers responsible for this tragedy, and we
will bring them to justice.”
* * * * * * * * *
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PLANET VOPAR: UNNAMED ISLAND CHAIN
It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.
Asimov was dead. There were pieces of him scattered across the war-torn beach. His decapitated head, lifeless. His body parts, unmoving.
For all their good intentions, Gulf Squad was too late. They’d missed saving him by less than a minute.
”The thing is, decisions are usually simpler than people make them out to be,” he’d once told Akasha.
”They all boil down to three steps: Take a chance, make a choice, and live with the consequences.”
They’d left him behind, and now he was lying dead in the sand.
They’d left him to die. By his order, but even so—
”Live with the consequences.”
It was unbearable. Unimaginable. Things weren’t supposed to happen this way. It should’ve been someone else’s tragedy, not theirs—
Akasha fell to her knees. Her head went blank, her body numb. No words could describe the flood of emotion welling up inside her. This wasn’t like the cold fury she’d nearly lost herself to three months earlier. It was something else, something deeper, a void in the core of her being. An endless abyss of despair.
“…Kasha!...”
Was someone calling out to her? She couldn’t tell, and didn’t care.
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As she despaired, tears streaming silently down her cheeks, her feelings transformed into something else: pure, unmitigated
rage. Her veins were coursing with it. The air around her was crackling with it. The strength of it boiled away her rationality, blinding her to every thought but one: revenge. She would slaughter the Darkers, rip them apart until they were beyond recognition. Whether there were a hundred or a thousand or a million of them, it didn’t matter. She would keep going until they gave in or she did.
Predictably, they didn’t keep her waiting long. A torrent of Darkers poured through the dimensional rift overhead, spreading like a deadly haze against the stormy night sky. Then, all at once, they descended.
Akasha raised both arms in front of her and clenched them into angry fists. Photon energy balls of utter blackness materialized in the air over the Darker horde. Five… ten… twenty of them. Akasha felt them as an extension of herself, willed them to do her bidding. Spears of dark energy lanced out from the hovering globes, impaling the Darkers a dozen at a time. They shrieked and writhed in agony but Akasha spared them no pity. She kept killing and killing until it became a thoughtless gesture, a reflex, the only thing she knew how to do.
And still they kept coming.
As if in response to her fury, the ocean began rolling and churning in agitation. Waves slapped the shoreline with increasing ferocity. Angry storm clouds hurled lightning bolts from the heavens, the crack of thunder a whip beating against the land.
Akasha never saw the wave coming. It washed over her instantly, swallowing her whole. A great leviathan of the deep coming to claim its prize. Suddenly she was sinking, sinking to the depths of a bottomless ocean, its surface quickly fading out of reach, then out of view. All she could see was the trail of bubbles leaving her mouth as she expelled the last of her air. She twisted around, looking for something, anything to grab onto—
—and found herself floating in her tank back at Aether Labs. It was where she’d been “born,” the very spot her memories began.
Akasha tried peering through the glass. A kaleidoscope of colors greeted her, but little else. Through the murky haze she could just make out a blob of dark hair and a white lab coat.
”Dr. Kestren! Dr. Kestren! Hey!” Akasha was shouting as loudly and furiously as she could, but it was only the voice in her mind. Her mouth hadn’t moved. Outside the tank, the blurry figure didn’t reply.
”Answer me! Who am I?! Why did you do this to me?! Why can’t I remember anything?!”
There was no response. Akasha wanted desperately to pound on the glass but her body refused to respond.
”ANSWER ME, DAMMIT! WHY?! WHY DID YOU TAKE EVERYTHING FROM ME?!”
“I didn’t.” It wasn’t Kestren’s voice that answered, it was her own. And yet Akasha still hadn’t spoken. Suddenly the area outside the tank burst into flames. Intense, malicious flames. The distorted vision of Naya Kestren melted away as the world around her was consumed by fire.
“…Kasha! …Kasha!” This time it was Kira’s voice, echoing from somewhere far away.
There was a loud cracking as fracture lines formed on the glass. They multiplied exponentially, the spiderweb of fractures expanding outward. The pressure on the tank kept building, building—
“Kasha! Snap out of it already!”
All at once she was back on the beach, and Kira was shaking her arm. A pile of impaled Darker corpses littered the area around her. Above, hundreds or perhaps even thousands more were still streaming through the rift in the sky.
“K-Kira…?”
“Kasha! Don’t scare me like that! For a minute there I thought I’d lost you.” Kira’s face warmed with relief. “C’mon, we’ve gotta get out of here right now! You, me, and Ivan, we’re the only ones left. If we hurry, we might be able to—“
Kira let out a strained gasp. Her relieved expression was replaced by one of shock and pain. As the Deue Solda behind her pulled its blade out of Kira’s back, the girl collapsed facedown into the sand, unmoving.
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From somewhere outside her body Akasha heard herself screaming Kira’s name. Then she was lifting the girl up, cradling her tiny frame, pleading for her to open her eyes. Her own heartbeat thundered in her ears, the sounds of the ocean and the Darkers fading away. The Deue that struck Kira down was long forgotten, a distant memory.
It was still there, however, and it hadn’t forgotten
her. As Akasha trembled on her knees, sobbing and pleading with her fallen friend, the Deue came up behind her and raised a sword above its head. Akasha’s neck was exposed, an easy target. The Deue went in for the kill.
Then it was ripped in half. Ivan’s scarlet blade tore through its midsection and the Darker crumpled to the ground like a deflated balloon.
Akasha saw him bend down next to her, put two fingers under Kira’s jaw. Time was moving in slow motion. Ivan turned to Akasha, his eyes wide with urgency. His mouth was moving but Akasha couldn’t hear the words coming out. She concentrated.
“…alive…”
What? What did he just say? “…What?”
“I said she’s alive! There’s still a chance we can save her!”
That was all it took. The fog of despair clouding her mind magically evaporated. She had a reason to keep going, a reason to survive. She had
hope.
“They’re regrouping!” shouted Ivan, pointing at the cloud of Darkers descending upon them. “We’ve only got a few seconds left, we have to get out of here
now.”
Akasha stood up. A surge of adrenaline gave her renewed strength.
“Hold on. You’re injured,” he said, referring to her bandaged shoulder. “Let me carry her.”
“She’s
my friend, I’m carrying her.”
“Look, it pains me to admit this, but you’re stronger than I am. I don’t think I can hold off those Darkers long enough, but maybe you
can.”
She hesitated a moment, then conceded. “Alright.”
Ivan stripped off his jacket. He wrapped it around Kira’s limp body as he took her into his arms. She was pale and her pulse was faint, but she was still there. Together with Akasha, they took off running down the beach, their boots kicking up clumps of sand.
“Where are you going?” Akasha yelled as they ran. “The telepipe is
that way!”
“It’s gone!” he yelled back.
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?!”
“The Darkers got to it already! They came back for the other trainees after we left! ARKS Control radioed us while you were… well, zoned out.”
Kira’s words from earlier suddenly made a lot more sense. It was true, then. They were the only ones left. Probably the last ones on the whole planet. Akasha shook off a sense of foreboding. “So where are we heading, then?”
“Straight ahead!”
Looming ominously in front of them was the massive native structure they’d seen during the day, the multi-layered tower with the pillar of water shooting up through its core. The ARKS’ preliminary examination of its exterior hadn’t shed any light on its function. That meant Akasha and Ivan were rushing headlong into the unknown. At the moment, however, the unknown inside was preferable to the certain death outside it.
Behind them, the Darkers were hot on their tail and gaining fast, determined to keep Gulf Squad from escaping at any cost. Akasha snapped the halves of her Lambda Hellfret back together and twirled around. Swinging the double saber back and forth like a giant fan, she unleashed powerful gusts of wind energy at the incoming swarm. They were hurled backwards with such force that it appeared as though they’d been slammed by a great invisible fist.
Their pursuers temporarily delayed, Akasha rejoined Ivan in climbing the steps to the tower’s main entrance. It was a grand entryway ringed with rainbow-colored stripes that seemed to glow faintly in the darkness. They passed through it without hesitation, their footfalls echoing loudly in the arched corridor beyond. Ahead, an endless flight of stairs led down toward the bowels of the structure, somewhere below sea level. A rainbow stripe on each step provided the only illumination as they descended into the depths of the unknown.
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Past the stairs was a long corridor. The strange, ornate symbols they’d seen during the day were etched along the floor, walls, and ceiling. Once again colorful stripes lit the way. Akasha and Ivan raced onward, not bothering to check if the Darkers were still in pursuit.
At the end of the corridor they came upon a T-junction and headed left. Down another, shorter flight of stairs they were forced to choose again and went right. Akasha was reminded of her escape from Aether Labs, running through maze-like corridors as the flames licked at her heels. This place was much darker than Aether Labs had been, though. Darker, colder, and reeking of mold.
The next hallway led to a massive arched doorway, not unlike the one at the entrance but on a smaller scale. Inside was a high-walled room, mostly bare, with a raised dais at one end and a series of broad support columns spaced evenly around the perimeter. The glowing stripes running along the walls, floor, and columns provided a surprising amount of light in the spacious chamber.
“Get those doors shut!” shouted Ivan as he laid Kira down on the cold stone floor.
Akasha threw her weight against one of the five-meter high stone doors. She was able to push it, but just barely. “I’m…
unggg… trying!”
“Just a sec, be right there.” With Ivan’s help, the two of them were able close one door, then the other. “There’s no way to lock it. We have to find a way to barricade these doors!”
Akasha’s eyes darted frantically around the room, eventually settling on the column to the left of the doorway. “We can use that pillar,” she suggested, pointing.
“Hmm. That’ll work.” Ivan swung his photon sword diagonally upward at the column, the charged energy blade fighting to cut through two meters of solid stone. It took five good hits before he finally made it through. “That takes care of the bottom. Akasha, I need a little help up top!”
“Got it!” She hurled her Lambda Hellfret like an oversized boomerang, using wind energy to direct it to the top of the column. The spinning double saber clipped it, arced through the air, and clipped it again on the return pass. There was a low rumble followed by a sharp breaking noise. The great column slid away from its base and crashed down in front of the entry doors, blocking anyone—or anything—attempting to enter or leave.
Their job done, Akasha rushed back to Kira’s side. The girl was still alive, barely, but it was unclear how much longer that would last. “Hang in there, Kira,” whispered Akasha, brushing her friend’s shaggy bangs away from her face.
“Step aside.” Ivan was standing directly behind her. In his hand was a talis, the one he’d been keeping around his neck.
“Come on, what do you think you’re doing with that thing?” Akasha scoffed. “You need Force training to use that properly. If you screw up you could end up killing her instead of healing her.”
“Step aside, Akasha,” he repeated, his voice firm. “Just… trust me on this.”
There was something in his eyes, in his expression, that convinced her. She moved out of the way.
Ivan knelt down and carefully rolled Kira onto her stomach. He removed the jacket he’d slung around her before, then gently lifted her torn, bloody top. There was a twenty-centimeter stab wound on her back just below her shoulder blade that was slowly oozing dark red blood. Ivan used the jacket to dab away as much of it as he could. When he was done he pressed the card-like talis over the wound, using his hand to keep it in place. Then he closed his eyes and focused his mind.
At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the talis began glowing a brilliant shade of green. It gave off a faint crackling noise like a slow-burning fire. Ivan remained that way, unmoving and unspeaking, for over a minute. When he was finished he removed the talis from Kira’s back. In place of the stab wound was a reddish scar. Ivan pulled Kira’s top back down, rolled her over, and laid his jacket over her like a blanket. Finally, he reattached the talis to the cord around his neck and stood up. “I’ve done everything I can. All we can do now is wait; the rest is up to her.”
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“How…” Akasha trailed off, dumbfounded. Ivan walked past her and dropped into a sitting position next to the fallen column, several meters away.
Akasha took one last look at Kira, then followed Ivan and sat beside him. She took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “What was that about? How were you able to do that?”
“I…,” he started, then changed his mind. “Nothing. Forget it.”
Fine, have it your way, she thought glumly. She was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to argue about it. She just wanted to be back home on
Ur, to forget this whole nightmare. At the moment, however, “home” seemed very far away. “Do you think we’re gonna get out of this?”
Ivan considered it. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know, I just… do. Besides, what’s the point in thinking otherwise? If we really felt that way we might as well open those doors and let them take us. It would sure as hell save a lot of time and trouble.” Ivan paused. “We can’t take that road, Akasha. We can’t ever give up hope. It’s like Azzy always says—“ He froze in mid-sentence.
Azzy…
They both lowered their heads, the horrible weight of it sinking in. The awkward silence seemed to drag on to infinity. Finally, Ivan said, “He’s really gone, isn’t he?”
She nodded. Fresh tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Yeah…”
“We should never have left him. If we’d stayed, he might still be here with us.”
“Maybe. Or maybe none of us would be.”
He grunted and leaned back against the column. The stone was refreshingly cool and smooth to the touch.
Akasha leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. She stared blankly at a dark corner of the room, glassy-eyed and forlorn, looking at nothing in particular. “Back then, when we found Azzy on the beach, when I thought Kira was gone too, I… I didn’t want to go on anymore. I just wanted to give up. And I thought, maybe it would be okay if I died with them. Probably no one would’ve cared anyway…”
Ivan tilted his head in her direction. “Do you still feel that way?”
“No,” she replied quietly, after a pause.
“Good. Because you’re wrong, Akasha. You say nobody would’ve cared, but that’s not true. I would. I’d care.”
What…? Why would he say that? “You hardly know me.”
“Only because you don’t let anyone in. You keep everyone at arm’s length, everyone except Spitfire over there.”
Kira was still lying unconscious where they’d left her, a bit of color returning to her cheeks. Akasha looked Ivan in the eye. “Well what about you? You told me that talis was just a good luck charm but that obviously isn’t true. If you had Force training, why keep it a secret?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t had any training.”
“But you healed Kira…”
“I taught myself,” Ivan replied with a sigh. He rolled up his left sleeve. A series of faded scars crisscrossed the length of his forearm. “With lots of practice. And this talis, it belonged to my mother. When she was alive, that is. This… is all I have left of her now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. She passed away a long time ago.”
Akasha let the silence linger for a moment. “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why would you care if I’m around or not?”
“Because I…,” Ivan started to say, then shut his eyes. “Look, it doesn’t matter. But do you remember the day we met, when we fought that battlebot? You bought me time to recover when I got hurt. Even though it was dangerous. Even though you didn’t know me. Right then I knew you weren’t the kind of person they said you were, and you’ve proven me right.”
“Aside from Kira, I think you and Azzy were the only ones at the Academy who treated me like a normal person. So, um… thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. To be fair, though, I think Azzy was nice to
all the cute girls.”
For Akasha, talking about Asimov again was like tearing open a fresh wound. Then a completely different thought struck her.
Wait, did he just… call me cute? “I won’t argue with you there.”
“He was something else, that guy...”
“Yeah,” Akasha concurred, “there was nobody else quite like him. He always had a story to tell or a scheme up his sleeve.”
Ivan adopted an oddly melancholic grin. “Remember the time that major from Central Command came for an inspection? And Azzy ran around ahead of time ripping holes in everyone’s uniforms? He told me later the Second Fleet was due to get new gear so he thought he’d get us some too. Command turned down his request but Azzy wouldn’t take no for an answer. He figured they couldn’t refuse if we had nothing to wear. He looked that major straight in the eye and said, ’How do you expect these soldiers to fight a war with their asses hanging out?’”
In spite of herself, Akasha giggled. “I remember that. We wore spare training armor for a week, except mine was too small. Command finally did give us those new uniforms, eventually. I’d never seen Azzy more proud of himself. Well, except maybe that time he beat me in arm wrestling.”
“You and Azzy had an arm wrestling match? I wish I could’ve seen that!”
“We were arguing over who was stronger. Turns out, it was him. He was bragging about it for days.”
“Hey, did you ever see Azzy without his armor?”
Akasha gasped. “His armor came
off?! I always assumed… I mean I thought, him being a CAST and all, that was just part of, uh…”
“Nah. He wore his armor like the rest of us. Just didn’t like announcing it, I guess. Anyway, I was in the locker room one day and happened to catch him without it. I asked, ‘Hey Azzy, that you?’ When he turned around, I saw—get this—a butterfly tattoo on his arm.”
“What?! Get outta here!” Akasha tried to picture it and nearly burst out laughing.
“I’m serious! Said one of his old girlfriends forced him to get it. He told me, ‘Breathe a word of this to anyone and I’ll end you, Malloch. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.’”
By that point they were both crying with laughter. The pain was still there, and probably always would be, but somehow it didn’t sting so badly anymore.
And it never would again.
TO BE CONTINUED
Originally Posted by stukasa
@Sacrificial:
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Also, I needed a reason for them to be on Vopar and there was a part in your story with ARKS trainee final exams, so I figured that was as good a reason as any. So thanks for that! (Since our stories are supposed to take place in the same universe, I realized Akasha and her friends would also have to pass some kind of final exam.)
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