Anstractor (The New Phase Book 1) (19 page)

Rafian himself had foolishly stormed a trooper garrison and destroyed it based on his discovery that a superior officer had slapped his lady. As their relationship lengthened, the foolish mistakes increased, and they both knew that they would eventually get caught. There were also bright times, when they would retreat for a week to a remote location. They would disguise themselves as Lord and Lady VCA and fly off to Vare XV, Chebe, and sometimes Lochte. As dangerous as their relationship was, Rafian VCA was a happy man. To him, he was not in love with a Felitian woman; he was in love with Rienne, a lost soul stuck in the Felitian’s world.

One day Rienne received a strange vid-message asking her to fly immediately to a waterfall in the country of Vyre. Not knowing what to expect, she made herself battle ready and headed out to meet her fate, fearing that her assassination for sleeping with the enemy had finally been realized. On arrival, an official in full regalia was waiting there with Rafian, smiling, handsomely dressed in his military uniform. He looked at her as if she were New Year’s Day.

“My love?” he queried, and with tears now running down her cheeks—fully understanding—she replied, “Yes, Rafian.” It was all she could manage to say.

Rafian VCA, freedom fighter and leader of the covert rebel group known as the Aygis, was married to Rienne Laren, Felitian baroness and lady of the house of Laren, Tyhera. They both took a month’s personal leave and escaped to Lochte for their honeymoon. Lochte was run by the infamous pirate Samael, who owed Rafian a favor from a long time ago. For the honeymoon, Rafian had contacted him, and he set up accommodations for the commander and his new wife. They were promised no outside interference, and with the pleasure of peace for at least a month’s time, they left behind all communication devices and settled down.

“So here we are!” Rafian said finally when they were settled in.

The accommodations were exquisite. Samael lent him an outlying palace of sorts with everything provided, fully maintained by an android staff with no questions asked. The palace was shaped like a disc, with the walls transparent and the furniture made of Zeynic glass and painted in off-white, yellows, and earth tones. The color matched the hot desert landscape that was the planet Lochte, and its planes of Yuir held up the massive twenty-story spike on which the palace balanced as it slowly spun through technological magic that only Samael could explain. The entire interior was a lounge lizard’s dream, and the bar had enough liquor to host a year-long party with a thousand guests.

Rienne made herself comfortable and plopped down on a dais, staring at her newly acquired ring. She began laughing.

“Rafian! I will not begin to ponder how this will remain hidden, but this ring now affixed to my finger…I don’t intend to take it off, and there will be questions.”

Rafian placed his wine glass on the counter and walked over to his wife. Kneeling in front of her, he took her ring finger, slipped it into his mouth, and slid it out slowly.

Rienne began giggling uncontrollably. “Stop! I’m being serious, hon. How are we going to do this?”

Rafian got up from his knees, sat beside her, and examined the ring himself. “It is beautiful,” he said matter-of-factly. “I had it crafted by a close friend. The ring itself is made from Ranalese Drake tissue, and those are bits of death crystal around it.”

Rienne looked as if she couldn’t draw breath. “This must cost a fortune!” she yelled, and Rafian laughed.

“It did, but you’re worth it. The cost is merely a physical symbol to show others how much you mean to me, Ree. We can keep in hiding as long as you wish, but there are other alternatives—”

Before Rafian could continue, Rienne kissed him to silence whatever he was going to say, because it was a dialogue she knew would come up eventually.

After a time, she spoke. “I know the alternative, Raf, but they would never let me go so easily. For you, I know switching sides is not an option, so it remains a choice I would have to make. This secrecy we have—it gets tiring, and our mistakes will grow. I don’t wish to continue like that.”

Standing up and walking away in deep thought, Rafian pondered. “I don’t want you to sacrifice your livelihood, Ree, and if the Felitians lay one finger on you, it would unleash something within me that I swear they would regret. Let’s drop it for now and enjoy our time together. The future will play itself out as it wishes.”

* * *

The month-long honeymoon seemed to fly by at light speed, and before long, the couple found themselves out of time. On the shuttle back to the Lochte Starport, Rienne flashed a smile and looked at Rafian.

“Guess what?” she asked, and he suddenly looked concerned.

“Oh, no. Are you with child?”

Her expression changed to one of annoyance and she punched him in the arm.

“OUCH! Maker’s sake, woman, you hit pretty hard!” he exclaimed, holding the arm and observing the black-and-blue area where her wedding ring had left its bruise. He looked up angrily, but she was still smiling.

“No, wrong! Try again!”

She was giggling now, and Rafian was getting annoyed. Snatching a chunk of her flesh underneath her arm, he pinched her hard, and she squealed like a stuck Eola and jerked her arm away.

“OK, woman, now spill it—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence because of the pain in his groin. Looking down, he realized that Rienne literally had him by the balls! He raised his hands up in surrender, which prompted a bigger smile on her face.

“See? Aren’t you glad I am on your side?” she asked.

“I know you’re a fierce hatch kitten who doesn’t give up. That I do know!” he said, shaking his head.

Then, upon releasing him, Rienne melted into his arms, whispering, “Well, that’s OK, because I am now your kitten forever, Rafian. I was just going to tell you that I will be leaving my post to be by your side. Do you think they would accept me in Aygis?”

Rafian squeezed her tight and kissed her on the top of her head.

“Accept you? My dear, you will be their first lady!”

Rafian and Rienne hastily gathered her belongings and depressed them into a moving capsule—a phenomenal invention that defied all logic. The capsule could contract to the size of a fist, shrinking anything within it to allow for easy storage. In secrecy, the couple flew into Cally and then shipped off to Vyre, Tyhera, where they spent the night. The plan was to sneak her out of her Felitian command station without anyone knowing. The Fels would assume she was dead or kidnapped, and in time, she would be in his arms, happily married and protected by his freedom fighters.

“Rafian, I was thinking of changing my name,” she said when they were finally settled in, and he nodded at her in quiet approval.

Holding her hands as they sat on the edge of the bed, he began talking to her quietly.

“I didn’t intend on this being so hard or painful for you, Rienne, but I promise you this: from the day we eloped, you were and will always be my queen. You are what I hold dearest to my heart, and this is a life bond. I will never do anything to hurt you in any way, and my fight for freedom will finally mean something—it will mean a life of peace where we can be a family. Please don’t ever forget that I love you and always will.”

Rienne edged in even closer and whispered in his ear. “Thank you, my love. I know whom I married, and I understood all of that the day we exchanged vows. I love you!”

The sound of a trooper patrol was outside their Vyretian hotel, so the lovers kept quiet and waited until they had passed. It was another thirty minutes or so before Rienne began speaking.

“What am I to you, Rafian? It will decide my new name. Trust me, what am I?”

It was an unexpected question, but rather than answer with deep thought, he just spoke candidly. “You are mine, babe, you are my Rienne.”

Suddenly Rienne hopped up excitedly, clapping and dancing around, looking as much the fencer as she had on that day they met.

“Yes! I am, and I love it!” she exclaimed.

Rafian was confused. “What are you going on about, Ree?”

She grabbed his arms and began to dance with him. “Don’t you see? That will be my name! You said my Rienne! Well, that is what I am! I am your Rienne! So you see, Myrienne will be my name!”

Barely understanding, Rafian thought it through. His odd accent with the Tyheran dialect had made him pronounce it like a name.

“So your name will be Marian, then?” he asked.

“Yes!” she screamed. “Marian VCA, the beloved wife of Rafian VCA, resistance warrior and galactic savior!”

She was more excited than he had ever seen, and it made him energized to witness it. As he watched his nubile and extremely happy wife play around with her name and dance about the room, he felt complete—and it wa
s not a feeling he was used to.

It was the fifth month of the push on Veece when Rafian woke up confused and aware for the first time in years as to who he truly was. He had had a dream the night before in which he was visited by a woman. She had long dark hair and clothing that resembled nothing he had seen before on Tyhera. He knew that her name was Tayden, but he couldn’t understand why he knew her. She was repeating something to him, and it took a while to figure out what it was she was saying.

“You must come back to us; you are taking too long to return.”

She was dressed in a skintight white outfit, and her hair flowed wildly over her shoulders—she certainly was not a woman of Tyhera, because hair let loose was seen as the fashion of immoral women. It did not seem strange to him, however, and the more he walked towards her, the more she seemed familiar. When he woke up, the memories flooded his brain like a broken dam. The reality of his situation began to make sense to him, and his world and everything he thought he was came crumbling down in an instant.

“Where am I?”

Marian was awake now and caressing him worriedly while telling him that he was in Veece with his wife. Of course he remembered. The resistance had taken the capital city, and after a grand celebration, he had taken Marian back to her house, where they slept after emptying her cupboards of wine.

“Are you OK, husband?” she asked finally, and he stared at her, wondering how he would reveal his identity and the happenings that had allowed him to make it to her galaxy.

He sat up, looked at her, and then began talking, despite the numerous attempts she made to stop him. “You have to hear this in its entirety, Ree. If you don’t, it won’t make any sense to you. I am Rafian VCA, a jumper, starfighter, and marine pilot for the Fourth Lance squadron of the
Helysian
—a military starship. My galaxy is Anstractor, and I am twenty-five years old.…I think. The Memory loss I had all this time was chemically induced by my masters so that I could come here empty, be filled with information and desperation to join the resistance, and destroy the Felitians. I am apparently out of time here, and I am being summoned to return to my masters and answer for the failed mission here.”

Marian was staring at him, wide eyed and wondering if there was a punch line coming at the end of his story. When he completed his story, she first asked him if he was sure about the Memory being real, and then she asked him how he felt about what the jumpers had done to him. He let his anger show and explained to her that he meant to exact revenge upon them. He told her about Camille, the sexual conditioning, and the way they had forced him into the chair and wiped his memories. Shame came over him upon realizing that he was now married to Marian, and Camille would again be left out in the cold. If he jumped back, he would break her heart, break his oaths, and leave a woman he loved to pick up the pieces of a life that he had helped shatter. He would rather die.

“Marian…I need you to come with me back to Anstractor.”

He was not really asking her, not wanting to lose the only person he had loved in three long years of combat and hiding. Marian looked away quickly, being that she could never look into his eyes when he was upset. She feared the unknown and was not sure whether her husband was being logical or having issues with his sanity. Jumping galaxies? Was that sort of thing even possible? She knew he had suffered traumatic Memory loss, but waking up to this was just too much. She wanted to fall back asleep and return to the world where they were victorious, and she was spending a peaceful night in her own bed with the rebel she loved.

Rafian’s mind was moving a mile a minute, and he wanted Marian to say yes so that he could move his worry solely over to Camille.
How will I explain all of this when we are reunited?
He didn’t want to hurt either of them, and he began rationalizing how he would keep Marian in his life while rekindling the flames with his beloved Camille Yan.

“What is to happen to my home world when you jump back to Anstractor, Rafian?” Marian asked.

He kissed her in hopes of giving her some reassurance. “The mission was to remove the Felitians from power, Mari. I believe that when we jump out, there will be a major shift in the movement to cause the Fels to finally retreat.”

She nodded to show him that she understood, and to also let him know that she trusted him. They got up, showered, and grabbed the things that meant the most to her in the world. Rafian neglected to tell her about his sterilization for fear that it would be the heaviest of blows for his new wife. She had always talked about children, but he had reasoned with her that a rebel child born during their hectic age of war would not be the best idea. They had decided to wait until the Felitians were defeated, and if it was taking too long, they would fly to a remote moon, build a cozy base, and be content with each other till the end of their days. It was romantic but unrealistic because Rafian had planned not to leave until the Felitians were gone, the resistance was on top, and he had Veece in the palm of his hands.

“Should we say good-bye to our friends?” Marian asked. Her eyes looked as if everything she loved had been wiped out by a flood.

“They would never understand,” Rafian said and tightened his lips at the overwhelming sadness he felt coming from his wife.

Marian looked around the room as if saying a mental good-bye, and Rafian reached back to his third molar, squeezed it hard, and pulled out the tiny crystal shard that was embedded within it. A jumper needed the crystal to return, and it would be his ticket back to the reality he had always known. He instructed Marian to hold him tight, and with that, he held the tiny piece aloft and thought of the light from within the crystal room. It took less than a minute for the couple to feel the power of the warp crystal. The room was suddenly consumed with a milky-white light, and before they knew it, they were in front of the stone chair and floating crystal at the jumper academy.

* * *

Rafian had expected Arn Stryker to be there with his white hair and his host of staff-wielding lackeys, but what he found was Tayden dressed in all white, a bloody blade at her side, and a couple of the other students, including Camille, staring at Marian as if she were an alien.

“How long was I gone for?” Rafian asked as he scanned the room. He noticed it was not as pristine as it was when he had last seen it.

“We were all under for about three years, Raf,” Tayden said as she stood staring at Marian, who held on to Rafian for dear life as the women and men watched her in bewilderment.

“Rafian, who is your friend? And…why are you guys married?”

This was Camille, who stepped forward to confront Marian. If his wife had been an innocent saloon girl, she would have feared for her life at Camille’s approach, but Marian steeled herself, stepped out from behind Rafian in an aggressive stance, and spoke for the first time since they had arrived.

“How about you ask me, Camille?” she said through the vocal translator that Rafian had provided her with. He had kept it with him since landing on Talula, even though he had mastered the language there after so many months in the conflict. The language she used was the common tongue, but when Camille did not respond, she turned to Rafian and spoke to him in the language and dialect of Tyhera.

“Can she understand me? I am speaking your language, right?”

Rafian nodded at her and then turned to Camille, but before he could say a word, Marian was talking again.

“Tell your girl to back down right now before I jab her with my fire-knife.”

She had brought along her deadly secret weapon, and though he worried a bit for her safety due to Camille’s reputation, he wasn’t sure if his fierce Vestalian girlfriend was a good enough match for his Tyheran wife. He reasoned with them both and asked the women to cool off, so as to prevent any bloodshed or loss of life.

“D-R-A-M-A!” Tayden muttered under her breath, and then she stuck her head outside the door to look for anyone approaching.

“How is it that you two were able to bring me back?” Rafian finally asked.

“Well, it was all Tayden,” Camille finally said. “She managed to figure out the workings of the warp crystal and summoned me back as I was imprisoned in this Karel prison center on Deval, Yce—I think it was the Flavin Galaxy.”

She had a sad look on her face as she said the prison’s name and grabbed her left arm in the way she always did and froze to let the emotions settle back within her.

Tayden finally spoke up, and she did so in a proud, boastful way. “Cammy and I were sent to the same galaxy, the tiny one known as Flavin. While my mind was wiped, it was a bit different from what I am hearing from everyone else. I wasn’t completely ignorant of who I was, but I assumed I came from Flavin. In any event, I started to get all of my Memory back within months, and that was how I knew what I needed to do for escape. Arn was happy that I had pulled off my assigned spy detail, and along with Willen and Cathe, I graduated to person.

“When you and Cam were still not back after a long time had passed, I began to worry, so I did some research on my own. I think Arn was trying to sabotage you both on purpose, since everyone else got over the Memory loss midmission.”

Rafian was visibly upset as Tayden told him this. She continued to tell him how she stayed silent for roughly a year before making a move to save them.

“I pretended to be his loyal little person for a time. That old man sent me off to several places—even Vestalia to pull off missions—and he began to trust me enough to tell me how the warp crystals worked. This was how I knew I could invade your dreams to bring you back. I tried it with Cammy first, and when she came back, I did it with you.”

Rafian looked around at all the faces of the jumpers who were with Tayden.

“So, where is Arn, Tayden? Is he good with you doing this?”

It was Valk, the Arisinian, who spoke up. “This morning, Tayden and I dropped a poisonous gas in the meeting hall and took him out along with the guards.”

Touching his heart and bowing his head in the galactic salute of respect, Rafian then walked over towards Tayden, his dark-haired heroine, and touched her gently on her cheek.

“He had it coming. I hope the poison was slow and painful. I owe you my life, Tay,” he said with much humility.

The people in the room felt a surge of happiness for their reunion, but Marian was none too pleased to hear him say those last few words.

“So you mean to tell me that I could have burnt over ten plus years of my life on this mission without any memories of who I truly was?” Rafian asked.

Marian had gone into the next room to change into a white 3B suit that Tayden handed her, and the other jumpers (Mithryl, Zevon, Willen, Valk, and Cathe) began to recite their own mission details. But Rafian wasn’t listening, as his brain was processing the situation. They would have to act fast or risk their lives being forfeited as a result of Tayden’s treason, and he needed to know whether or not Arn was truly dead. As if she knew what he was going to do, Camille handed him his las-sword and smiled at him.

“You’re going to need your fishing rod if you plan to get dinner, dear.” She said this in an eerily cute way, and he reached up to touch her cheek in the gentle way he always did—without thinking about his wife, who knew nothing of the jumper customs and was growing tired of the touching.

“Are you two finished?”

Rafian snapped to attention at Marian’s voice and was out the door in a long stride. He knew that poison was not enough to subdue a master like Arn, and he was going to be in for the fight of his life when they met. Tayden moved up to his side as they walked past jumpers, some wounded from trying to stop Tayden’s rebellion, and others looking on in awe as the nine figures marched by with Rafian VCA at the front. Arn would be angry—Rafian was going over it in his head—but he would underestimate him. It sounded as if Camille had gotten caught on her mission, so he wasn’t sure what she had picked up in terms of skill while she was there, but he had been in the thickest of wars. He had seen friends burnt, cut down, and executed by a capable enemy, and he had learned how to make them pay for it. He was a Mera Ku monk of the highest level, and his skill with a sword of any kind had been legendary on the planet of Tyhera. Arn would be dangerous, but so would he.

The group stopped outside the large, metallic door ordained with the strange glyphs of the temple and the dancing lights that were on the walls. Tayden motioned for everyone to put up their masks, but Rafian waved her off and centered himself. Looking at him as if he were crazy, Tayden shook her head and opened the doors to reveal several long tables in a beautiful red room. The jumpers who occupied the tables were all dead from the gas, except for Arn, who sat at the head meditating. Rafian stopped his friends short and asked them to stay as he approached the old man. He noticed the pictures on the wall—images of planets that he was not familiar with, and it made him anxious to remove this tyrant who lorded over them so that he could freely study all the knowledge archived within the temple.

“You didn’t expect to come in and find me an easy kill, did you?”

Arn looked up at Rafian with the same cold, judgmental eyes that he had grown to hate. Rafian did not wish to engage him in dialogue, but stood waiting for Arn to stand and fight him.

“You took longer than you were supposed to, number Zero Three. Your mission was to unify the rebels—which you did, but you were supposed to return once that happened. Instead, you joined another organization and became intoxicated with power—oh, I know.”