Blade of the Lucan: A Memory of Anstractor (14 page)

“Everyone I know and love is on Primia. It is a planet far away from here. I was hoping to get money to buy a ticket at a Starport. Then I could fly home and start over, look in on my parents. You know, the typical stuff,” Delyi said.

Marika wanted to ignore the absurdity of Delyi’s story, but her curiosity got the better of her. “How in the world did you end up in Veece as a courtesan, Delyi?”

“I know that you aren’t from this system but I think you should know. Slavers prey on two planets in Luca more than anywhere else. The planets of Deij, where your Deijen friend is from, and the planet of Primia, my planet. They get the Deijen because of their strength and ferocity: they make for good guards, and some farmers use them to work the land,” Delyi began.

“Wait a second, am I hearing you right? They allow slavery here on Tyhera?” Marika asked, slowing them down to a walk as she dried the sweat from her brow and looked at Delyi.

“Allow it? Nothing would function for the rich if they had no slaves,” Delyi said. “Primian women are deemed extremely attractive by Tyheran men. The richest lords pride themselves on having a harem of us, and our boys suffer the same fate if they are deemed handsome by Lords who favor them. Our planet is a peaceful one, Marika, and it is not uncommon when a foolish young girl playing outside gets snatched up by a slaver. That was me when I was fourteen. I ran out of the house when my mother and I were arguing and the next thing I knew, I became the property of a Tyheran skin trader.

“I have grown to hate men more that you could ever understand,” she said to Marika, but she didn’t look over at her.

Marika stopped her and forced her around where she could see that the moisture on her face was not from the river or the sweat from their hot jungle trek.

“We’re going to get you home, Delyi, don’t you worry,” Marika said. “But I have unfinished business in Veece, so we need a place for you to hide while I go back to rescue the rebels.”

M
arian woke up to the bump of the starship as it landed within the flawless Starport of Dearin, Talula. This city was one of the only places on that area of the moon to have survived the scortchet bomb. When she looked outside the window at her surroundings, she saw armed Felitian guards everywhere. They were all on high-alert and she wondered if something had happened recently to cause this.

Self-consciously, she unbuckled her seatbelt and ran into the bathroom to check her appearance. She looked at herself in the mirrors and adjusted her hair. In her mind, she appeared the same as any other Tyheran noblewoman, but she wanted to make sure that everything was in place. She caught a flash of her eyes and realized that something was off. Tyheran nobles were hoity and rude, but they also held a look of apathy and stoic indifference. What she saw reflected in her eyes was fire: she was primed to get things started in the rescue, and if any trooper were to see her, they would think she was up to something.

She walked out of the bathroom and joined the line of travelers exiting the ship. They descended the escalator to the floor of the Starport, and Marian saw that the troopers were opening each of their bags to check for contraband. As calmly as she could, she reached inside her pocket and snatched the bag of crystals. She then reached up to touch the top-knot in her hair and slipped them beneath her tightly wrapped curls.

“Good day, Sha’an, please hand us your luggage and stand in front of the scanning droid, please,” the large, armored trooper said.

Marian complied, trying to keep her cool as a stream of light from the droid went up and down her body.

“Is this standard procedure, officer?” Marian asked, keeping her eyes low and chin high in the way of a well-behaved Tyheran citizen.

“First time to Talula, eh? We typically don’t check travelers, but with the recent attacks on our Emperor’s city, we have to tighten up security,” he said.

The android made a series of noises and then the white light grew red. The trooper removed his mask and frowned at Marian, then motioned the others over to form a perimeter.

“My lady, you seem to be very well armed, which is suspicious for any citizen traveling to a peaceful moon,” he said, reaching for the pistol on his hip as he stepped back from her. Marian could almost laugh at his assertion that Talula was peaceful. She wanted to snatch the knife from her thigh and cut open his throat, but she smiled and bowed before extending her arms.

“I am sorry, officer, it is an old habit. Though a lady, I have been the victim of assault and the knife I wear is a gift from my late husband … to protect myself, you see. I’m a tiny woman; I cannot possibly pose a threat to one the likes of you. You’re all so muscular and intimidating. You can examine my knife, but I would ask that you return it since it means more to me than life itself.”

A smile broke the hardness of the trooper’s dark brown face, and he nodded at his fellows, then extended his hand for the knife. Marian slowly reached down and lifted her dress, then took out a wicked-looking black knife and handed it hilt first to him. The trooper examined the blade and motioned for another to take a look at it. One of the large, black masked men walked over, hefted her knife, tossed it up into the air, then caught it and proceeded to do a variety of tricks with it.

He spoke with a muffled, robotic voice through the mask. “This is some kind of knife. Her husband meant business. It’s rare sir, deadly in the hands of a skilled assassin, but little more than a toy to one such as her.” He regarded Marian and gave her a respectful nod, and then handed the knife back to his superior before melting back into the ranks with the rest of the men.

The first trooper walked over and handed the knife back to Marian. “Enjoy your stay on Talula, Sha’an, and be wary of rebels. If you see any suspicious activity, be sure to report it immediately. Do not try to use that knife.” When he said this a few chuckles went up from the men that had her at gunpoint.

Marian bowed to the group and placed the knife back in its sheath. She noticed how intently they stared at her legs whenever she hiked up her dress and wondered if they had even the slightest clue how dangerous she truly was. She picked up her bag and walked into the lobby. There were a variety of people milling about but no one paid any attention to her as she slid between them and made her way towards the exit.

The Starport was majestic, and the nostalgia almost made her stop to soak it all in with gusto. The crimson carpet felt soft yet durable beneath her soft-soled shoes, and the walls reflected the finest of Lucan tapestries, draped  over wallpaper that held patterns that were true works of art. Like most interior designs on Tyhera and Talula, there were countless paintings depicting scenes of conquest by Palus Felitious. The numerous chairs that lined the walls were sculpted from a single piece of Primian base rock, and in the center of it all were giant statues, warriors welcoming visitors to the moon.

This was Talula, a tiny moon where the ideal was to have the biggest and most expensive of everything. It was on this moon that Rafian had first blinked in from Anstractor, back when he’d had no memory of who he was. She stepped through a pair of large, sliding glass doors into a metropolis that defied everything that she assumed would have been. By the way the people were going on with their lives, it was hard to believe that a bomb as vicious as a scortchet had been dropped on them.

The sky was the color of lavender, and a thick gathering of clouds obscured much of the celestial wonder that she was used to seeing. Sunlight was not bright on the moon, either, but its pinkish purple atmosphere brought on a mood of romance that she couldn’t shake, no matter where she looked. On the curb next to her, a pair of Tyheran lovers kissed, and across the street she could see more couples walking hand in hand, this way and that. In the distance, she saw mountains faded across the horizon, and all along the roadway speeding cars zoomed past, as if this was the place to be in all the galaxy.

Marian walked over to the taxi terminal where an ancient model of android stood, staring out into nowhere. When she got close, his odd grey limbs animated and he turned to look at her with a stoic face of holes and creases sculpted to favor a humanoid face.

“What … is … your … destination?” it intoned, and Marian walked over to the terminal and brought up the map. She pointed to an area west of the city where a long bridge extended across a massive expanse of water. There was a small settlement there, and she knew it would be a good place to lay low until her Ranalos friends arrived.

“Coryn Station, please,” she said to the droid and he replied affirmatively and motioned to a bench where she could sit and wait. Marian sat down and placed her bag next to her. Five minutes later, an automated car zoomed into the terminal area, settled down in front of her, and the door lifted up to invite her in. She looked around to see if anyone was watching her, then entered the vehicle. She was still leery that all wasn’t as well as it seemed, but at least for now she would allow herself to sit back and enjoy the long drive to Coryn.

~ * ~

Two days had passed since the assassination of Qeran Kyle, and Veece city was locked down and placed under martial law. The troopers were busy, too busy to worry much about their resistance prisoners, and it seemed like the best time for someone to get them out. Marika and Delyi were camped out inside of a shallow cave on the edge of a mountain to the east of the city. It was a great vantage point for Marika to see what was going on, and it provided them shelter for the few days they would be staying there.

“So what’s the plan, Marika?” Delyi asked. She was seated with her back against the cave wall, poking at the embers of their fire, while the Casanian assassin touched at areas on her holographic map. Earlier on in the evening when they had first set up camp, Marika had tossed out the proximity orbs to warn her of any lurkers. She put up her cloak across the entrance of the cave to hide their fire from anyone looking.

On the outside, they had arranged branches across the entrance to further hide the fact that they were there. For the moment they felt safe, and the only thing that could give them away was a hole to the right side of the entrance that Marika used to spy through her rifle.

“If we were back in my galaxy, I could send out a rigged flobot to fly into the prison and send a message to the rebels. It was too big for me to bring with me, so I’m going to have to get them out using more primitive ways,” Marika said. She poked some more at the map and then sighed as if frustrated. “This place is so unused, it’s amazing. It’s as if this entire galaxy is new. You all haven’t filled out the planet, and you live concentrated in tiny cities like Veece. No wonder a Palus Felitious can bully himself into power.”

Delyi did not say anything in response but watched Marika go about her mysterious duties. The suggestion that her world was new struck her as odd. The entire world felt so large and old to her, especially when she considered the ruins upon ruins upon ruins that revealed several generations of ancestors that predated them all.

She imagined a world overrun by people, where trees were scarce due to homes and farms having to be built, and imagined that Marika’s world was just like that.

“In Anstractor, are all the women strong … like you and your friend, Marika?” she asked after a long period of silence.

“I guess so,” Marika replied. “We kind of have to be, y’know – unless you were lucky enough to be born a Geralos.”

“What’s a Geralos?” she asked.

Marika thought of her as an inquisitive child pestering a parent about the way of the world. But Delyi had managed to pull her weight. She was the one who had gotten them through the cold rapids that rushed past the city, and it was she who had spotted the cave for them after a long night of walking.

“In my world, Delyi—” she began.

“Dee, Marika. My friends call me Dee,” she interrupted and Marika looked up from the holo to smile.

“Okay, Dee. See, in our world, there isn’t a Palus Felitious. There is an entire planet of predatory aliens. These creatures are known as Geralos, and they want to take over our galaxy. We lost one planet, Marian’s husband’s planet. They now use it to feed on the people’s brains, grow new humans in their fortified farms, and attack the other planets that have allied with them. My planet is allied with Vestalia – which is the name of Raf, Marian’s husband’s planet. So they hunt us down just like they do the Vestalians, so – it’s like I said, we have to be strong. Both men and women.”

“That sounds absolutely horrific,” Delyi said.

“Yep, and there are no breaks from the horror, so we all grow up fast.”

“No wonder you’re so good at what you do,” Delyi said.

Her words moved Marika, who reflected on her past and the life that she had in Anstractor, before and after the Phasers. She was at home with war, death, and the thin fabric of life, but this wasn’t normal and if she was going to be honest with herself, she had forced herself to be okay with it. But here was a girl, forced into sexual servitude with no way to escape and lacking the skills to physically fight back as one such as herself would have already done.

She weighed their realities and thought deeply on their differences. The Geralos were monsters, but the Phasers were trained to kill them. For all that her galaxy offered up as nightmares for those who were born human, or allied to humans, at least they had the means to fight back. A prostitute like Delyi was broken for life. She had no way to escape—unless a rich aristocrat fell in love with her and bought her off—and the only way to get out of her skin contract was to become old.

Delyi saw her staring off in the distance and waved her hand in front of her face.

“Are you thinking of home?” she asked, and then lay down amongst the furs to watch the fire.

“Thinking about you, girl. But I need you to stay here until I return, I shouldn’t be longer than a day, okay?” Marika said suddenly as she powered down the holo-map. She snatched up a small backpack and slipped it on. “I’ll bring you back some real food from the city, and a jug of good wine for us to celebrate. I intend to bring us some transport, so that we can fly out to a Starport where we’ll book you a flight to Primia. It’s all going to happen fast, Dee, so just be ready, and if you see the lights flash on that beacon, you need to get the hell out of here and run like you’ve never run before.”

“Leave a gun in case I can’t run,” she replied, raising up on an elbow to look at Marika Tsuno.

Marika reached into her main bag and pulled out a shotgun, then walked it over to Delyi. She showed her how to cock it and how to activate the blinding white light beneath the barrel in order to disorient her attackers when they rushed in.

“The bullets are reinforced sonic pellets,” she told her. “When you fire, it is extremely loud, but it can send a group of them flying backwards, which will give you time to escape.”

“How do I differentiate you from the troopers?” Delyi asked as Marika began to clear the entrance.

“That’s easy,” Marika said with a large smile. “You won’t see or hear me coming.”

~ * ~

Marika beat a direct path through the trees towards Veece, using all of her assassin’s instincts to stay alert to any patrolling troopers. She had run about three miles when she came across a cruiser that had just landed. It had deployed three armed men to investigate the area. She was about to hide when she saw the cruiser, and could not pass up the chance that it would provide her a way to fly out of the country. She glanced back to where she had come and thought about the amount of running she had been doing for the last few nights.