Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (61 page)

No response came from whoever “Reign” was, but Mhir’ujiid barely noticed. Her world suddenly revolved around
Taorr.
“You’re alive!”

The Ttaunz walked up, took the Farooqua’s face in his hands, and kissed her. Mhir’ujiid suddenly felt light as air and responded in kind, famished for his nearness. All the pain, suffering, and dread this past week fled from her thoughts. Only Taorr mattered.

The pair pulled apart reluctantly. “I missed you so much!” the Ttaunz gushed hoarsely. Mhir’ujiid felt tears streaming down her pelted face, obscured by the spray of another geyser. She nodded feverishly, drawing him close again. He melted against her. The way he quivered with fatigue, the various scabs she felt on his back, told a tale of his captivity Mhir’ujiid knew must have been horrific. It made her hungry for every detail so she could pay Ghuj’aega back a hundredfold.

But the Quud would not broach the subject until he was ready. Taorr lifted his head off her shoulder to reveal how battered and sunken in his face looked.

“I’m sorry about Ekus’oguul,” the Ttaunz finally said.

Such contrition blindsided Mhir’ujiid. Nor did she expect her own response. “
I’m
not.”

Taorr nodded thoughtfully. His face warmed again while stroking her wet cheek.

That was when Mhir’ujiid felt the eyes on them. The couple clumsily disentangled to face their audience; the Kudoban’s bulging eyes radiating pleased surprise while Khal looked on slack-jawed.

Mhir’ujiid didn’t care. After months of hiding their affection, she felt relieved to come out. And by Taorr’s glowing look, so did he.

“Well,” Khal finally spoke with his usual swagger, “definitely wasn’t expecting that!”

Mhir’ujiid almost laughed until she saw the Kudoban on his knees, milky eyes trained on her but not looking
at
her. She could tell by his body language that whatever he saw had him petrified.

“Zojje, what’s wrong? Taorr asked right away, the concern for his friend visible.

“More Ghebrekh coming?” Khal perked up, welcoming that outcome.

“Not the Ghebrekh,” Zojje replied in a taut voice.

Abruptly, Mhir’ujiid’s vision was replaced with a myriad images clear as day, nowhere near Akkabe, and not her own. Not understanding what she saw, the girl panicked and resisted.

Relax, child
, Zojje’s calming voice flowed through her mind.
Watch
. Mhir’ujiid had never experienced a Kudoban mind link. But she inhaled and did as instructed, the images telling a story…

“NO!!” Taorr’s dismay broke Mhir’ujiid from the link. Once more, Mhir’ujiid saw the foggy expanse of Akkabe Plateau. She stared at Taorr in confusion, only to realize then he had been part of Zojje’s psychic link. Khal, by his sudden fury, had clearly seen the images also.

“They were told to stay away!” the Star Brigadier yelled, just as Mhir’ujiid heard a distant roar growing louder and closer, tremoring through her bones. The rumbling heralded their approach, agents of death at breakneck speed.
Just like in Zojje’s images…

Fear settled on Mhir’ujiid’s shoulders like physical weight. Liliana stirred and moaned softly in Khal’s embrace. He tapped his wristcom again less patiently. “Reign. Company’s coming in hot!”

FOUR ORVS AGO

Herope began its morning ascension from behind the west hills of Coiroque city-state, cherry-red rays of sunlight washing away the night in delicate waves. Before long, the domed tops of Coiroque’s multi-pinnacled towers and rounded brick-red buildings revealed constantly shifting colors, each gleaming with unique radiance.

The taller skyscrapers were covered by impossibly large, glitzy 3D holo-billboards. But the number of billboards per block remained sparse, allowing Coiroque to keep an oldworld aesthetic.

In less than half an orv, as the sun rose at just the right angle, the downtown’s rooftops would sparkle like a jewel box full of ruby, topaz, and amethyst. The spectacle occurred twice a day—dawn and dusk.

In the heart of Coiroque’s Xoecha district, clutters of young Ttaunz stumbled out of local taverns, students of Coiroque’s prestigious Neubron University. These youths, with their colorful pelts and high-class clothing, staggered through the streets toward transmat hubs that would return them to campus housing. The male Ttaunz wore their glossy locks long or up in elaborate braids. The females sported either the traditional Ttaunz cropped coifs or no hair at all. Many of these students were born of rarefied highborn privilege, destined to become Faroor’s future merchant lords and politicians. Today, all were excessively tanked from a long night of drinking, their howls and laughters echoing down mostly barren streets. They expected to watch Herope’s sunrise on the way home.

An entirely different visual appeared this morning, starting as a tiny pitch-black dot at the sky’s apex, barely worth anyone’s interest. That was until the dot stretched outward into a dark throbbing hole, demanding all attention. Spectators pointed curiously, showing only hints of fear. Was this another of those bizarre incidents happening all across Faroor lately?

The hole abruptly shrank into nothing, right after burping out a shiny metal object, which now raced toward midtown Coiroque faster than a meteor.

Only then did fear devour curiosity, and the screams started.

>>Warning: Flight protocol disengaged. Impact imminent.

>>Self-Diagnosis: Skin Armor integrity at 83.6%

Khrome’s armored skin was still on fire from Ghuj’aega’s attack as his freefall grew more out of control by the instant.

Until a sturdy spaceship-styled coupe broke his fall partially—his mad plummet shearing it clean in half.
Where that hovercar come from?
he wondered before tumbling forward and crumpling the next five vehicles like wood paper.

Several voices screamed at once, too many to be just CT-1, and all sounding Ttaunz. Unable to stop his own momentum, Khrome continued bouncing down the ferroment-covered street like a stone skipping across water. Except that each skip hit like a bomb blast, violently blowing up chunks of ferroment pavement. In his mad tumble, he glimpsed beings scrambling out of his way, all screaming.

The Thulican skidded another half mile before finally slowing. He immediately sprang upright covered in soot, roaring, “WHERE IS HE?!” Khrome didn’t expect the sea of terrified, fleeing bystanders. “Where
am I
?”

>>Analysis: Ttaunz males/females. Age estimate: between 17–21 cycles.

>>Search Query: Designate location. Searching…

The surrounding buildings with their bejeweled domes, the long trail of high-end hovercars he had pancaked leading to a Lorenzo-Marcus dealership, the winding black scar of ripped-up pavement…

>>Search Query Successful: Location identified as Coiroque, near Faroor northern polar cap.

>>Self-prompted query: How did I get four orvs
north
of Akkabe Plateau?

Looking up, Khrome noted the sky still had the dark cherry shade of early morning.

>>Analysis: 0500 orvs in the morning, three orvs before Star Brigade’s assault on Ghuj’aega…

>>Warning: Current time in Coiroque incongruent with previous time in Akkabe Plateau.

“Ghuj’aega threw me backwards in time.” Aloud it sounded ridiculous. But that was the only explanation making sense to Khrome.

“Freeze, Thulican!” The sonoramp-enhanced voice shocked Khrome back into the present. He turned in the voice’s direction.

“What...the
HELL
?!” The Thulican’s round, golden eyes grew wider.

>>Threat Classification: Coiroque MetroPol.

>>Self-Diagnosis: Skin Armor integrity at 90.2%

In the short time since crash-landing, then figuring out where...
and when
he was, Khrome found himself surrounded by half a dozen heavily armored assault hovercrafts courtesy of Coiroque MetroPol. The crowds now filled every building corner around the entire block. The vehicles had swiftly cordoned off the site around Khrome with hardlight forcefield fences. Hover AVs, massive yet sleek in their sable sheen, aimed arrays of massive disruptor cannons at him.

>>>Threat Assessment: Disruptor Weaponry possesses potential to damage skin armor.

Hints of movement behind Khrome caught his attention, three MetroPol officers approaching stealthily with pulse pistols drawn. To them, Khrome was a living wrecking ball that had torn through downtown Coiroque. He swallowed hard. This could end very badly if not played right, which Khrome didn’t have time for.

“Do NOT move!” the sonoramp-enhanced voice ordered again.

The three officers edged closer, covered head to toe in dark crimson armorweave riot gear. Two circled the Thulican until they stood in front of him, their faces obscured by armor masks. Their rapid-volley pulse pistols pointed at Khrome’s head and torso.

Like shooting me will
help
them
, thought Khrome, clenching his huge fists.

>>>Warning: MetroPol attack imminent.

The MetroPol were not his enemies, so the Star Brigadier raised both hands in peace. “I am sorry,” Khrome stated as calmly as his panic would allow. “But I have places to be and terrorists to kill.”

>>>Flight protocol: Engaged and activated.

Khrome threw his burly arms back and exploded skyward. The shockwave of his liftoff knocked all three officers off their feet. Khrome juked left and then right to evade the disruptor blasts that nearly struck true.

>>>Current Velocity: Mach 3.53 and climbing…

Coiroque quickly shrank into a small, bejeweled speck below. A deafening
boom
echoed behind Khrome as he shattered the sound barrier. Khrome kept climbing higher, pushing faster.

Faroor’s gravity began weakening. Within moments, he tore through the uppermost cloud layer, leaving a fluffy trail and several fleeting white halos of vapor in his wake.

Soon after that the Thulican could only see pitch-black space sparkling with stars...and Qos pulsing with its unnatural glow. Up here, Khrome noted, even Faroor’s moon couldn’t cancel out the full radiance of Herope, which now crept around the curve of the world in all its bright crimson glory.

By the lack of air, Khrome knew he had escaped Faroor’s halo of atmosphere. A myriad various satellites appeared, as did the never-ending lanes of incoming and outgoing space lane traffic. The Thulican slowed at his flight’s apex, almost free of Faroor’s gravity. He hovered a moment, pinpointing the Akkabe Plateau on the greyish-brown world below, and rocketed back down.

>>>Location Analysis: Akkabe Plateau at northern end of equator.

>>>Distance to Destination: 120 kilometrids

>>>Estimated Time of Arrival: Four orvs.

The latter data was unacceptable. Khrome needed to reach Akkabe in three.

If I don’t reach Star Brigade on time—
Khrome pushed that dread away with a kick of speed.

>>>Current Velocity: Mach 8.96 and climbing…

As soon as the Thulican plunged back into Faroor’s atmosphere, a tingling started burning over his metallic flesh, intensifying the faster he plummeted.

>>>Warning: Re-entry temperature climbing higher than acceptable tolerance
.

“This is gonna sting.” Khrome grimaced.

>>Estimated Time of Arrival: One orv.

Khrome hurtled through Faroor’s pale crimson heavens, a smoking silvery bullet of escalating speed. The scorching agony tingling across his skin was hard to ignore, but he had to. The nearer he got to Akkabe Plateau, Qos’s colorless radiance kept washing away the pink sunlight.

>>Current Velocity: Mach 11.57 and climbing…

He could count the instances he’d come close to this speed before: testing his fastest flight time for military physicals, racing a hypersonic starliner on a dare, pushing his speed limits just for the hell of it.

>>Analysis: Five times reaching near flight speeds of Mach 6.

Khrome allowed himself a prideful smirk and nothing more. Only Star Brigade’s safety and Ghuj’aega’s demise mattered.

Synced with UComm and local Ttaunz military channels, Khrome heard incoming reports of his Coiroque appearance—the “armored and dangerous Thulican.” He almost laughed.  Not funny, however, were local news streams he’d also patched into. Many ran stories about the “odd” solar eclipse, massive skyquakes, and lightning strikes occurring all over Faroor, thanks to Ghuj’aega.

The Thulican’s neuronet brain categorized military and news-stream chatter as lowered importance. Khrome tilted to port with a sharp left. A break in the clouds revealed a glittery stretch of deep, blue ocean far below—the Muunican Sea.

Khrome barely noticed as he pierced through another billowing cloud.

>>Load Extermination options.

The Thulican had already devised ten ways to kill Ghuj’aega, all exceptionally painful. But Khrome could not arrive at Akkabe until after his disappearance.  Running into his past self might create some difficulties.