The Battle for the Ringed Planet (34 page)

Forcing the immediate grief of May’s death from his head, he had to think! If he tried to run the bot would get him, if he stayed, it was coming round to get him anyway. Dropping the useless EMP rifle he pulled out his last grenade.

“Siiri!” he called and ducked as a burst blasted the concrete centimetres from his head, and in avoiding the bullets he accidently dropped the grenade rolling a meter out in front, “Dammit!”

Calling to the girl, “I’m pinned down! EMP doesn’t work … Siiri!” It fired again, speeding closer, now out of the shield radius, “Siiri …” he whispered as the bot lined him up, and he swallowed.

But she wasted no time, clenching her teeth she dove forward behind May’s body and tossed her helmet high into the air. The bot responded instantly and shot at the helmet instead of Torian giving the flaxen haired girl time to grab May’s rifle, crawl forward and use the Dragon marine as cover. Resting the rifle on the marine’s backpack she opened up a stream of plasma accurately striking the metal cylindrical object directly in the center. Glowing red it still lowered its guns to aim at Siiri behind May’s body. But while she had fired Torian leaned forward and reached for the grenade and tossed it towards the Sentry bot. It was about to open up on Siiri when the grenade exploded and with the bolts of plasma from the rifle the sentry bot blew up in a fire ball sending fragments in all directions. The remaining burning metal shell dropped to the floor and rolled before melting into a blackened blob. 

The young man breathed out a sigh of relief only for a moment, warily scanning the area for more danger before hopping up the stairs and over the dead marine, “Siiri!”

Tears streaked her cheeks mixed with May’s blood sticking to her frayed blonde hair as she glanced up at Torian. He knelt beside her gently taking the rifle from her shaking hands anxiously checking around the girl laying in the pool of the dead marine’s blood.

“Are you hit?”

Swallowing, she replied, “No …” she slowly rose up and the blood ran off her armour and fatigues, long streams running through folds and creases, dripping to the floor.

Softly whispering he stroked her bloody hair “Siiri, let’s move back a bit, in case there are more.”

Nodding slowly she took his hand and he wrapped his arm around her waist for support. They walked back a few meters and then he gently helped her to sit watching her eyes. He slipped off his metal EMP power pack and helped Siiri remove her webbing and back pack and then held her hand.

“Torian …” she sobbed, “May is dead!”

“I know …” he held her close and stroked her tangled bloody blonde hair, while she clung to him and let her tears flow. Torian pulled her tighter and they pressed together cheek to cheek while she cried. Closing his eyes, he felt his eyes watering thinking of the brave Dragon marine and the anguish at her loss.

“She had a little boy …” Siiri wept, “why do they make mothers fight wars?”

Brushing aside her blood streaked hair he gazed into her blue eyes, “I don’t know. That’s the way it’s always been.”

“I don’t want to do this for them anymore. I can’t stand the thought of losing you anymore.” she closed her eyes comforted in his arms and he gently rocked her for a few minutes.

“Hey …” he whispered, “Thank you for saving my ass.”

“You don’t have to.”

 Forming a weak smile, he took both her hands in his, and then grew serious “We have to finish the job.”

“But May is dead. It’s not right.”

“Then let’s make sure her sacrifice was worth it.”

Reluctantly she rose when he pulled her up and he left the EMP equipment behind, slinging her backpack instead. She snapped on her webbing with the pistol and let out an audible sigh.

“This is the last thing, and then we’ll be off-world.” Torian checked the ammo count on the rifle and changed mags, “I saw the shield around the controls, and you memorized the codes. Once it’s down we’ll find a place where my Con can signal out and send in the marines.”

“It’s too easy.”

“Maybe.” he really hoped that it was.

When they came back to May’s body Siiri froze while Torian bent over the bloodied corpse pulling magazines from her webbing.

“We can’t just leave her like that.” she watched him search through her webbing.

“Just for now, when the others come …”

“But not like that, with her legs twisted …”

Nodding, he pulled her legs out straight leaving her face down, then he turned her head and swallowed, her dead eyes stared past him forever. Gently he closed them. Siiri carefully stepped over May and crouched beside Torian choking back tears.

“She looks so peaceful.” the sticky bloody blonde haired girl whispered.

“Treat her nice, Tristan.” he expected to see his friend standing next to May.

Then Siiri leaned forward and kissed May on the forehead, “Good bye.”

Reaching for his hand Siiri stood up and glanced at Torian and nodded. Raising the rifle with May’s Con attached, he listened carefully and motioned to Siiri. She followed close behind as they nervously descended down the stairs towards the small control panel next to the glowing tower. For the first time up close, Torian noticed that the tower was pulsating but so fast it was not immediately seen with a human eye.

“Stand back …” the military officer aimed the rifle and fired. A burst of invisible plasma bolts struck the transparent shield creating a wall of shimmering red, blocking the lethal shots.

“How come the bot could fire at us from inside?”

“Just like the shield on the MUV, it lets you fire out, but not in.”

“And it will let me through because of my DNA?”

Torian sighed, “That’s what Jarlan said.”

“But he didn’t tell us about the sentry bots.”

“I know, but he was right about the codes.”

“Torian, if you say so, I’ll walk through.”

“I’m going to hold on to you by your web belt, if you feel the slightest pain, you yell.”

Siiri walked forward as Torian clutched her belt. She reached out with her fingers centimetres from the shield. Torian swallowed, but then she froze.

“What is it?”

The girl turned and her eyes glowed yellow.

“I suppose that’s Kayla giving you warning that I changed the shield code.” a voice from another set of stairs nearby echoed and Torian turned aiming his rifle at the figure of Jarlan.

Chapter 25: To Kill a Cyborg

“You wanted us dead all along!” the young officer growled and stepped towards the robed figure wielding a staff, his finger closing on the trigger.

“Don’t be a fool.” Jarlan warned.

“You killed May, and almost us, now it’s your turn …”

Before Torian could squeeze the trigger, Jarlan raised his staff and the rifle flew out of the young man’s hands clattering on the floor. With a bewildered look, the lieutenant raised his fists but then a force threw him back a few meters landing on his back laying still and prone.

“Torian!” Siiri drew her pistol and aimed it at Jarlan.

In response, Jarlan raised his staff and tried to force the weapon from her hand, but he frowned when nothing happened, “You’re growing stronger.”

Swallowing, she wanted to shoot him for May and hurting Torian, but watching her teacher, minister, doctor, and village leader, the memories of her childhood trust in the man caused the girl to lower the black pistol. Behind she heard Torian stirring and groaning.

“Soon they will come for you.” the elderly man with azurite blue eyes spoke calmly, “Kayla especially, she’s wants you for her own.”

“She’s not like that.”

“You saw what they did in the alien city. Soon your mind will be ready, and Kayla will come inside, forever. Believe me, dying is a welcome relief.”

Torian stood to his feet limping a little, starting for the rifle a couple of meters away, and Jarlan called out, “If you kill me, how will you get the shield down?”

“I’ll find out where all these glowing towers are, and destroy them.”

Slowly shaking his head, “They only amplify; no one would survive at ground level.”

“Why did you trick us?” he seethed, then he gave the other man a hard stare, “It’s because you killed all these people, the inhabitants of this city.”

“Yes, I did … but it had to be done, just as the girl needs to die and you for trying to stop it.”

“I will do everything in my power to stop you from killing her!”

Then the older man grew wroth, cursing angrily at Torian, and Siiri who rushed to his side, “You don’t know what you’re doing!” he stepped toward the pair and Siiri raised the pistol again, “The longer you keep her alive, the more she is going to suffer!”

“After the shield comes down, I’m taking her off world …”

The old man with long grey hair laughed, “They won’t let you leave orbit!”

Suddenly Torian felt unsure, “What do you mean? We have a battle fleet …”

“You saw the city, the power …” then he swallowed, “I suppose Kayla told you about her people, how they were slowly dying.”

Siiri, her voice wavering, stared at the man, “Why did you kill all these people?”

The old man brought his hand over his forehead, “Oh we were fools, we found that city long before the colony, and the power it possessed. The things we could do with our minds! The limitless power!”

“Like what you did to me just now?”

“More than that, we could see things far away, we could reach out and touch things in space … but we didn’t know it was them. All we found at first were skeletal remains, but yet they were still alive, watching us.”

“But what are they?” her voice sound a little fearful.

“They were disembodied beings, their bodies were rotting, their DNA corrupted, but their minds were expanding. They wanted to preserve their souls! They mocked God by trying to be Him! Gods themselves! But it failed, horribly, and for millennia they were trapped. In their city they died, but tried to preserve their life energy to become omniscient.”

  Sadly, Jarlan watched the pair, and sighed, “I’m protected by implants and shielding. I can’t make them for anyone else, I don’t know how, or find the parts. The mobs killed the man who could.”

Then he smiled a little, “I can read your thoughts. Sometimes I can see ahead in time.” he stared intently at Torian, and made the young man nervous, “Fields of barley, golden waves in the hills, that’s what I see in you. There’s a clear part of a stream, near some flat rocks among the fields of gold.” He looked at Siiri and then back at Torian, “He wants to take you there, under the sun on his planet, near his homestead, and lay you down the clover between the flat rocks next to the rushing water. Undress you slowly, passionately kissing, and make love to you. A very vivid imagination, this young man has, you would really enjoy it, Siiri.”

Sighing audible and looking away for an instant, then glaring at Jarlan, Torian replied, “I have my desires, fantasies, like any other man, and she’s a beautiful woman …”

“And she likes what she’s hearing.”

The flaxen haired girl replied with irritation in her voice, “Is that how you knew when we had misbehaved, or who stole into the bushes?”

“I used my power to keep you safe.”

“Why didn’t you kill the villagers, too?”

“Because! They weren’t developed, they survived. Most of them were young … children. You don’t understand, those beings, they had been trapped without a body. Then we came along. Our minds were similar, and as our powers grew, they could connect to our minds, and it was like opening a door, but instead of knocking, they just burst right in. Like demons, they possessed us.”

Jarlan glanced away, “I cared for the children that survived, and when ever someone like Siiri developed the abilities …they would attack the others…” he choked on his words, and then continued, “Kayla’s people longed for the passion, the physical being, and lost control. They fought for possession of the people in the city; thousands of beings for one body, there are millions of them. Emotions were out of control, fighting, murdering, lust, rape. It was horrible. The engineers and doctors tried to develop cybernetic implants to try to save the people, but one by one, the possessed hunted us down. I hid, survived, and created the shield to kill any human that had succumbed, which was all of the population, to save them from being slaves. Can you imagine losing all control of yourself to something so mad with passion they would kill, lust, and destroy, while you watched yourself doing it?”

There was a long silence before Torian finally spoke up, “We didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t. I led the traumatized survivors to the valley. The rest of the possessed were too busy in an orgy of sex and destruction, and when I activated the shield, it was all done, except for a few that had gone to Reega, the alien city, and you saw their descendents.”

He continued, “I had to cast her out, she would either become possessed and kill, or could not handle the surges, and her skull would crack open. The rest of the villagers believed it was demonic thing, which isn’t really untrue. It was a way to keep us safe.”

The lieutenant turned and walked to get the rifle, and slung it over his shoulder, “Then take down the shield, so my troops can secure the city.”

“I’m not interested in your war, when they find out they can’t enter the city, they will leave.”

“They will never leave, not the Imperium. Let my troops in the city, lower the shield.” gripping the rifle Torian stood back and motioned Siiri come beside him, and then the young officer spoke quietly, “Jarlan, your people…” he pointed to Siiri, “…her family, can’t hide forever. You don’t know anything about the Imperium, they weren’t around when this colony was started. They have a history of experimenting to make super soldiers, mutating their bodies with enhanced organs, and brainwashing them to do anything for the Emperor. They know this planet has something to make their soldiers even more powerful. If they can’t get into the city, they will scour the planet, and find Reega. They’ll find your people.” Then the wiry young man stepped up and stood face to face with the old man, “Even a lowly technician like me found an anomaly. When they do, they will commit the most horribly unimaginable atrocities to your people. I was their prisoner, if you don’t believe me; see what I am thinking now!”