The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (3 page)

“Eight
years
?” John was … had only
been twenty-four. “B-but he just joined the Army last spring!”

“John started working for us when he was
sixteen,” Gary explained. “The Army was a cover story—their top
brass work confidentially with us sometimes. We knew this
assignment would take him away for a long time and—”

I leapt up towards Gary, unable to hold back
my anger at the betrayal. “A long time?! You took him away from us
forever!”

Gary kept his composure as he shook his head.
“It was your brother’s choice, not mine. He heard the calling to
serve the Zygan Federation, and he came to see me, in this very
room, in fact.” Gary paused, glanced at the watch I was still
clutching in one hand, and favored me with another warm smile. “And
now, so have you.”

I stood stunned and speechless for a moment,
letting the watch drop from my fingers as if it burned my skin. It
landed on the table in front of me and popped open like an oyster.
Secreted inside the cap I saw a pearl: my favorite photo of John
and me a few years ago, arm in arm, standing victoriously on the
top of Sugarloaf Mountain after a grueling climb. Swallowing a sob,
I collapsed back down in the plastic chair and buried my face in my
hands. I knew at that moment that my die was cast. I would follow
my brother’s footsteps by following
in
his footsteps. And,
maybe, just maybe, I might learn why he left us. And why he
disappeared.

* * *

I had a lot to learn.

My new homeland, the Zygan Federation or, as
we commonly call it, Zygfed, is ruled by His Royal Highness, the
Omega Archon.

Kingdoms need their soldiers, and Zygfed is
no exception. Though the Zygan Federation had achieved internal
peace millennia ago, it was not 100% immune from attacks by alien
species from without and anarchist guerrillas, Andarts, from
within.

Therefore, Zygfed planets and territories are
protected by an elite corps of cosmic guards known as the
Sentinels, and by Zygan Intelligence field operatives working
throughout Andromeda and the Milky Way.

By virtue of my brother’s final sacrifice, I
would now myself have the chance to earn my wings as a Zygan
Intelligence agent, a catascope, and serve the Zygan Federation and
its subjects. John had apparently been a valuable operative for
Zygfed. Would I be able to measure up to him? And, a more difficult
question,
should
I?

One of my earliest memories as a little girl
was of waking up in a barren, icy chamber, the sun scorching my
fluttering lids. I fought to move, but my arms and legs were
frozen, trapped, my struggles in vain. Terrified, I looked away
from the blinding light and saw John’s face in the shadows. I could
barely make out his features, but I was comforted by his gentle
voice, a voice that reached out through my fog and told me that all
would be well. “I am by your side, do not be afraid. Patience is
the champion’s best tool.” Soothed by his words, I closed my eyes
again and felt at peace.

The surgeon finished suturing the laceration
on my scalp a few minutes later and directed the blazing operating
room lamp away from my face. I was released from the papoose board,
the straps that had imprisoned me flung aside as I leaped off the
gurney and fell into John’s arms.

The damage to the sidecar of his motorcycle
could easily be repaired, he reassured me. It was me he was worried
about. Squeezing his hand, I told him there was no need to worry
about me. After my cut healed, I could wear a helmet and ride
behind him on the seat instead. He promised he’d drive the bike
slower in the future, but I was glad he didn’t. I liked the feeling
of the wind blowing through my hair, and I was grateful I had a
brother who did, too. Helmets were for chickens. We were eagles. We
were meant to soar.

The answer found me. Not only would I soar
into space on John’s trail, I would do him proud.

So, on my own sixteenth birthday, I joined
the Zygan Intelligence team and started my training as a catascope
at Mingferplatoi Academy in Zyga’s bustling intergalactic capital
city of Mikkin.

* * *

Mingferplatoi Academy—one year ago

“It doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I
grumbled as I instructed nav to begin our first practice mission.
As the only two Terrans in our Academy class, Spud and I had been
matched as partners for our upcoming internships. The thought of
having to orbit Earth in a cramped ship for the next six months
with Spud the Stiff wasn’t brightening my day. The Scooter lurched
and bucked as we lifted off from the Academy’s lush chartreuse
grounds.

“Zygint endeavors to assign species to duty
near their home environments. Fewer chances of accidental discovery
when we resemble our charges,” Spud rationalized, adding, “However,
you are not the only one who is dubious regarding this
arrangement.” Smiling, he reached over and tweaked the antigrav
settings on the nav holo, smoothing our ascent through the Zygan
atmosphere.

I wasn’t about to thank him. “Let’s just get
through this test, okay.” I turned my attention to navigating
through the maze of guard buoys sprinkled through the planet’s
stratosphere by Zyga Traffic Control.

His tone was cold as he returned, “You do not
wish to wait for the pedagogue?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve done this course
hundreds of times on the simulator.” The virtual experience had
bolstered my confidence. “She’ll catch up. Contact metrics?”

“Working.” Sighing, Spud ran his fingers
across his holo in front of his post. “Cygnus in ninety-two
minutes. Rendez-vous with the target on Kepler 6b, metrics
established.”

After flawlessly achieving apogee, I couldn’t
resist sending Spud a smirk. Clear of planet Zyga, I gave the
Scooter the command to shift into hyperdrive and speed us towards
the Milky Way. Spud remained silent, focused on tracking our route
on his nav holo, and scanning for signs of our pedagogue’s ship on
our trail.

The constellation of Cygnus soon appeared on
our viewscreens, a bright cross nestled in a ring of nebulae.
Spud’s holo had highlighted our landing site as an ‘X’ at an
uninhabited peninsula on a southern continental shelf of planet
Kepler 6b.

“Cygnus is derived from the ancient Greek
word for swan,” Spud ventured, “and contains two of this octant’s
most populated planets orbiting Deneb and Albireo. Kepler 5b and 6b
are among a ring of exoplanets that include the Glieser
homeworlds.”

I yawned, hoping he’d get the hint.

He didn’t. “Cygnus is included in the Zodiac
sign of Sagittarius, along with—“

I raised a hand. “I’ve uploaded all the
Zygfed cosmography I’ll need, thank you. And medicine, science, and
history. You shouldn’t overfill that ‘brain-attic’ of yours,
anyway. Or mine.”

Spud’s eyes narrowed. “You are implying that
one’s accumulation of knowledge could be finite. I should consider
that possibility—

CRASH!

“Andarts!” I shouted as our Scooter rocked
with the force of the attacking torpedoes launched no doubt by the
fearsome terrorists. CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! We were being battered
from all sides by the swooping projectiles.

“Armor’s holding,” Spud reported, his eyes
darting from one holo screen to another as flocks of missiles
struck our ship. “For the moment.”

“Can you ID their ships?” I called out,
struggling to dodge the torpedoes and, at the same time, pull up a
perimeter holo scan.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

“There must be hundreds of them,” I growled
as I fought to stabilize our vessel. “I thought this was just
supposed to be a
mock
search and rescue mission. Where’s our
pedagogue’s ship?”

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

“Armor at 70%,” he said, adding, “Probably
far back out of our range. I’ve located two singularities at the
rim of our scan range. I shall endeavour to localise their signals.
And, alas, I see no other Zygfed vessels in our perimeter. I’ve
sent a distress signal to Deneb 5, but it looks as if we are on our
own.”

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

“Damn!” Our ship rolled to starboard with the
latest barrage, as I compensated for yaw. “Evasive maneuvers aren’t
working. Can we outrun them?”

“Unlikely. The torpedos are coming in
full-circle 360 degrees. Armor is now at 50%.” Spud’s words escaped
through gritted teeth.

“Then fire our fission grenades. That’ll buy
us some time.” Unfortunately, we both knew that our limited weapons
cache couldn’t overcome the obvious firepower levels of our
invisible assailants.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

Spud launched a wide dispersion of our own
armaments to pick out some of our avionic assailants, but our
meager hits didn’t do much to stem the flow. As I fixed my gaze on
our viewscreen, something caught my eye.

“Their torpedoes don’t seem to be dodging
very well.” I frowned. “Internal torpedo controls should respond as
soon as they see our grenades and change course to evade. Check out
the two second response delay in their maneuvers—I’ll bet these
torpedoes are remote controlled.”

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

Spud sent out another barrage of fission
grenades and nodded as he, too, observed the subtle discrepancy. He
spun towards another holo screen and ran his fingers over the data
display.

“Got ‘em!” Spud cried. “Two Andart ships
hiding in the Veil Nebula at 20.62 h D +42.03°. Obviously gunning
for us through their titanium messengers. Armor at 30%” He raised
an eyebrow as he saw me lean over to our weapons holo. “What are
you doing?”

“I’m going to rattle their cage.” I keyed a
few instructions into the holo and shot out the next volley of
fission grenades—only this time, rather than aiming each grenade at
an attacking torpedo, I guided our grenades to crash into each
other and explode all at once.

The resonant blast waves rocked our ship onto
its back and sent us flying several light years towards Deneb.
Fortunately, grav sensors kept us tractored in our seats and we
were able to regain control of the Scooter to re-con. We stared at
the viewscreens in amazement as we watched all the surviving
torpedoes retreating rapidly in the direction of the shrouded
Andart ships.

“Andarts withdrawing,” Spud announced,
nodding at his holo. “In hyperdrive, I might add.” He paused.
“Surely a distant grenade explosion shouldn’t have frightened them
away. And they should not be able to hear sounds in space. What did
you do?”

I leaned back in my chair, grinning broadly.
“Our fission grenades are made of copper, tin, and silver,
right?”

“Bronze, correct.”

“Well, the vibration of the fragmented bronze
components enhanced by the explosion created a giant blast wave.
The flash disrupted the remote wireless communications and flipped
the torpedoes into default mode, sending them racing back home
towards the Andart ships. Hope the Andarts have enough fuel to
outrun their dangerous toys.”

To my surprise, Spud actually laughed. “In
other words, as in Heracles’ sixth labour, you created a bronze
rattle. Brah-vah.”

“
De nada
,” I shrugged, sitting
casually on my hands until the adrenaline tremors wore off. I
certainly wouldn’t want Spud to have gotten the wrong idea, you
know.

* * *

Spud and I were given a hero’s welcome when
we finally arrived at Kepler 6b. Turned out the Andarts had used
their own communications disrupters to block our distress signals
from getting through, isolating us from our pursuing pedagogue as
well as any local intergalactic Zygfed patrols. Escaping the ambush
relatively unscathed, without help from the Zygan “cavalry”, meant
we’d not only passed our field test, but earned ourselves a
commendation--and a chance to apply for Zygfed’s elite Sentinels
team after graduation. The offer was tempting, but, after
consideration, I declined. John‘s trail, and mine, was with Zygan
Intelligence, not the Sentinel Corps.

I was amazed that Spud demurred as well. He
told me it was because the Sentinel Corps would fill his
brain-attic with “feckless experiences without satisfying his
intellectual curiosity”. My pedagogue told me weeks later that he’d
told her he’d been loath to break up our team, considering we
worked together so well.

I had to admit, that was a really nice thing
for him to say. And even nicer was that he never snitched that I’d
rushed into space without waiting for my pedagogue, my “training
wheels”, in the first place.

* * *

Kingdoms like Zygfed need their warriors—but
they also need their enemies. Nothing better than a passionate
struggle between good and evil to hold an alliance together, right?
And evil is a simple recipe. Take a teaspoon of the devil, a pinch
of brute, add a name based on
mors
, the Latin word for
death, simmer, and, presto! You have an archfiend that makes your
side look heroic. You’ve seen it on our TV show (or, considering
our ratings, maybe not): every week, Tara Guard and her cohorts
fight the good fight for the Phaeton Alliance, against the
dastardly killer Mordmort.

But, in reality, you don’t need horns,
flaming retinas, and smoke from your facial orifices to represent
evil. Zygfed’s
enemy du jour
is a balding, fifty-something
human named Theodore Benedict, who wears bifocals and looks like a
tax auditor.
ⁱⁱⁱ
Evil exists all around
us, and usually looks like a tax auditor. It’s the crimes, not the
costumes, that make the villain; and Benedict’s crimes have
included trying to violently overthrow the Omega Archon and His
Highness’ government, and “damn the collateral damage.”

To achieve his malevolent aims, Benedict
enlisted the Andarts, champion guerilla fighters from populated
planets all across the universe, to launch terrorist attacks on
Zygfed. My primary job for Zygint, and that of my fellow
catascopes-to-be at Mingferplatoi Academy, would be to stop
Benedict and his terrorist thugs and safeguard our King and his
subjects.