Phasers of Anstractor Read online

  “No, the Colonel is actually on his way to Meluvia. I have to call him next, and it is not a call that I am looking forward to,” Aurora said.

  “I can break the news to him if you want, sis.”

  “No, Raf, it’s my job, so let me do it. I just know that everyone he knows was on that ship…”

  “Not everyone.”

  “Well, it is as much his home as Helysian was, Raf.”

  “I know. Tell the commander that I have the intel and we will do what we need to do. I need him to get the Helysian out of the First Quadrant as quickly as possible and remain cloaked until that destroyer is taken care of.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Aury?”

  “Yeah Raf?”

  “I want you to leave Helysian as soon as you can and come down here with us.”

  “You mean, there, on Vestalia?”

  “Yeah, I want you where I can protect you. I’m not able to do that with you on the other side of the galaxy. Let them jump away and you come here with me and Marian. Can you do this for me?”

  “I don’t know Raf. I have Luc here and the baby and… I’ll think about it and talk to him about it, okay?”

  “Alright sis, but if you take too long, then I’ll take it as a yes.”

  “Are the Phasers going to destroy the Geralos ship, Rafian?”

  “We will be destroying that piece of schtill, oh don’t you worry—and a whole lot more. Just stay high and dry until things settle. Come home, baby sister. Vestalians are meant to be on the ground.”

  He had not spoken to his sister, Aurora in over a month. As he thought of the friends he had lost on the Missio-tral, a wave of sadness overtook him. The sadness slowly turned into rage, and he considered going after the Geralos himself. However, he was Supreme Leader now and he had people that could do it without him having to be there. He looked over at the cave entrance of his home and the shapely silhouette of Marian stood at the doorway, waiting. She was always impressive with her dress. The sheer nightgown she wore barely concealed her form, and her hair was wrapped up in a towel. It could have been a crown for all he cared. It reminded him of how much he had to lose if he made a rash decision.

  With much hesitation he flipped through his holographic Rolodex to the letter ‘Y.’ There would need to be an indirect attack on the Geralos command, since any direct assault on a primed destroyer would be suicide.

  ~*~*~*~

  After the destruction of the Missio-tral, a tiny, black ship flew out towards the area of space where the Helysian sat. Even though it was within the larger ship’s radars, it remained undetected.

  “Aurora, did you see that blip?” Aren TRU shouted to his fellow navigator. They were sitting at their posts, watching several large screens for any suspicious activity.

  Aurora patted her afro nervously as she focused on the area. “There are always blips, Mister Paranoid,” she said, making a face. “It was probably a chunk of debris, floating close to the base.”

  “It was moving pretty fast for debris,” he replied. His tan baldhead shone beneath the lights of the bridge. I wonder if it’s your brother doing one of those cool Phaser jumps or whatever.”

  “I wish it were my brother. I haven’t seen him in months.”

  As Aren and Aurora spoke, the tiny ship slid comfortably through Helysian’s shields and attached itself to the hull.

  Maes Van Senthyn slipped on his skin suit and checked his reflection in the holo-display to make sure that he looked flawlessly human. He practiced his speech through an untested vo-corder and though he sounded good; he wondered if the people on board the Helysian would be convinced. He had no time to second-guess himself, so he took a deep breath and stepped through the rigged airlock. The blast doors slammed shut to protect the ship and he was onboard instantly. There was no turning back now, so he focused on his mission—he was to get onboard, blend in with the humans, and report on the Phasers.

  The Geralos had chosen him for this mission because of his record. He was an unmatched spy and a brilliant practitioner of the martial arts. If any one of the humans or Meluvians were to see through his ruse, he would dispatch them quickly. There was to be no failure in this mission. The future of his people depended on it, and he was honored to have been the one chosen. He ducked behind a discarded torpedo when a few soldiers walked by. They were laughing and talking about the meal they’d just had so they paid very little attention to their surroundings.

  I wish this were a standard mission so that I could slit their stupid, smooth throats, Maes thought to himself. But he let it pass. There would only be blood as a last resort. He waited until the hall was empty and then stepped out once more to look around.

  “Wow! Now there’s something I haven’t seen in a long time,” a pretty, dark-haired cadet said when she saw the tall, pale-skinned man emerge from behind the torpedoes.

  “Something wrong with my appearance?” he asked her shyly, and she giggled at how oddly he moved and spoke.

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old and Maes noticed that the 3B suit she wore looked extremely different from the one he was wearing. He had stolen it from the body of a fallen soldier during the takeover of an Alliance vessel several years back.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to be odd,” Maes said. “I am new here – really. I was on the ship Messio-tral before it got destroyed.”

  The young girl gave him a sympathetic look and then led him out of the room and into a massive, well-lit hallway where humans, Casanians, and Meluvians were walking past one another en masse. It was the first time Maes had seen so many of them in one place and it was so much to take in that he almost panicked.

  “You don’t like people, do you?” the young girl asked.

  Maes permitted himself to shake his head in response. He had studied human behavior for months and had passed his tests with flying colors. Nevertheless, good grades and high marks did not translate smoothly to life, however, and after a time, he began to get many stares from the other humans.

  “Why do you think they are laughing at me?” he asked the girl.

  “My name is Jayne, what is yours?” she asked, ignoring his question.

  “I am Sako,” Maes told her. “Sako Trynessis. Pleasure to meet you, young Jayne of Helysian.”

  “Sako, the funny way you talk, your odd stomp walk and that horribly old 3B suit you’re wearing … that is why they stare at you. You stick out like a Geralos!”

  Maes panicked when she said this and stopped to drop into a defensive maneuver to thwart off anyone that would attack him now that she had blown his cover.

  “The Geralos aren’t really here, silly,” Jayne said, shaking her head. “I was making a point. You’re a jumpy one. See, this is where everyone hangs out. This is where you can buy some new 3B that is of the times.” She chuckled. “And you can get a haircut, too. I’m not sure what they did on Missio-tral—those poor souls—but I can see that military fashion was not happening there.”

  Maes thanked his young escort and took another breath to calm himself as he tried his best not to stick out. The girl had noticed his oddness too quickly so he knew he had to try harder.

  He looked around. The place was a mall of sorts, with flashing lights, long lines and people speaking loudly—it was everything he hated about the Vestalians. He placed some credits on the panel of a sales kiosk and then watched them vanish as the machine ordered him to stand still. Within seconds, he was in a slick 3B suit of bright silver. Now he looked as stylish as the other young people that were on the ship; now he really fit in.

  “That color suits you,” a baldheaded Meluvian said to him. She walked up and deposited her own credits to purchase a maroon and silver version. “How does this color look with my skin?” she asked.

  “It looks very attractive on you, Miss …?”

  “Ura, Ura Dohn. I’m the cadet commander. Funny, I would think you would know that.”

  “Oh, I’m Sak
o – ma’am, pardon my manners. I am not from this ship. I was rescued and brought here after Messio—”

  “A refugee? Wow, this must be a terrible time for you, Sako. I am so sorry for your loss!”

  “Thank you, Lady Dohn, I appreciate you talking to me.”

  “Lady Dohn? Wow, I like that. You hear that, children? This young man called me Lady Dohn. If you want extra points on your physicals, you should do the same,” she announced loudly to every cadet within earshot. Then she winked at Sako and made to leave the busy hub.

  Maes felt good about the exchange. She was an adult Meluvian—a race with more acute senses than human beings—and she had not seen him for what he was, even when he’d made the dumb mistake of calling her “lady.” He continued to meet new people, his confidence growing as he did so. Within a week he would be just like them, indiscernible to anyone he came across. He got a haircut, moved into a dorm, and started taking military classes. It was very easy for him to get inside, even though he had no record on the Helysian file system.

  ~*~*~*~

  Yuth Varience was a legend on his home planet of Louine. He had left the comfort of a plush palace, several husbands and wives, and a promised lifetime of luxury in order to join the humans in their fight against the Geralos.

  The united governments of Louine had given in to the foolish notion that they would be left alone by the lizards once they had consumed all of humanity and made themselves the rulers of Anstractor. They wanted nothing to do with the war and chose to sit out, hoping the Geralos would notice, consider them a peaceful, non-threatening ally, and leave them alone. Yuth had been one of the premier pilots during the Davinine World War. He was a national hero, but war had changed him immensely.

  Unlike the other “heroes” that decided to accept the easy life or substitute their uniforms for the formal robes of a politician, Yuth had wanted to take his heroics beyond his planet to help the galaxy. After three years of fighting and showcasing his brilliance as a tactician, Yuth was invited to join the Phasers.

  Yuth was a mystery to his fellow Phasers. As a Lyrian from Louine, his looks were exotic. Lyrians were the color of the Vestalian Sea at its shallowest point, a beautiful aquamarine. Their blue canvas was broken by white-lined tattoos that were mostly random at birth but held patterns that revealed his lineage. Lyrians were a handsome race, all cheekbones, shapely skulls, and tiny blunted spikes that grew in the places where hair would grow for a Vestalian.

  The average Lyrian height was six feet and they had three strong fingers on each hand and foot. From a distance—color aside—it would be hard to distinguish a Lyrian from a human, but the two races could not be any more different, especially when it came to their customs

  Throughout his career Yuth had been approached by many men and women from different agencies, and he’d indulged them whenever he could. But he found them odd even as he played along to learn more about them. It was one of these women that he had allowed to convince him to join the Phaser Agency. Her name was Tayden Lark. The Phaser agency was everything that Yuth could dream of as a career soldier, and he believed they had the tools and abilities to truly affect change.

  Once a Phaser recruit, Yuth had quickly passed the tests and excelled to the point where he joined the elite Phaser Aces. This gave him a position of leadership and though he enjoyed being out in the field, he was extremely happy with his rank and wanted to help make the agency even better.

  When Yuth Varience received the call from his commander, it was at a very late hour. But to have Rafian VCA call him personally for a mission meant it was something that required his personal touch. What Rafian wanted him to do seemed impossible and insane, but he knew this was a test to see if he was worthy. A challenge from the top Phaser was the greatest of honors and who better to do it than Louine’s own Vyther Ret (Bringer of Death)?

  It was a week later when Yuth uncloaked his Whyte after flying through the steamy atmosphere of Geral. The Whyte was one of the newer stealth ships that used reflective technology to appear invisible to the naked eye. For the radars, a skilled pilot would cloak for the ten minutes that it was up and then utilize low altitude to allow the cloaking to recharge. He knew how to remain unseen and he was able to do it with older ships that had no technology outside of a fast thruster engine.

  After several hours of invisible flight—to make it to the bustling city of Rudshe—Yuth armed his guns, bit into a Softex pill and prepped for the beginning of his lengthy mission. He banked the Whyte around a high-rise, then climbed and landed on its rooftop. He unlocked his seatbelt and then secured his mask and weapons before saying a few silent prayers and hopping out onto the roof.

  A light rain fell and the sky was a gray soup of mist, clouds and occasional lightning. There were some patrols flying around the buildings but Yuth was certain they would not see the ship due to its unique surface.

  He wore a COREX mask attached to his 3B suit; it was a Louine invention and one that most Phasers had not adapted yet. The mask was one that stuck close to the skin, and its entire front panel was transparent so that the wearer looked as if he wore a tight hood with a piece of glass covering the face. The advantage of the COREX in comparison to a 3B mask was that it increased visibility. It could also track heat and cold signatures just by translating the wearer’s thoughts. This alien technology demanded that the mask could only have one user in its lifetime, as it could confuse owners and hurt its wearer. One other advantage the COREX had was its ability to stop the Geralos from invading the wearer’s mind. It was for this reason that Yuth wore it. It was also why he encouraged Rafian to make it a mandatory part of the battle uniform.

  As he moved to the rear of the Whyte and made to descend the building, he triggered the cloak on his 3B suit and leapt off the side before the drones could see him. He had five minutes of invisibility before the suit would have to recharge and he knew it would take a lot longer to reach the streets below. The building was a skyscraper so he triggered the wings of his suit, jumped, and began a slow glide towards the streets below. As he descended, he pulled a pistol from the small of his back and held it at the ready in case he was spotted. He reached into a pouch that was at his waist and took out a small clip filled with crystal bullets. He fired a shot into the ground near a dark alley, then retracted the 3B suit’s wings and jumped through the beckoning crystal portal (tear) to teleport to the area that he had shot.

  Phaser Aces used crystal guns to instantly teleport during firefights, but Yuth used it in just about every mission to perform maneuvers that gave him an edge over the enemy. He blinked out and appeared in the area where he had shot the crystal, then leaned down to retrieve it and placed it carefully back inside the pouch. He turned off the cloak and pulled out his las-sword as he walked out towards the main area of the city, keeping to the shadows as best he could to avoid detection.

  When he emerged from the alley to the dirty side street of the slums, he looked up and off to the distance and saw the large command center for the Geralos Navy. He felt his two hearts skip with joy at how close he had managed to land without detection. He then slunk back into the alley, where he touched the side of his mask and called Rafian VCA to update him on his status.

  “Commander, I’m at the heart.”

  “You’re one hell of a Phaser, Yuth! Stay dark down there until you hear from us. We will send supplies through the tear to hold you and if you need company, just let me or Tayden know. We can join or switch places with you.”

  “These type of operations get busted whenever there are multiple agents, Commander,” Yuth said. “I can hold out for as long as you need me to. Once I get the go-ahead I will move on the city and take the command center out. They will be clueless as to what caused it to happen, and I will be back in space to assist with the assault on that destroyer.”

  “Call me if you need anything. I will move fast so that you are not stuck down there for too long.”

  “Thanks, Commander.” Yuth hung
up.

  Rafian looked back to see if Marian was still waiting in the doorway, but she was gone and the lights had been powered down. He wanted to jump for joy at the quick success that Yuth had had on the enemy’s planet but he resisted the urge. Phasers were good, but an Ace like Yuth was in another class. He pumped his fist into the air and then ducked back into the cave to see if he could catch Marian before she went to sleep.

  ~*~*~*~

  “How do you become a Phaser?” Maes asked Aurora SYN as she walked ahead of him, up the ramp to the ship’s bridge. He was carrying her boxes of files, and she was scolding him about annoying her fellow officers.

  “That’s an odd question to be asking me, cadet,” she responded. “Having high aspirations, I see.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I would like to be in the Special Forces one day an—“

  “Well, you don’t become a Phaser, cadet,” Aurora said. “They choose you. Where did you say you were from again? I didn’t realize that Messio-Tral even had cadets. Were you on a field trip there or something?”

  Maes smiled. “Yes, a field trip! I was there from the destroyer Rendron, with—“

  “You mean, battleship? The Rendron is a battleship.” When she said this, Aurora spun on her heels to face him and looked him over with curiosity. She touched her fluffy afro and knitted her brow, then raised her voice a bit when she spoke to him. “You aren’t being honest with me, Sako – if that is even your real name. Who are you, really, and why are you on my ship?”

  Maes wondered how quickly he could throw the boxes at her, draw his hidden las-sword and cut her head off before escaping. But this was a finesse job, and he had been chosen because of his skills as a spy, not because of his sword arm. Killing Aurora would grant him the greatest pleasure but she was not a Phaser; she was his key to finding the Phasers, so he would have to play the game.

  “I am sorry Captain, it was foolish to lie,” he said, his tone apologetic. “See, the truth is… I do not really know who I am. The ship got attacked and I must have blacked out.”