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  He thought little of it for a brief moment and decided that the Sergeant, whoever he was, is obviously on his side for whatever reason it may be. The Sergeant wanted Reyes alive. He was more or less, protecting Reyes.

  Reyes turned his body shifting to the opposite knee, “What’s your name?”

  “Gabriel,” he replied, “Gabriel Fox”.

  “Okay Fox, what’s the deal? How many and what are they?” Reyes asked, unsure if the UIF Military had incorporated aliens into their ranks since his arrest.

  “Human. Heavily armored – T-3 plating. Three I think. I’ve wounded one, the other two are on that corridor,” he said, pointing toward a further hallway entrance from their position.

  “ARIA, weapon power setting, full power,” Reyes said, eyeing the P-9 in his hand.

  “Commander the P-9 only operates at maximum efficiency,” she responded.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Reyes said, looking at Fox who seemed to have heard his AI’s response while giving off a smirk.

  He peered slowly around the right side of the weakening plasma shield and located a silhouette of a UIF soldier, reloading his weapon while his head bobbed slightly visible and unprotected.

  He aimed the P-9 in the general direction of the attacker. At the thought of hitting the back his head, the weapon reacted simultaneously emitting a bright purplish flash, erasing the soldiers head from his body.

  “I was wondering what that was,” Fox said impressed at the pistol Reyes had.

  “Yeah, pretty nice I’d have to say,” Reyes, replied as three electrically charged plasma rounds impacted the shield protecting where his head was. The shield failed within moments of the impacting rounds and disappeared, revealing the concealed defenders.

  ∞

  Reyes instinctively rolled away from the defunct shield and crawled on his hands and knees to a nearby wall close in proximity to where the soldier he had just decapitated laid. Fox somehow managed to move into an adjoining room and took cover behind the crumbling wall aside the entrance.

  He hadn’t seen the UIF actor move, but could have guessed the distance from their previous position to the adjoining room he now occupied was at least 30 meters. Fox would have had to move at a blazing speed to make that distance in such short time. The two defenders, Reyes and Fox, now couldn’t see each other, but relatively knew where the others took cover.

  Reyes eyed an attacker flanking the adjoining room where Fox had entered, the attacker unaware of Reyes’ new position. The dust floating around the room partially had covered his quick roll and crawl, providing him with an ultimate level of stealth. He lifted his pistol and fired, cutting the soldier at the knees and sending him to the ground in agonizing pain after the sizzling burst ripped through his heavy armor. The third attacker who flanked the knee-burned soldier moved gracefully to rescue his comrade but caught three well-planted plasma bursts to his forehead and mouth, causing his face to cave in with a melting effect. Fox had delivered the final blows to the rescuer with an impressive around-the-corner-shot.

  Reyes figured the soldier he sliced at the knees was still alive and decided he would interrogate the soldier of their cause. He stood slowly to make way for the downed attacker, consciously keeping an observant eye on the corridor to his right, on the lookout for any additional aggressors.

  Fox cautiously made his way from the adjoining room unaware that the grounded attacker still lay half alive. Dust and smoke continued filling the room from the debris smoldering, an effect of the earlier flaming explosion and had partially blocked his sight.

  His reaction was slower than the blast delivered from the attacker’s plasma rifle and his chest seared open from the highly concentrated, well-placed plasma rounds. Commander Reyes instinctively raised his weapon at the sight and flashed an electrically-charged magnetic pulse into the grounded attacker soldier, transforming the organically injured being into ashes and burning dust.

  Chapter Three

  Reyes rushed to Fox’s side and began applying what medical assistance he remembered. Without practice, he had lost some of his combat medical training, a skill nearly all UIF ground forces required per their armoire of acquired skills training.

  There wasn’t much Reyes could do; Fox had received two highly compressed rounds of plasma energy bursts, and an electrically charged projectile, which both cleanly cut through him at the center of his chest. The impacting rounds resulted in devastating effects while burning clean through his body, leaving a mess of organs and blood spewed on the wall. Bone melted in place within the human’s body. His chance of survival was less than 0.004%.

  ∞

  “Ugh,” Fox attempted to murmur, his throat now filling with a rush of bodily fluids from his burned open lungs, stomach, and throat.

  “It’s not as bad as it seems,” Reyes tried, “Let’s try to get on that Vanguard,” he said, knowing the Sergeant would be dead long before the two boarded.

  Fox didn’t reply, but his eyes worked feverishly on the Commander’s face as if he were trying to place the man now standing over him – as if, he recognized him.

  “ARIA, take me to the Vanguard,” Reyes said enlisting the system to activate a translucent map of the prison facility on the Heads up Display of his visor. He lifted Fox in a double-arm carry and began following the translucent blue-highlighted route the AI provided.

  “Sit-Rep,” he asked the AI, inquiring the situational report of hostile forces and weapons status of enemy and friendly units within the indirect vicinity of his location.

  “Artakkian forces have been alerted to your location, Commander. I recommend using corridor A-4 to exit the facility from the west-facing exterior,” she said in a quick burst of detailed information, “No hostile other forces detected.”

  “Okay, ‘Sarge’,” Reyes said, mocking the disguise of the former actor, hoping to give some mind numbing humor to Fox.

  Fox attempted to laugh, but just made a gurgling sound. His eyes widened as Reyes carried him, obvious excruciation ripping through him from the chest cavity missing.

  Reyes followed the map provided by ARIA, turning left, then right onto a long corridor with an exterior leading door marked with an X and upward pointing arrow sign. “Can you remote start the Vanguard ARIA?” Reyes asked, opening his legs into a short stride jog.

  “Commander, Daisy-puff is initializing,” she responded, also informing him of the call sign dedicated to the ship.

  “What. The. Hell. ‘Sarge’?” Reyes said, spacing his words and frowning in discord of the profusely bleeding Fox, “Daisy-puff?”

  ∞

  Fox attempted to smile, or laugh, and made some contorted facial gesture, but again, only choked on the blood that spewed from his mouth, drowning his face that began to severely pale..

  Halfway through the corridor toward the exit, Reyes glanced down at Fox checking him for life. Gabriel Fox, a man unknown to Reyes, had risked his life to secure the safety of the former Commander and ultimately became a martyr. Fox died on the journey through the rocky walled corridors of the Artakkian prison complex, a place, ironically notorious for an exceptionally low fatality rate among the guards and prisoners.

  He knew nothing of Fox but was defiant on leaving the fallen man behind. His actions to bring the deceased warrior with him stemmed from a long-standing ethical code that all Space Rangers believed to the very soul of their being – Never leave a fallen comrade.

  Although Fox wasn’t a Space Ranger, Reyes could tell he had some form of military training, even if rudimentary. The acting Sergeant had moved with lightning speed that was for sure. Reyes had never seen someone move that fast, although he didn’t personally see the Sergeant move, he just figured the distance versus acceleration accompanied by debris obstructing Fox’s path made for a very hard-pressed sprint, let alone an all-out run. This man moved with instilled purpose and skill. Fox didn’t resemble an Adroitian, an alien race who moved with grace such as this, but he seemed to have matched even the fastes
t Adroitian Reyes ever encountered while in service.

  Nevertheless, he wasn’t leaving the man behind and soon after his passing, the two, exited the building and Reyes made his way across a short distance of a rocky area to ‘Daisy-puff’, the Vanguard set to transport him to Earth.

  ∞

  “ARIA, egress sequence mark T-10 seconds,” Reyes commanded, opening his legs in a longer stride across the rocky terrain.

  “Sequencing, Mark T-8,” She said, responding in real-time to Reyes closing distance to the Vanguard.

  ∞

  The Vanguard, a little less than a melted-corner-box, is what Reyes called ‘The Flying Brick’. The vessel was ugly as sin and came designed with little or no aerodynamics in mind. The forward command center, pilot’s station, included an array of controls, switches, buttons, transparent computing displays, and a partially panoramic viewing window. Entry into the vessel was up an inclined retractable ramp that folded down alongside the port side, left side, of the vessel and two main nuclear reactor ion enhanced thrusters protruded slightly under the spacecraft.

  As Reyes made his way into the vessel, he faintly groaned, remembering the tightness of the control center and the rash he had acquired while spending three weeks after the exhausting training sessions. After choosing the shortest stick, Reyes became the shuttle driver for all the incoming soldiers for training, thus led him to be the ‘most-experienced space bus driver’.

  Commander Reyes continued into the vessel and secured Fox’s body on the medical bay holding table before retracting the ramp and finding his way to the control seat. It had been a while since he piloted the obnoxiously shaped vessel and it was much different from his Space Exploration Vessel.

  He quickly found himself, recognizing and remembering the startup commands to the vessel and shortly thereafter began hovering sequence. Once established in a stable hover, ARIA could take over and autonomously pilot the craft to its intended location. Now that Fox was dead, someone else had a lot of explaining to do.

  ∞

  “ARIA, Hover sequence established, you have the controls,” he said, letting his hands fall free of the piloting controls.

  “I have control of the vessel Commander,” the AI responded, “Please secure safety restraints and confirm cabin compression”

  “Cabin pressure confirmed, restraints…,” he said, pulling the straps tight across his chest, “… secure.”

  “Preparing for launch, T-5 seconds,” she said providing a translucent countdown in the lower portion of the viewing window of the control center. She paused the launch sequence due to a programming safety precaution in the system.

  Reyes had taken a little longer than sequencing to board and secure Fox and himself, so the launch sequence automatically paused after observing that the control seat restraints were not fastened.

  “Launch sequence count,” he said, subconsciously impressed at the still engraved training in his brain. ‘It’s like riding an iCycle,’ he thought, “Once you learn, you never forget,” he caught himself thinking aloud

  “Launch for go, T-2,” she said, pausing the count for the Commander’s confirmation.

  ∞

  Reyes checked through his gauges, the switches, and system notifications and turned back to double-check his restraining of the deceased Fox, “Launch for go,” he said.

  The Vanguard was a tightly designed vessel, but with ample storage space rear of the control center. While hovering over its tail end, vertically, access and navigation within the vessel was somewhat complicated.

  Reyes made his way through the vessel's interior, its nose aiming skyward toward the green-gray atmosphere of Artak. He secured himself and ensured he was as perpendicular to force as he could be. Although, the control seat itself had built in force absorption, so any force greater than what his body could handle the absorbers would recycle forcing energy into storage for the nuclear reactor thrusters.

  The shuttle made no significant, awe-inspiring, lift-off. From the outside, it probably seemed to struggle during launch. The vessel achieved 10 meters per second, and then slightly slowed to 8 meters per second and before Reyes could worry himself, the vessel accelerated with great force, pushing his helmet into the headrest at 8 G’s, a force that would last for at least fourteen minutes.

  At the atmospheric threshold, the vessel had accelerated to 55,800 meters per second in a little less time than 12 minutes. This was ‘impressive for this big ass brick’ he thought. While leaving the planet, Reyes felt the familiar tingling in the hairs of his neck, arms, and chest, even under containment of the BSU suit and entered zero gravity, recognizing the symptoms to be a direct result of the magnetic field reaching out into the path ahead preparing to forcefully move any space debris which might cause harm.

  ∞

  Chapter Four

  “Captain Watson,” the Resistance commander called as she entered the center common room of the underground facility.

  “Yes, Commander,” Watson stood, providing the approaching Commander a salute.

  “I asked you to send a briefing to me when Captain Fox landed on Artak,” she said eyeing the Captain.

  “Yes, he has just landed, Commander,” she said, retrieving a transparent tablet from her work desk.

  “And the UIF?” the Resistance Commander asked.

  “The UIF entered orbit 34 minutes succeeding Captain Fox’s landing,” she said, gesturing the tablets display to provide more data, “Fox should be in and out before they intersect.”

  “Watson. I don’t want any personal retributions against Commander Reyes,” Leila, the Artakkian resistance Commander said, “I know what happened and you must remember it wasn’t his fault nor due to negligence on his part.”

  “Yes, Tapa,” Watson responded, naming her Commander by the Artakkian rank of Lieutenant General.

  “We’ll enter no-sight shortly, you should get some rest.” The Commander said, turning her back to Watson and walking away to exit the room.

  “Yes, Tapa,” Watson said, grateful for the break.

  ∞

  She had been on duty for 32 hours tracking Captain Fox and his progress thus far. ‘No-sight’ meant the Earth would enter the far side of the satellite, a stationary satellite located on the moon and orbiting the planet and would have at least four good hours of sleep and a chance to eat anything palpable. ‘Definitely a shower’ she thought catching a whiff of her dim musk now seeping through her uniform.

  The underground cell remained a relatively cool temperature; typically, 15 degrees lower than the above ground surface temperature. The surface temperature, however, typically soared into the mid 60’s Celsius. The term ‘cool’ made little, if any, relief, but she and the others had acclimated to the underground and didn’t mind the temperature.

  Watson transferred her ongoing duties to an Adroitian ensign subordinate to Watson. The Adroitian respectively willed herself to take over the duties, though she too had little rest. Watson ensured her ensigns were able to rest before herself and this ensign was one who just came back on duty from a five-hour break.

  “Shu’ray let me know of any implications, I’ll be in my quarters,” she instructed the ensign who acknowledged with a slight nod of her head, not looking away from the multiple monitors she observed.

  Adroitians were very skilled at most of anything they did. Sports, computers, politics, education, etc.… Unfortunately, Adroitians are not mentally equipped for warfare and Watson understood this as their home system had been a peaceful colony for the better part of 16,000 years. Since the Grongan attacks, Adroitians have decidedly begun training more in Earthkind warfare techniques and operations, an affordable attempt to grasp a better understanding of the concept of ‘war’.

  Watson herself was born of war, her brother, father, and grandfather being among the most respected officials in the UIF of their time. Her grandfather wasn’t UIF, however; he left service just before the UIF implemented, but all the same – a soldier. Yet, here she was,
fighting the very cause her fathers created.