The viewscreen footage played out deep in the bowels beneath Terra Sollus’s surface, an overhead outlook of three gaunt figures tearing frantically through a dank realm of endless conduits and tunnels. Their footfalls splish-splashing through puddles marked the desperation in the trio’s flight. Despite running for days, these three Korvenites, a teenage boy, a bald older male, and a young female, would not stop. Their entire existence reduced the singular drive of survival, each Korvenite’s alabaster white face told equally harrowing tales of exhaustion, terror and pain.
Months ago these Korvenites were imprisoned in separate internment camps. Until the radical leader Maelstrom freed them, this trio had never known hope. The boy had never even used his telepathic Mindspeak abilities before! Soon after, the newly liberated Korvenites found themselves on a massive spacestation commandeered from the Union and Kedri governments by Maelstrom and his bold followers, poised to reclaim their homeworld.
But hope had abandoned the Korvenites yet again, leaving Maelstrom dead and his Korvenites scattered. These Korvenites had been part of the lucky assemblage not aboard the terrorist leader’s spacestation upon its destruction. In the ensuing chaos, this rudderless group had somehow made their way beneath Terra Sollus’ megapolises, scavenging for scraps of food, staying low profile for months.
Now someone had been hunting these Korvenites, whittling their numbers down to just three. So the Korvenites found themselves on the run again, fear and fatigue taking an obvious toll. Their observers wanted desperately to rescue the trio—but only after learning the identity and location of their pursuers.
The older male Thaull’s whitish skin was dripping with sweat, his pace barely faster than a jog. Before long, Thaull finally stumbled on a shallow puddle to all fours with a splash. He couldn’t even hold his head upright while gasping for air.
Both younger Korvenites heard him fall and stopped. “[Thaull,]” the female hissed in the Korvenite dialect Korcei, “[get up! They’re coming!]”
“[C-can’t…Jomè,]” Thaull wheezed in reply, flailing an arm to wave them off. “[You and Kyraeus…go. I’ll…slow you.]”
The one named Kyraeus turned and dashed to Thaull’s side.
Gawking in disbelief, Jomè ran her hands through matted purple hair and shrieked, “[I sense them closing in on us!]”
Kyraeus remained near Thaull. “[I know, Jomè. I’m not mentally blind,]” he said.
“Ky—!” she cried again.
“[I am NOT leaving Thaull!]” Kyraeus barked back at Jomè. She scowled at Kyraeus right before turning on her heel and dashing with renewed vigor into the pitch-black tunnels ahead.
Thaull caught his breath and looked at Kyraeus. “[She’s right…I’ve lived long enough…and the paradise of Yvyria…is waiting.]”
“[No.]” The youngster shook his shaggy mane of violet, breathlessly. “[We’ve already lost too many. I won’t lose youAAAAGGHH!!!]”
A bolt of sizzling red energy seared past Thaull’s head, briefly chasing away the dark and nailing Kyraeus square in the chest. As the young Korvenite flopped to the ground, his pain clearly vibrated through Thaull, meaning the two were telepathically linked.
One spectator watching on the viewscreen cringed. Another made a distressed noise, but quickly stifled themselves.
A second red bolt sliced past Thaull again, and hurtled back into the shadows. “[Jomè, DUCK!!]” he screeched.
Thaull’s words came too late. Jomè’s scream rang out, as did the fizzle of the energy bolt striking true. Puddle splatters bounced throughout the tunnels when she fell.
Her agony shuddered through Thaull just as Kyraeus’s had. Grief-stricken, Thaull spun about looking for cover—and found a shiny pulse pistol pointed between his eyes. The Korvenite froze, gaping past the pistol into the face of its owner. A human male of mixed earthborn ethnicity stood over him wearing light armor and a victorious sneer.
“Give me a reason, limeblood,” he snarled in Standard, pressing the gun into Thaull’s brow. This human pursuing the Korvenites bore armor markings resembling those of the pestilential Children of Earth group. A tension gripped the observers not knowing what Thaull would do.
Thankfully he sighed and knew well enough to surrender.
Disappointed that the Korvenite didn’t retaliate, the earthborn glanced over his shoulder glumly and nodded. At once, six more figures emerged from the shadows behind them, all in sleek, cobalt blue body armor and carrying long pulse rifles. Despite the helmets masking their faces, their builds looked undeniably human.
The limp bodies of Kyraeus and Jomè were gathered up and purposely dragged through filthy sewer puddles. Their leader stepped back, lowering his weapon as an armored soldier roughly shackled Thaull’s arms together. The older Korvenite didn’t resist, his wizened features going blank.
“We all clear?” The leader asked.
“Yep,” replied one of the soldiers in a chipper female voice. “No sign of any other limeblood or non-human for miles, Kingston.”
“Then let’s move. Good work, people,” the man named Kingston commended his team as they carried away their bounty into the unlit tunnels with militia-like efficiency. Before long, the only trace of their presence was the echoes of footsteps.
As soon as the group had moved a safe distance away, the viewscreen shifted perspective to the celling several feet above. The screen focused then on the massive body of Star Brigade 1st Lieutenant V’Korram Pryderi-Ravlek—codename ‘Jakadda’, splayed up against a rusted mesh of piping and oily power cables running across the ceiling. Drops of condensation dribbled onto his light-armorweave uniform. The Kintarian used his hands and feet to cling to the knots of wiring pressed against his broad-shouldered back. Every lithe muscle stayed taut and still, primed to spring at any instant.
He waited a few more macroms, green-flecked eyes roving right to left.
V’Korram wrinkled his muzzle and sniffed about. At the same time, he perked up his ears to catch the faintest of sounds—checking once, twice, thrice.
Sensing the coast was clear, the Kintarian released his grip on the ceiling and landed noiselessly on all fours, as expected from such a nimble species.
Tossing back a thick mane of auburn hair that easily tumbled past his shoulders, V’Korram rose to his full height of six-foot-nine. He peered into the darkness ahead with narrowed, green-flecked eyes while typing information into a small disk hooked to his utility belt, a tracking device used by Star Brigade recon officers like himself. V’Korram unhooked the device and tossed it into the air. The tiny disk hovered for a moment and blinked to life, and then darted ahead into the darkness to track where the Children of Earth contingent traveled.
Once it vanished, V’Korram tapped the wrist comm in his right gauntlet. “Jakadda to Reign,” he spoke in a low, brusque growl. “Targets captured bait and are on the move.”
One observer watching the screen, a human male, replied in a thick Cercidalean accent. “Definitely Children of Earth. We counted seven,” the Brigadier codenamed Reign stated, “Were there more?”
“No,” V’Korram replied. “No doubt that was a fraction of the cell’s full number.” The Kintarian’s gave a full-body bristle. “Now they’re trying to see who can make the most offensive Galdorian joke.”
“Jesus,” grumbled another human, this one with a husky yet feminine voice. “So they have to be clichéd and xenophobic?”
This human isolationist group, comprised of disgruntled Earth survivors, had been a mid-level threat under surveillance of both Star Brigade and the Union Interplanetary Police Agency. But after the Terra Sollus attacks months ago, the Children of Earth had made it their ‘duty to capture any Korvenites who had escaped capture, then doing who knows what to them. With UniPol’s aid, Star Brigade had taken down CoE cells on Terra Sollus, Terra Gima, Mars and some of Zeid’s habitable moons this past month alone.
These accomplishments would have filled Reign with pride, if not for remembering the mutilated Korvenite corpses discovered at each CoE hideout. “Were you spotted?” he asked.
“No,” the Kintarian growled, “the sensory scrambler helped.”
Abruptly, a new mechanized voice chimed in. “Thanks to whose tech expertise again?”
V’Korram rolled his eyes in ferocious annoyance.
“Hush, you!” the female scolded the Brigadier codenamed Khrome. “Jakadda, what was the ‘bait’s’ status?”
V’Korram replied, “Roughed up, but breathing, Heatstroke.” With that answer, Heatstroke let out a soft sigh of relief. “I could easily track down the CoE myself, take down their unit, and enjoy it.”
“Do not engage, Jakadda,” Reign stated adamantly. “Find their location and await further orders. Keep us updated on anything your tracker doesn’t show.”
V’Korram snorted disdainfully at the order. It wasn’t the first time he had heard those words on a field mission. “Understood. Jakadda out.” He tapped his wrist-com harder than needed to end the dialogue. Then, pointed ears pricked up, he took one last sweeping glance at the sewer tunnel, analyzing every facet before dropping to a predatory crouch. Then V’Korram slinked off into the gloom like a panther, trailing the Children of Earth strike team.
‘Reign’ watched V’Korram vanish off the viewscreen from a sleek UComm battlecruiser’s coolly lit bridge hovering low in Terra Sollus’s heavens.
The annoyance in the Kintarian’s voice left a nagging caution in Reign’s gut. But as Senior Executive officer of Star Brigade, Reign – aka Captain Habraum Nwosu – usually got that feeling when any of his operatives went solo in the field. He had no doubt that V’Korram would obey his orders, though. Aside from some anger issues, this Kintarian lieutenant was finally learning to be a better team player over the past five and a half months.
Habraum, field commander of this Combat Team and Senior Executive Officer of Star Brigade, currently donned field combat attire with royal green and white coloring. He accented his outfit with hand gloves, ankle-high boots and shoulder plates made of golden metal—all well-worn and scratched from battle. The captain, a native of Cercidale, stood at six-foot-five, with a powerfully-built physique easily filling out his uniform. He idly stroked over his face, touching his usually well-trimmed goatee – now accompanied by two-day old stubble.
Rogguts, he considered, need a shave.
His hazel gold eyes, vivid and attentive, roved across the floating holoscreens of the helm’s communication station. One neon-hued monitor tracked V’Korram’s movements through a wireframe map of Conuropolis’s sewer system, while another monitor displayed live feeds from the tracker tailing the Children of Earth.
Habraum’s gaze rested on a squat figure to his right, hulking in physique and sheathed in silvery armor. That and the flat-topped head made the Brigadier resemble some type of android. However, ‘it’ was a living, breathing ‘he’. Moreover, the armor was organic and skin-like —typical of the techno-organic Thulican race., he was 1st Lieutenant Khromulus Threedwok, codenamed and nicknamed Khrome, the team’s tech expert.
“Was the side banter necessary, Khrome?” Habraum frowned.
The Thulican grinned and shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’m just ensuring that V’Korram gave proper credit for his improved stealth.”
“You banter a wee bit much at times,” the Cercidalean human replied, half-scolding and half-teasing.
That earned a derisive snort from Habraum’s second-in-command standing at his left. “You just realized this?” asked Heatstroke aka Captain Samantha D’Urso.
“Hey!” Khrome snapped. His face, cobalt blue and noseless, filled with mock outrage.
Before the Thulican could retort, Habraum crisply diffused the situation. “Alright, alright. Khrome, take a last check of our equipment.” Khrome nodded obediently tromped over to the ship’s tech station a short distance away, but not before shooting Sam a melodramatic glare.
She smirked and kept fiddling with her butter-blonde hair, long bangs pulled back while the rest fell sleekly past shoulder length in half-up half-down style. Habraum shook his head at his subordinates and returned focus to the holo-maps.
Sam’s skin-tight field uniform was simpler than Habraum’s; a crimson body suit sporting one wide white stripe down the center from the low neckline in front and upper back down to the feet. Habraum couldn’t help stealing glances at the view.
“I know that look,” she said quietly, hands on hips.
“Oh?” Habraum scratched the nape of his baldhead, unsurprised. Given that they had worked together nearly a decade, Sam could read his moods like no one else. “And what look is that?”
“The one worried if V’Korram might try handling the CoE cell alone,” Sam stated, gazing up at the much taller Cercidalean. “V’Korram’s been a team player for months, despite a foolish stunt or two.”
Habraum stared at her.
“Okay, a foolish stunt or four,” she amended with an eye roll. “Whatever. Stuff like what happened on Seredonia are in the past. You can trust him out on the field now.”
“I do,” the Cerc replied softly and shrugged. “Old habit, I guess, worrying about any teammate out there. But it’s not just V’Korram…”
Sam raised her brow. “Oh, is it?” she asked, her voice low and rough.
Habraum regarded her with a sad smile, the pale blue lights of the bridge shimmering off his dark brown skin. “Its our last mission together, you and I.”
“Me, leading my own combat team,” ahe turned away for a few moments, dazed by the notion and his intense gaze. “Imagine that.” The Cerc caught the wistful haze clouding her large chocolate-brown eyes, knowing it mirrored his own feelings. They had started out in Star Brigade together, remaining close friends ever since. “Let’s make sure this mission’s a proper sendoff and an even better war story, Captain Nwosu,” Sam said with her distinctive brashness.
“Fair enough, Captain D’Urso,” Habraum beamed, and then frowned. “Gods, will we ever get worn on calling each other Captain?”
Sam shook her head, that irresistible lopsided grin sendig a warm jolt through Habraum.. “Not so much.”
“Ping me when V’Korram spots the hideout, yea?” he asked.
“Of course,” Sam nodded, before turning to the holomaps they had been watching. The Cerc took long looks at Sam and Khrome from a few metrids away, as they focused on their assigned tasks. While Khrome’s primary function for CT-1 was tech and engineer, his brawny body was capable of self-sustained flight and a physical strength most beings could scarcely fathom. Sam, in addition to her roles of spymaster and comms officer, could also engulf her entire body in flames on command.
Habraum was no different. As CT-1’s field commander, he had been blessed with his own unique abilities. Curling his gloved hands into fists, he focused. Both hands began glowing a faint red energy, indicating his biokinetic energy gifts. He humbly stared at the glow for a moment before shutting it off, his hands returning to normal.
Habraum strode silently down the widest corridor of the battle cruiser’s bridge, lost in thought. He stopped outside one cargo bay with its entrance half open. The Cerc peered in discreetly at the other four members of Star Brigade Combat Team 1, as they prepped for field action.
One member shrewdly stretched his lanky, hyper-toned physique in preparation. Lieutenant Jan’Hax—codename Incognito—scratched the duckbilled mouth symbolic of his Ciphereen ethnicity. While not on Habraum’s combat team, he joined this mission for field experience. CT-1’s ordnance officer resembled a humanoid chiseled from a block of ice, except that someone forgot to add other facial features besides his two beady, indigo-blue eyes. Commander Tyris Iecen—codename Arcturus—checked the rapid-fire capacity of his snub-nosed pulse pistol, the repeated click-clack sound from the gun trigger being pressed largely audible around the entire cargo bay.
After this mission Iecen would become Habraum’s second in command. Talented at the Tanoeen was, that change still didn’t sit right with the Cerc.
Crouching against a wall on the room’s other side was 2nd Lt. Liliana Cortes— CT-1’s medic, codename Crescendo, engrossed in something on her datapad. The lean and long-legged doctor kept her dark hair short and pixie-cut. The styling complimented her oval-shaped face, a far from unattractive face.
Cortes murmured something to a slightly taller female at her left. This female, flowing crimson mane up in a flawless braid, had a slender, sloping yet athletic body – the type of body intended for gigantic holo billboards floating in a city-state’s downtown. Habraum’s gaze fell upon the living weapon known as Marguliese, preoccupied momentarily by her perfection.
Presently she remained so still, one might mistake Marguliese for a humanoid mannequin. However, a closer look at her icy cerulean-blue eyes, her skin’s unnatural golden sheen, the silvery biomechanics of her right arm, revealed she was a cyborg. Thanks to such an ideal human guise, virtually no one could discern she was a Cybernarr. Habraum made no apologizes for recruiting her, despite the internal controversy surrounding his decision. Yet every so often, the Cerc shuddered when pondering the consequences if the truth got out about him harboring a former member of the Cybernarr Technoarchy. Only his most trusted operatives knew, and he planned to keep it that way.
Except for Marguliese and V’Korram, all of Habraum’s combat team possessed abilities beyond those of normal sentient beings. They represented a small subset of Union citizens called maximums. It stupefied him sometimes realizing how much power CT-1 alone wielded. Having such abilities and doing nothing constructive with them made no sense to the Cerc. He had a duty to defend the Union with his gifts, hence why he joined Star Brigade in the first place.
“Reign,” Sam’s voice broke Habraum’s reverie, this time from the comband on his left wrist.
He turned from the cargo bay entrance and tapped his comband to answer. “Go ahead.”
“We hit pay dirt, flyboy. V’Korram found the CoE HQ in an older part of the central sewer system. He’s in position on the outskirts. I’ll bring up schematics to find best points of entry.”
Habraum’s heartbeat raced with anticipation. Regardless of how long he’d been a field operative, the Cerc still caught that thrill before combat. “Brilliant. I’ll ready the troops.” He stepped into the cargo bay holding his team. The four Brigadiers stopped and perked up when he entered.
“Team,” Habraum announced, arms behind his back, “Time to go to work.”
Marguliese, ever stoic, merely arched an eyebrow at the news. Liliana tensed in anticipation, while Tyris and Jan’Hax enthusiastically whispered “Yes!” under their breaths.
Habraum smiled, equally pleased. “Combat ready in ten.”