Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (20 page)

Three days had passed since Kingston Reyes had fled Star Brigade’s ambush. His legs quivered with fatigue and his throat burned from thirst, every breath a torment. Even worse, he was on the last of his nouribar rations and his water extractor bottle was dead from purifying mucky sewage water.

And this deafening racket never stops
, he seethed. Every orv, five giant bullet-like machines zoomed down the tunnel, scooping up sewage to convert into clean water for Conuropolis’s citizens. Sewage-processing mechanoids were an outdated purification method for Conuropolis’s more rundown regions, most likely Lakewood District. After days of the same bone-quaking racket, Kingston could barely hear himself think.

Four SPMs had already zoomed by, with one more left before the next orv.

Scratching at the mottled, prickly rash forming on his chest, Kingston knew for certain that prison awaited once he escaped Conuropolis’s sewers. But Kingston knew the rules. Once a CoE strike team was compromised, a communications blackout was put in place between surviving operatives and other CoE units if extraction became impossible.

With that in mind, Kingston thought of his powerful friends within the Children of Earth—friends who owed him favors. After finding an ancient yet operational comm hub in an abandoned part of the sewer system, Kingston started running through his contacts.

Their responses were less than encouraging, most of all from Europa Hanson, former protégé and long-time friend.

“Sorry, Reyes, but I can’t.” The comm station’s tiny viewscreen displayed a human female, dark skinned with stern features. “And I doubt anyone else answered differently.”

Kingston was annoyed. “I’m not asking for sanctuary.” Kingston coughed, choking on the heavy, putrid vapors rising from the sewage river next to him.

Europa frowned in confusion. “Then how do you think I can help?”

“Exfiltration from the Mynar Sector.” Kingston scratched again at the unbearable itching on his chest. “To Galatea or somewhere predominantly human—”

“Kingston…” Europa began, her façade cracking.

“After everything I’ve done for you? You can’t even offer me this?” Kingston realized how rude he sounded and calmed himself. “Please, ’Ro. Bend the rules just this once.”

“I’m under deep cover.” Europa shook her head, looking miserable. Kingston might have felt sorry for her if his life wasn’t at risk. “I shouldn’t even be speaking with you! I’m sorry, Kingston.”

“Europa—” Kingston pleaded desperately.

The transmission ended. He knew the rules, but never thought they would apply to him. “FUCK!” Kingston screamed and cocked a fist to bash in the blank viewscreen…

…until a chill seeped through his skin, into his bones. He winced at that familiar hissing, much closer now.

And hope plummeted. “Thought I lost that thing.” It had stalked him for days, a predatory shadow. Now, part of Kingston just wanted that beast to finish the job.

“No.” He shook his head, clinging to what remained of his crumbling resolve. “C-Can’t give…up!”

Kingston turned away from the hissing sound and sprinted through the dampened sewer tunnels. Only this time, exhaustion slowed him to a near-jog.
This monster will catch you, no matter how fast you run.

Kingston tried to consider his next move, except just thinking felt…useless.

That was when the blur barreled at him from the corner of his eyes. Before Kingston could react, something quick and savage smashed into his abdomen. Suddenly, he found himself stunned and on his back. When Kingston looked up into the darkness, he barely choked back a scream.

Crouching over him was a horror that mockingly resembled a humanoid. The creature’s naked body was taut with wiry muscle, its membranous skin a sickly gray pallor. The fingers on both hands were curled back, revealing sharp claws made for shredding soft flesh. Its nose stuck out from its face like a straight protruding spike—no sloping depression at the bridge. The mouth was fixed into one thin line. Long, thick cords resembling hair framed a stretched, sallow face with a pair of snake-like red eyes.

Kingston, despite his fear, knew what this mockery of a humanoid was.

An osvowraith, a monster of nightmarish tales read to children across the galaxy. Except this monster was very real. Kingston and his cell had purchased this osvowraith in the galactic fringe beyond Union Space months ago. From that point on, his group had regularly tortured the beast and withheld sustenance to keep it controllable.

Now Kingston was at the osvowraith’s mercy, too weak to lift even a finger. He suffered now as this mongrel’s victims had suffered from its draining, psychic chill.

Its breath stunk of sickly decay, turning Kingston’s stomach. “Don’t worry,” it hissed with mocking, otherworldly menace. “This
won’t
be quick.”

The osvowraith’s opened mouth revealed top-to-bottom rows of fang-like teeth. The true horror came when its jaw separated down the middle. Several tapered tentacles slithered out, each illuminating the sewers with an eerie blue. The coils snaked slowly toward Kingston, taunting the helpless human. This was how osvowraiths fed, latching onto a victim and draining their “bioelectricity.”

I’m done
, Kingston realized…

…until he felt something smooth under his hand. His water-processor bottle.

A weapon,
the notion lit up the corridors of Kingston’s disheartened psyche. The osvowraith’s coils were almost at his chest to drain him. Kingston swung the makeshift weapon with all his waning strength.

The bottle smashed into the osvowraith’s skull. The nightmarish beast staggered sideways.

At once Kingston felt like his insides reanimated. As he climbed to his feet, the dazed beast teetered perilously close to the sewage river’s edge. Kingston charged with a wild kick. The osvowraith went sailing over the edge—right as a towering blur rocketed by.

There was a sickening smack, immediately drowned out in the sloshing whir of the fifth SPM.

The SPM blew through the sewer and then vanished, along with any remains of the osvowraith.

“Perfect timing.” Kingston gaped at the calming swells of sewage water. Kissing the water processor in his hand with unabashed gratitude, now he had to find a way out of this sewer.

“One contact left,” he muttered, limping back to the comm hub. Kingston felt hopeful, though the itch on his chest was near maddening. “One who can’t refuse me.”

Bright, blinding starlines streaked on forever around the
Phaeton’s
dark hull as the command cruiser hurtled through hyperspace. The destination, Faroor, was in the Union’s Vega Sector over a day’s journey away.

On
Phaeton’s
bridge, Liliana sat beside Marguliese and V’Korram, wearing an unbuttoned grey henley and navy-blue cargo pants. Facing them were Khal, Tyris, and Khrome, while Captain Nwosu stood before them all next to the bridge’s TriTran projector.
Phaeton’s
rounded bridge had ample space for at least three combat teams. Lily glanced over her casually dressed teammates, unnerved at not seeing Sam among them. She shook off those worries and faced her field commander.

The Cerc’s golden eyes raked across CT-1 in piercing sweeps. “What’re
you
all doing here?” he smirked, drawing chuckles.

Nwosu quickly got to business. “We’re off to Faroor to take down this fellow.” He looked back at the TriTran as a 3D hologram materialized. Lily now saw a scrawny Farooqua with dark-blue skin and slightly disfigured features. White, angular tattoos wreathed his gaunt frame, as did a swaddling loincloth wrapped around his waist.

“Ghuj’aega, leader of the Farooqua Ghebrekh tribe. What do we know about him?” Nwosu prompted.

Marguliese answered first with her usual detached and faultless wording, “Hostility has brewed between Farooqua and Ttaunz for approximately 209.67 years. Ghuj’aega was birthed from their more recent interspecies unrest, and used that to his advantage.”

Khal then addressed his teammates, articulate and well coifed, wearing the shit out of his red and black uniform. “Ghuj’aega came out of nowhere almost three years ago near a remote Ttaunz Defense Force outpost near Faroor’s northern polar cap. A few TDF operatives tried containing him at said outpost, which Ghuj’aega blew up singlehandedly.”

Lily went wide-eyed hearing that. “Whoa.”

“Since then, he has enlisted members of other tribes by promising to eradicate Faroor’s Ttaunz populace,” Marguliese added. “Ghuj’aega now has the Ghebrekh, a large terrorist assemblage that accedes to his every demand. They attack Ttaunz transports and deploy suicide bombers within city-states borders. The Ttaunz’s response has instigated several back-and-forth assaults, but no direct skirmishes.”

“Gheebrick?” Tyris questioned, beady cobalt eyes squinting.

“GHEH-BreKH,” Both Liliana and Habraum corrected.

“GHEBREHK!!” Khrome belted out, drawing stares. “I felt left out,” he shrugged.

Khal ignored him. “Ghuj’aega’s followers see him as some emissary from the entity they worship called ‘the Zenith Point,’ embodied by Faroor’s moon, Qos. Some more fanatic Farooqua think the Zenith Point birthed him, which is why other Tribal Nations aren’t helping to stop him.”

“Maelstrom-lite,” Khrome snarked to Tyris, “same crazy, less filling.” Both chortled. Lily shook her head and smiled. There was very little Khrome took seriously, which she never held against him.

Nwosu wasn’t amused. “Your jokes aren’t appreciated, Lieutenant. Ghuj’aega and his ilk continue their attacks, yet somehow remain cloaked from any detection.”

Khal quickly followed, “For years Union negotiators have tried forging peace treaties between the two races. But talks always collapse. Now the assaults have escalated.”

“It came to a head a few days ago.” Nwosu tacked buttons on the TriTran console. Ghuj’aega’s creepy visage was replaced by a ruined, smoking husk of a village littered with Farooqua corpses. Khal cringed. The gruesome visuals forced Lily to look away.

Habraum continued, “After the Ttaunz butchered this village, the Ghebrekh struck back.” The TriTran images shifted to display a handsome, well-dressed Ttaunz youth and a long-necked, egg-headed Kudoban. “By kidnapping Taorr the Lesser, the Faroor Viceroy’s heir, and a Kudoban negotiator named Zojje. The other diplomats were murdered.

“We find Ghuj’aega. We take him out,” the Cerc stated, pacing slowly. “Then we rescue the Viceroy’s son and the Kudoban, if still alive.”

V’Korram tossed back his long ginger mane and harrumphed. “Why Star Brigade?” he asked brusquely, “instead of other UComm outfits?”

Khal frowned. “Didn’t you read the brief?” Peevishness made him sound younger than twenty-five.

The big Kintarian glared back, his green-flecked eyes glittering dangerously. Lily had never seen such eyes, always filled with perpetual fury. “I did,” V’Korram snarled, “and found it lacking.”

“It’s okay, Lt. Al Abdullah,” Habraum stepped in evenly. “I asked JSOG’s uppercrust the same question. The murders of non-Ttaunz diplomats make this an interplanetary incident. And there’s nothing
alleged
about Ghuj’aega’s powers.”

V’Korram’s ears perked up. “He’s a maximum?”

“Or some kind of enhanced being. Several of his followers are, too,” Khal added.

Marguliese’s left eye flashed like a cold sapphire starburst. “The Farooqua are antiquated in all aspects, principally technologically. The Ghebrekh’s maximal abilities would expound how they constantly evade the technologically superior Ttaunz.”

“Once we reach Faroor,” Habraum concluded, “we’ll have a PLADECO strike team to assist in hunting Ghuj’aega.”

Lily frowned, a question niggling at her. “If Ghuj’aega can’t be found, how will we?”

“Simple.” Habraum’s hazel-gold eyes twinkled. “Star Brigade has one of the Union’s most brilliant techs.”

Khrome pointed approvingly at himself. “Love your thinking, oh fearless leader!”

After CT-1 was dismissed and headed for their assigned stations, Tyris turned to Khrome with furrowed brow. “Pardon my legal alien ignorance on Union history, but why is Faroor so important to the Galactic Union?”

Lily, heading for the ship’s medcenter, stopped in her tracks.

Khrome saw this and grinned. “Sorry. I have to go be brilliant! Besides, Lily’s the history nerd.”

“As if your ego needed more inflation,” Tyris snapped as his Thulican teammate darted away. Liliana strode over and sat down beside the Tanoeen. “Okay, okay,” she smiled excitedly and exaggeratedly stretched her arms in preparation. She’d read up extensively on Faroor history before this mission. “So Faroor’s at the nexus of the Herope Cross, which is…” She paused to gesture with her hands, signaling for Tyris to finish.

The Tanoeen bristled, yet obeyed, “…the intersection of the Orthambra Trade Route and the Cercidalean Spine, the Union’s busiest trade routes.”

“Right.” Liliana congratulated him with a smile so ultrabright that Tyris looked ready to thaw under it. “The Ttaunz are also indirectly responsible for the Union’s membership surge after its formation.”

Tyris narrowed his cobalt-blue eyes, befuddled. “How?”

“You know the Ttaunz aren’t native to Faroor, yes?” Liliana asked, like a perky teacher to a student.

“Who doesn’t?” the Tanoeen snarked. “They tell anyone within earshot.”

Lily cleared her throat to explain. “Centuries ago they ruled an interplanetary regime called the Ttaunz Supremacy.”

Tyris nodded his spiky icicle-like head. “Oh. Them. Didn’t they fight the Union?”

“After the Union formed in 2151, they tried conquering us twice, mainly to make Galdor part of the Supremacy.”

“The First and Second Frontier Wars,” Tyris added. “See, I’m
learned
.”

Lily gave him a glowing look. “The Supremacy ended in 2157 when a star in their space went magnetar.” She spoke more gravely now, “The Ttaunz homeworld and about 91 percent of their colonies got flash-fried, killing trillions.” This graveyard of dead worlds, now a haven for smugglers and space pirates, bordered the Union’s Commerce and Phyrion Sectors. CT-1 had scarcely skimmed its edges some months ago on a mission, which was as far as Lily ever needed to travel there.