Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (24 page)

“—tain Nwosu! Can you hear me?” As if someone flicked on a switch, Habraum could hear. She was shouting over the blaring MetroPol and medical vehicles on scene, the shrieks from injured civilians. Liliana leaned in close, both hands on his face as she yelled, “Captain Nwosu, we need to move you—”

“I hear ya, Cortes,” Habraum said woozily. His skull pounded, but the pain everywhere else was subsiding. Liliana slipped a slender arm around his waist to help him stand up. Nothing felt broken or dislocated, just sore.

“Your uniform’s body armor and its low-grade forcefield protected you from any major injuries,” Liliana called out, letting go once he stood steadily. She looked angry. “Why do you keep trying to get yourself killed?”

Habraum gave a rueful shrug as he took in his immediate vicinity. Several elegant, ancient Ttaunz buildings had chunks from their lower levels scattered everywhere. Gigantic blimp-sized repair mechs floated between buildings damaged by the impact bomb. Medical transports and Ttaunz MetroPol hover vehicles blanketed the pink sky above, blocking off hovercar traffic.

But Habraum’s attention zeroed in on the bodies around the two Brigadiers, at least fifty or more. The six MetroPol officers and several bystanders had suffered far worse fates, sprawled in mutilated or crushed postures. The injured survivors just beyond the half-mile blast radius were more numerous, all screaming for help.

Droves of medical workers and medroids swarmed the bombsite, both military and civilian. Amidst shouted orders and blaring din, they quickly loaded as many victims as they could onto available ambulances. And of course the panicked crowds stood and stared, held far back by holo barriers.

This wasn’t the Ghebrekh that Habraum had killed. The blast came from behind…

There was a second suicide bomber
, the Cerc realized, horrified and angered.

He swallowed those feelings and curtly asked, “Why didn’t Solrao detect the second bomber?”

“One moment, he wasn’t there. The next, he was. Just like the other two bomb sites.”

Habraum watched Lily as if she’d sprouted a third eye. “The
other two
?” he repeated.

Liliana’s face darkened. “This was…” she swallowed hard, “one of three impact bomb attacks around the city-state. All occurred simultaneously.”

Habraum closed his eyes, his achy brain sagging under the weight of that statement.

“The rest of CT-1 is at the second bombing site triaging with UComm.” She glanced over her shoulder. “The damage there was the worst.” Habraum followed her gaze and felt a chill. Less than a mile away, one of the other ugly mosaic buildings had utterly collapsed into a mammoth heap of rubble. A tower of thick dust spiraled skyward as tiny vehicles buzzed like small flies around the ruins.

“Stay here and aid the medics.” Habraum started for the more devastated area. The thundering in his skull was making everything spin.

“Captain!” she called out, eyes wide. “You should not be—”

“Crescendo,” Habraum barked out the doctor’s codename, startling her. He stopped and spoke less curtly, knowing she meant well. “I’m fine. Now go.”

Liliana nodded and turned to jog daintily over to the medical workers.

As soon as she was out of range, Habraum doubled over and vomited. He wiped his mouth with the back of his right glove and shook his head to clear it. That reduced the nausea. His headache, however, only lessened by a fraction. He couldn’t worry about that now.

“Okay.” The Cerc straightened up and broke into a run. After pushing through a seemingly endless throng of onlookers, he finally reached the second bomb site. Hard to fathom that one heatless impact bomb did this.

Marguliese and Tyris strode forth when they saw Habraum, followed by the massive V’Korram.

“Captain,” Tyris greeted, crystalline form tinted pink under Herope’s glow. “Glad you’re alright.”

“Feeling’s mutual.” The Cerc stared up at the looming mountain of rubble before him. “Give me the story.”

“Three Ghebrekh entered this planetary-history museum,” Tyris answered, “and detonated impact bombs.”

“Same with the explosion at a secondary school in Eastern Thasque,” V’Korram growled.

Habraum shook his head in disbelief. “Rogguts,” he exclaimed quietly.

“So far,” Marguliese added with her usual emotionless wording. “There were 230 beings inside this building, including fifteen children.”

The casualties and Marguliese’s detached delivery made Habraum look away.

He spied Khrome lifting pieces of craggy debris twice his size, and tossing them aside effortlessly. Khal stood close by, his handsome face a mask of concentration as he reached out with empty hands and telekinetically levitated chunks of wreckage onto the same pile Khrome had started.

“Jakadda, Marguliese. Work with PLADECO and find out how the fekt those bombers got within Thasque’s borders.” He wheeled around on his second-in-command. “You go help Crescendo.”

Tyris was visibly put off by the assignment. “I can be more effective with Jakadda!”

Seriously?
“Civilians are dying, Arcturus,” Habraum threw back. Why was everyone questioning his orders? “Off with you. Now where’s the UComm chief sorting this mess?”

Tyris, beady blue eyes narrowed, wordlessly gestured to his right.

Habraum turned toward a Cressonish in green and grey UComm fatigues, sitting at a makeshift command center, barking out orders. The Cerc glanced at Tyris. “Tell CT-1 we’ll reconvene here in two orvs before Solrao returns.” Habraum broke into a jog toward the UComm without another word.

Lily winced as her latest patient roared in agony. He was Suuruali—and enormous. This near-eight-foot being had been caught in the first bomb blast, dislocating his leg at the hip. Liliana had muscled up his beefy thigh, which alone was three times her body size, onto her shoulders. Three UComm officers held the Suuruali down so she could pop the joint back in place.

“Okay, on the count of three…” Liliana subtly motioned for two officers to steady the patient.

“STOP!” the Suuruali boomed over the chaotic din, not as cavernous a voice like most Suuruali adults, meaning he was probably in his late teens. This also explained why he wasn’t nine feet.
Dulce Madre!

“We need to move you,” a human UComm officer offered rudely. Lily silenced him with a look.

“I’m scared!” The massive ursine-reptilian being gaped at the doctor with fearful watery eyes.

The nonstop ruin and injured victims offered Lily no time to coddle him.
But he’s a child.

“What’s your name?” Lily asked as calmly as possible, hoisting up his massive thigh.

His leathery muzzle trembled. “Uadua.”

“I’m Liliana, and I’m a doctor.” That drew an odd stare from one of the three UComm officers, an Aesonite by his pebbly skin. Lily smiled at Uadua. “It’s okay to be afraid. I used to be when jumping into hyperspace. But with my job, I’ve had to face my fear.” Lily struggled keeping her trembling arms around the Suuruali’s burly thigh. The appendage probably weighed more than her!

The Suuruali watched her incredulously. “That’s all it took?”

Lily managed a shrug despite carrying his leg. “Well, a friend forced me to go orbital skydiving first. Now I try going orbital skydiving whenever time allows.”

“Really?” asked Uadua, totally riveted.

KRRKRACK!
Liliana’s answer was a sharp twist, resetting his leg in place.

The Suuruali roared in pain. Flailing his left arm, he threw off the hapless officer holding it.

“Really.” Lily smiled. She carefully set down his rapidly swelling leg. “Hurts less if you don’t see it coming.” She shook the burning fatigue from her arms and addressed her helpers, including the UComm officer still staring, “Get that in a cooling stabilizer wrap and load him in a transport.” Liliana popped up, scanning the wreckage for her next patient.

Someone grabbed her arm. “Pardon, Liliana?” The doctor found herself facing the Aesonite officer with the staring problem. He was lanky in build, his granite-like complexion light grey. While Aesonite hair usually grew out in separated coiled tuffs, his hair appeared closely shaved.

“As in Dr. Liliana Cortes?” His voice had a distinct gravelly accent.

Lily frowned warily. “Yes?”

“KNEW IT!” The UComm officer grinned triumphantly. “Read your piece in the Poston Medical Journal of ExoBiochemistry. Loved it!”

Lily, flattered, smiled nervously. “I…Thanks! Thank you,” she stammered out, not knowing what to say. “Kinda need my arm back.”

“Oh!” The Aesonite immediately released her arm. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Thanks!” Lily winced at saying “thanks” three times, and retreated to the next triage site.

Once there, Liliana had little time to mull over her awkwardness earlier. The flashpoint of the first impact bomb and the buildings it detonated between shared a massive crater, leaving massive piles of rubble. Several UComm officers swarmed the scene, beginning rescue efforts of the injured and trapped. Liliana spotted a tall and familiar crystalline figure in their midst.

“Arcturus!” She ran to his side. Currently the Tanoeen had both hands on one of the larger debris piles. Instantly, several veins of sub-zero frost wormed from his hand across the ferroment chunk’s surface, completely freezing it. Arcturus moved back and a UComm officer swung his baton-type weapon. With a slight tap, the frozen rubble shattered into a million brittle pieces. Lily raised an arm to protect her face from the shrapnel.

Tyris then acknowledged Lily. “We’re clearing rubble away to find those buried.” Fury danced in his cobalt-blue eyes, but not directed at her. With so many injured, his issue would have to wait, causing an idea to form.

“Hold on.” Liliana closed her eyes and held both hands over the rubble, emitting continuous high-pitch sound waves from her body. She felt them wash over the wreckage like a sonar.

Instantly, the waves bounced back. Lily sensed the soft shapes underneath. “…two are trapped under there.”

The aid workers shot each other baffled glances before directing their rescue mechanoids to the spot Liliana had indicated. Tyris stood staring at her. “How did you—”

“Echolocation,” she explained, and watched the aid workers intently as they began removing rocks more precisely. The whole time, the clouds churning over Thasque blotted out Herope’s sunlight.

“You know if they’re alive?” Tyris moved to begin freezing some debris again.

“I do sonar, not x-ray—” Lily stopped and frowned at this sudden buzzing, piercing and monotone. By how everyone else continued about their business, no one else noticed.

The buzzing grew louder, sending Lily’s world twirling round and round to the point of nausea. She stumbled backward and clutched at her pounding head. The buzzing intensified to the point that Liliana wanted to rip her own brain out and dump it in a bucket of ice-cold tea.

Thunder from the heavens shook the very air, and Liliana’s legs had become spaghetti. She reached out for something to steady herself against…and found only air. If not for Tyris catching her around the waist, Liliana might have pitched forward and fell.

“Crescendo?” Tyris asked, sounding worried. Getting no response, he tried again, “Liliana, what—”

“Some…something’s wrong,” Lily wheezed. She hung limp in his arms. She could feel the air quiver around her as a skyquake began.
Why couldn’t anyone else sense it?

Tyris directed Liliana away from the wreckage site and the mystified stares from aid workers. “Something is wrong. Three impact bombs went off,” he said in a sharp, cold whisper of a voice.

“No…something else,” the doctor barely gasped out. Just moving her jaw made Liliana nauseous.

The heavens above answered for her in the form of a skyquake, violently shaking Liliana’s whole world back and forth. A white-hot lightning fork splintered down, shredding through a row of redirected hovercar traffic before impaling a nearby building as if it were made of woodpaper. Liliana looked up in horror to see several lightning bolts raining down. Screams from citizens dashing for cover and the UComm and Ttaunz Defense officers trying to keep the peace only accentuated the city-state center’s utter chaos.

Tyris began ushering Liliana away. “We need to move—AAH!”

A bolt of lightning struck nearby, tossing both Brigadiers apart and shearing off a huge chunk of ferroment from one of the surrounding buildings still intact.

The devastated bomb site had devolved into a roiling disaster area. Several buildings were ablaze, savaged by lightning that dazzled the dark and turbulent heavens. Smoldering hovercars crashed down like a hailstorm of scorched metal. The amount of fleeing bystanders swelled, now including TDF and UComm officers.

Nobody ran in any particular direction, because nowhere was safe.

Liliana, overwhelmed, stood and stared as Thasque plunged into chaos around her.

That was when everything froze…

Habraum’s skull was still ringing, his body still sore all over. But Habraum kept his pain contained in the face of Thasque’s devastation. The Cerc was getting briefed by Commander Jheygo Iort, on-site leader of the Planetary Defense Corps contingent.

This Cressonish was a barrel-chested, lanky male, his entire body—sans mouth and nose—covered in shaggy goldenrod fur. The hairless muzzle on his face resembled a pair of horse hooves pressed together vertically. By how Cressonish vocal chords were structured, Jheygo needed a digital voice box to speak Standard. “Since the bombings started, we’ve assisted TDF’s search for the Ghebrekh. But it’s like chasing ghosts.”

Habraum nodded, glancing at the darkening sky. “My team will find them.”

The Cressonish glared sourly. “You’ll succeed where PLADECO, UIB, and TDF failed?”

“We’re specialists at hunting terrorists like Ghuj’aega,” Habraum said as they walked side by side toward another mound of jagged wreckage. “Still, when it comes to hunting him, any PLADECO help is welcome.”

“HAH!” The Cressonish’s shiny opal eyes sparkled. “Well answered, Nwosu.”

Habraum’s wristcom beeped. “Excuse me.” He raised the wristcom to his mouth. “Go ahead.”