Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2 Read online

  Danyal held onto the space suit looking at it with his dimly glowing hybrid eyes. “Oh fuck.”

  “Scared?”

  “By walk I thought you meant a stroll on the ship.”

  She laughed at him as she began to suit up. “Honestly, I’d prefer you stay, being the heir to the empire. But I can’t use my cloak while inside this. So do me a favor and don’t die okay?”

  Phylarlie finished gearing up, all that remained was the helmet . . . And for Danyal to figure out how to get his suit on, she moved closer to him to assist. “I guess I should be flattered, a woman actually gives a shit about me for once.”

  “Please, you have a use to me and the empire, that’s it.”

  She patted him on the shoulder once the task of dressing for space was complete. Both of them placed their large, bulky helmets on and Phylarlie interacted with the terminal on the wall that opened the door to the Crimson Arrow. Light from Morutrin shined in as the doors opened, she had to block out the light with her hand as it beamed all over her pale-blue face. She gave Danyal a quick rundown on how to use the suit and its jets before using hers to propel herself outside, past the self irising shields of the Crimson Arrow and into space.

  The asteroid they landed on was below her, it’s heavily cratered surface reflected sun light back up toward her. Phylarlie checked back and forth to ensure Danyal was behind her and to ensure they were on course, toward the pirate ship that was deeper in the debris and asteroid field. Their trek through the cluttered obstacle course was a long one, one that gave the two the time to witness firsthand the destructive aftermath of Noylarlie’s power. The mangled Radiance cruiser adrift with an asteroid lodged against the underside of it.

  Radiance cruisers typically had a crew of hundreds aboard, sometimes thousands depending on the mission. It was doubtful most of the crew survived; the thought had Phylarlie try to wrap her mind around the sheer number of lives her sister took away instantly with a single thought of her brain.

  They neared the pirate ship and hid behind the remains of a large bulkhead floating outside of the ship. There was a solo pirate performing a space walk. He was armed with a rifle, but spent most of the time checking his scanners, he was looking for lost cargo by the looks. Which would explain why they came to a stop here, they must have detected something of value nearby. In any case, the stray pirate was a risk if they planned to board his ship undetected. Phylarlie asked Danyal to stay low in their cover as she used the jets of her suit to maneuver, up and around, hiding behind lumps of junk as she got closer to him.

  The back of the pirate was in sight as she held onto her twin plasma daggers; they emitted their familiar greenish hue as she swooped down to make the kill. Her first thrust entered the back of his neck, while her second swung around and pieced through his forehead. Air hissed and escaped from the two holes she made in him and his suit. Streams of weightless blood squirted out into space and froze into crimson crystals. Phylarlie felt the pirate’s body twitch rapidly, so she moved the dagger that was stuck in his face upward, cutting half his head and brain in two during the process.

  The twitching stopped, and she kicked his lifeless body away, but not before she grabbed his rifle. The pirate’s body tumbled and somersaulted into the abyss, a trail of crystallized blood was left in its wake.

  Danyal’s jets moved him toward Phylarlie after the kill was made. She handed him the pirate’s rifle as they headed toward the airlock of the pirate ship, making no sounds, or tripping any sensor warnings. The airlock was still active so they climbed in and began the process of pressurizing it.

  Fresh air came in and as a livable environment was restored, she removed her suit quickly. Then she saw Danyal’s facial expression as she stripped out of it, the act made him slightly aroused, his helmet didn’t hide anything.

  “Stop looking at my ass,” she said.

  “Hey now!”

  “Stand guard and stay low in the airlock,” she said as she rearmed herself with her daggers. “If things go wrong, don’t be afraid to head back to Crimson Arrow and leave.”

  “By myself? I can’t fucking fly it.”

  “I fail to see how staying here is a better idea.”

  He grunted. “Okay, you and I are going to have to spend more time planning raids like this if we’re going to be working together.”

  Phylarlie vanished as she activated her cloaking device and slipped out into the halls of the pirate ship. She moved through the hallways, pulling along the wall handles to build momentum. She first got the lay of the land so to speak, exploring every room, hallway, and section of the ship. She counted four pirates. One of them was nursing some wounds on his body, wounds that were consistent with a battle with the wraith. Looks like one of them managed to escape the attack. It’s a shame the wraith didn’t finish him off, would be one less target to deal with.

  The loot that was found at the Linl dig site was found in a storage lock up, next to that lock up were the holding cells in which the crew of the Dark Star were chained up to the walls, all them donning slave collars. She moved toward Trin, while still under the cover of her cloak. She couldn’t help but laugh at the spot he was now in. Part of her wanted to leave him here, so that he can suffer and know what it felt like to have his powers stripped away, while an explosive device inside the collar could go off at any time ending his existence.

  But she needed him alive, she needed the Dark Star’s crew if they were going to stand a chance of dealing with the wraith threat still looming in the system. Phylarlie returned to the halls of the ship, and began to search for a pirate that possessed the controller to the slave collars. She found him in the mess hall, as he stuffed his Aryile face with green vegetables. It was also the pirate who was wounded. She plunged her dagger into his chest, cutting and burning a wide gash across it. His chest was where a most of the bandages were applied. She wanted to add to his pain by reopening his wounds as she cut him open. Some of his internal organs within his chest started to float out of the massive opening she created.

  The three remaining pirates joined the fate of her recent kill, their throats were all slit so completely their heads remained attached to their bodies by a tiny string of flesh that didn’t burn from the heat of her plasma daggers. She freed the Dark Star’s crew afterward, removing their slave collars via the control she obtained from one of the pirates. Trin, Bira, and the two wounded crew members talked amongst each other as they realized freedom might be close.

  They looked around puzzled as to why they were being let free, and why their cell doors suddenly opened. Phylarlie waited for them to float away before she unveiled herself by shutting off her cloaking device.

  “Phylarlie . . .” Trin said as he saw her appear. “Can’t believe you came back for us. You could have just left us.”

  “There’s been some new developments,” Phylarlie said to him. “This whole system is at risk. I’m going to need help to make things right. I got a ship in the sector, should be enough room aboard for you all.”

  “Hold it, they took our stuff.”

  Right. The equipment from the Linl site, it will be tough to haul it out manually. “In that case,” Phylarlie said to Trin.

  “We need to take control of this ship and send it to the Dark Star. Besides, it’s in better condition, we can break it down for parts to make repairs.”

  It was a simple task at first now that all the pirates were dead, it would just be a matter of taking control of the cockpit and leaving the sector. But as Phylarlie had said time and time again, nothing is ever easy. As they exited the holding area she was greeted to the horrific sight of a wraith. He wore the same outfit the first pirate she slashed open, the pirate that was injured from the wraith attack on the buried Linl ship. He must have been infected, but didn’t turn as he wasn’t mortally injured.

  Phylarlie’s attack only made matters worse.

  “Shit.” I should have cut is head off like the rest . . .

  Danyal heard the pirate ship rumb
le as multiple psionic attacks were fired at an unknown target. He held onto his rifle and peered through the airlock windows into the halls of the pirate ship. His first thoughts were to communicate with Phylarlie, find out what’s going on, just he never figured out how the communication systems in the space suit work. That and she took her suit off, he’d have to communicate to her directly by accessing her ear communication implant, however the fuck those work.

  Another blast went off, the lights in the hallway began to flicker, major damage must have been done to the inside. He hit the commands to force the doors in front of him to open and exited the airlock. His rifle extended forward, and his hands trembled slightly as he floated forward, not knowing what was going to come out from around the corner.

  A loud deafening shriek erupted.

  He spun around to face the source of the shrill. A wraith appeared from a forking passageway of the corridor he was in. He fired his rifle at it and every bullet tore holes through its chest and torso, but pain was something that didn’t exist for wraith, and it showed as it ran toward him at insane speeds.

  Wait.

  It ran.

  There was no gravity.

  What the fuck?

  Danyal instinctively retreated; only his act put him back inside the airlock. He was trapped; the angry wraith quickly stepped inside with him. Bullets weren’t putting it down and his mind was going a million kilometers a second. Panic, terror, was taking control. True he got mauled by these things before, but who’s to say he’d walk away from it again? Maybe whatever virus these things had wasn’t strong enough in the one that put him down, perhaps that’s why he didn’t change?

  Fuck, fuck, fuck this can’t be the end!

  The wraith shrieked again, as if it was celebrating its upcoming victory. Danyal needed a way out. And he found it. The airlock command. He hit the command with his fist quickly, forcing the door separating the halls and the airlock to slam shut, and the airlock doors behind him to pop open.

  Vacuum did its thing seconds later, him and the wraith were blown out into space.

  He lost his grip of the rifle as his body tossed and turned away from the pirate ship. The wraith was probably experiencing the same thing just he had no idea exactly where it was, or where he was tumbling to. He did have one advantage, the jets on his suit. He fired them periodically to slow his spinning down and regain control of his body. He couldn’t see where the wraith ended up, but did see his rifle continue to swirl away out of control.

  His jets guided him toward his loose weapon and grabbed hold of it after an annoying five-minute chase. Danyal was rearmed and alone, with a wraith on the loose in the depths of space. If bullets through the chest didn’t down it, what were the chances space would? It had to have been alive and was now a major threat to any salvager or pirate that might come out here looking for loot. It would only be a matter of time before the virus started to spread to folks out in this sector of space, and spread it to the rest of the system.

  The hunt was on, too bad there was no way to tell Phylarlie he was alive.

  Danyal’s search for the wraith amongst the wreckage and asteroids led him toward the mangled Radiance cruiser Noylarlie bested years ago. The HUD on his helmet automatically targeted the wraith and zoomed on it. It was climbing aboard that ship, the bridge to be exact. Not on my watch!

  He jets accelerated him toward the ruined cruiser and he boarded it in pursuit. The ruined bridge was dark, its forward windshield long shattered to pieces. Several computer stations were straight up pulled out from the walls, salvagers at work. The hardware that was left behind was badly burned and no doubt considered to be a waste of time. He brushed away floating bits of metal, bolts, glass, and dead bodies of the bridge crew preserved after all these years.

  The only way out of the bridge was through the elevator or rather what was left of its shaft and therefore the path the wraith took. It was pitch black, only his lights on his helmet lit the way, even then those were dim, Hashmedai after all didn’t require a whole lot of light to see in the dark. The shaft wasn’t showing a lot of promise as he descended into it. Most of the ship was inaccessible due to the massive asteroid practically fused inside it; other decks fell on top of each other.

  He neared the bottom of the shaft, and quickly held onto the melted remains of ladder on the side. His helmet’s lights briefly shined upon the wraith at the bottom. It was furious, clawing away at the walls. Its feet were on the ground as if there was gravity, it was stuck and probably wasn’t smart enough to use the ladder next to it, or not smart enough to stop using whatever powers it had that allowed it to walk despite being in a weightless area.

  Whatever, tonight you die.

  Danyal lowered his rifle, took aim, and pulled the trigger. He didn’t let go until the creature stopped moving.

  It did after two minutes. So he fired again, just to make sure.

  He lowered himself down upon of it, and gazed at its bullet ridden body. He wasn’t convinced he was safe and aimed toward its neck. The next barrage of bullets ripped hundreds of holes into its neck, severing its head from its body.

  There’s no way it’s coming back from that, he thought as saw its head bounce and float around.

  Dark Star, Derkurio orbit, Morutrin system

  Odelea winced after listening to Phylarlie’s story transmitted to her from the captured pirate ship. Rescuing the Dark Star team from them was one thing, but taking their ship and chasing and killing a stray wraith? It was the one and only time she felt safe around Hashmedai, if they can survive problems like that, she had nothing to worry about given their situation.

  She moved away from her work on the computer and glanced at the Dark Star’s scanners, the pirate ship along with the Crimson Arrow dropped out of sub light speeds, and entered orbit alongside the Dark Star. Phylarlie, Danyal and the Dark Star’s crew boarded later, Odelea hoped that Phylarlie remembered to explain that she Eicelea and Vynei were aboard, members of Radiance, who were using their ship as if they were part of its crew.

  Phylarlie and Danyal entered the cockpit and moved directly toward Odelea. Phylarlie had a devious smirk on her face and her hands behind her back. Odelea didn’t pay any attention to her at first as she returned to her computer to continue her search into finding a cure. “I got a gift for you,” Phylarlie said.

  Odelea turned away to see what the gift was. Phylarlie plopped the mangled and severed head of a wraith the desk in front of her. Odelea’s screams could be heard throughout the entire ship. Phylarlie’s uncontrollable laugher, followed suit. “This is why my people can’t forge a peace agreement with your kind!” Odelea said.

  “I’m sure it is,” Phylarlie said.

  “Have you not considered this might be a biohazard?”

  “Figured you’d want a sample to study, but you’re the expert not me.”

  Odelea scanned the cockpit with her data pad, Eicelea’s data pad that is. At this point, Eicelea had given up trying to take it back when Odelea snatched it. “I’m not reading any contaminants in the air,” Odelea said. “So the virus is indeed spread only through cuts and bites.”

  “Might explain that one pirate we found,” Phylarlie said. “He turned but only after I attacked him.”

  “The virus only works when the host is near death. Which means it can still infect someone if they come in contact.”

  Phylarlie crossed her arms. “So we all could be infected right now if he had been harmed by them?”

  “And we won’t know it until we die. Let’s not take any chances however; I’ll use the pirate ship as a testing ground.”

  “By the way, the wraith existed a few years ago on some planet called Foicanta,” Danyal said as he held up his data pad. “Been reading the contents of this pad, a human solider encountered them, might be something useful to it in regard to finding a cure.”

  Odelea raised her eyebrow, fascinated at the newfound information. She then remembered another critical fact, one that might make the cure a
reality. “And let’s not forget you resisted the virus all out,” she said to Danyal. “I’ll need you to work with me.”

  An hour had passed since Odelea and Danyal left the Dark Star to start future testing into a cure. Some of the equipment that was acquired from the Linl dig site was brought back aboard the Dark Star. Eicelea was surprised how well it still operated as she tinkered with it. There was valuable data recorded on the devices in regard to what the Linl were studying and discovered. After all, they were officially the first to discover the existence of a Lyonria wormhole generator. Nobody else who studied the Lyonria had seen one prior to the colonization of Rasi and Oyuri. It was that knowledge that was going to teach them how to reactivate it, and once again make her famous. The Linl that made this discovery were long dead, somebody needed to come out and reveal this new trove of data. That someone was going to be Eicelea.

  The corner of Eicelea’s eye caught a disturbing discovery that was transmitted to her via the live video playback of her drone, still locked away on the inside the Linl ship. The wraiths, the human ones with cybernetic upgrades began to show signs of learning how to jump port and teleport and master other forms of psionic skills. Some teleported away and never returned. Where they ended up was anyone’s guess.

  “Oh this is not good.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Silver Raven, Kuiper belt, Sol system

  Jazz’s opened his eyes up on his own accord for once.

  No alarms, no life or death situations, no uncomfortable hard-ass floor. He woke up because his body told him he’d had more than enough sleep. And it felt amazing.

  He broke free from his zero-g sleeping bag made from his blanket, took a look at his room, and wondered about the events the previous night, in which Chloe came in claiming to be Vaishea. Hell who was Jazz kidding? It was Vaishea. According to the chat they had, Vaishea remembered everything right up until the memory swap with Chloe. They spent a solid two or three hours chatting and catching up, like an old friend swinging by to visit.