“Attention, all soldiers of the new regime!” Shouted a very angry-looking officer. His outfit was like the classic Zytoc military garb: heavy helmet, vest, and boots. A thick fire-retardant outfit, almost as strong as metal, coated his body. He wore an air compression grenade rifle on his back. “Our leader, the new Javic, will address us.”
New Javic? Daniel thought, beginning to sweat, It looks like we just got in way over our heads.
A cheer went up. A Zytoc draped in what looked like a midnight black sheet stepped out from a side room, raising his hands in a salute to the men below. He wasn’t Javic Geriek, which meant Daniel and Shane were now dealing with a coup of some kind.
“Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” Shane muttered to Daniel. Daniel stared grimly as the ‘sheet’, actually a mesh of tiny nanites each about the size of a grain of sand, shifted and molded to the limbs of the Zytoc standing there until he looked like a metal statue of a Zytoc. It was the classic ‘conqueror’ armor, something best forgotten, a gift to the Zytoc from the Frigii. It was more advanced than any armor conceived, granting near immortality to the wearer. Weapons were generally thought to be ineffectual against them.
“How does he have one of those?” Daniel asked uselessly, “This is really bad.”
“My people!” He cried, “We have spent a long time groveling before the puny humans, smaller and weaker than our people. Long ago, we spilled the blood of those lesser orders casually. Why is it now that we fear the human race and their despicable administration?”
He was referencing an old Zyotoc philosophy that stated that they were the supreme species in the universe, and it was the duty of all others to be subservient. The death of a non-Zytoc wasn’t even counted as murder.
“They have better ships and better weapons! Even our Frigii tech is no match for all that they have. Some of the stuff they make is better than the Frigii!”
This ‘new javic’ didn’t like that he extended one arm at the speaker and activated his weapons. The scariest part of this old (supposedly destroyed) armor was its capability to form into whatever shape the wearer wished. This new Javic wished it to be an old laser pummler (now outlawed on Zylistia), the blast of purple light disintegrated the speaker in the blink of an eye. This new Javic casually folded the weapon away back into his hand. He continued to speak. “We now have the ultimate key to victory! Behold the Mynoian space field!”
He swept his hand upward, activating a hidden screen. A map of the Zylistian solar system appeared on its surface. Daniel’s eyes bugged out at what he saw.
“For the past six years, we have secretly built ships there, better and newer, more like the ASA models. We have taken most of our old ships and put them in the field for renovations, upgrading, and changing their weapons and shields. Now we have a fleet of a hundred ships ready to take off and finish that task that Javic Murdar began! We will invade and destroy Earth, bringing it under our control and bringing about a massacre that will be told of for ages.”
“The missing ships!” Shane gasped in surprise. “The Zylistian government has been making it look like they disappeared so they could add weapons and shields to them!”
“These implements alone are not enough,” This new Javic said, pacing back and forth, “the ASA has over three hundred ships in their solar system alone, not counting those they have patrolling our space and that of Aquain and Marquesh. But we have something they do not know about! The Warpers! Even now, a shuttle is preparing to launch for the Mynoian space field filled with Warper engines. When we connect to the waiting vessels, it will allow them to outmaneuver any ship in this galaxy! We will crush the ASA even by pure speed alone! But there is only a limited amount of time. The ASA has sent representatives to buy their own Warpers, so we must act fast, even faster, because of a traitor in our midst! I attempted to have them killed this morning, but with the help of two Solites, they escaped.”
A hiss of anger went up from he crowd as the new Javic paced forward to where Lady Ana stood, defiantly. The self-proclaimed Javic stared her down, “And what do you have to say for yourself, traitor scum, human lover, former Javaine?”
Lady Ana stared up at him with calm grace. She spoke evenly and controlled, not with the rash anger of her enemies, “I am for the people of Zylistia, we do not want a war. We want to live in peace with the other species, can you not see that this will only result in the death of the Zytoc and humans alike? Do you wish that the others should once again label us as killers?” (This was the former name of the Zytoc; they were called the Killers by the Aquainians and humans for a time.) “Should we once again fall into squalor with chiefs and kings ruling in palaces on other worlds while our own scrabble for food in dirt huts?”
This new Javic obviously didn’t like someone ruining his daydream of the perfect world. He slapped her across the face, striking her down on her knees, yet somehow she managed to look more royal than he. He growled at her in his rage, “Do you admit to attempting to get your father to investigate this warehouse, betraying the trust I placed in you!? Do you admit to speaking with two ASA Solites about our plans and therefore bringing us under the eyes of the ASA in our moment of glory!?”
“Your trust was not misplaced, Hiron. I wished only to protect you from yourself. I spoke not of this plan with the Solites, for I once again wished that you should give up this plan and turn to helping what is soon to be your people. I did this because I loved you, Hiron, but it appears you love power more than anything else, definitely more than me.”
Daniel looked at Shane, who seemed surprised at the revelation of who this self-proclaimed new Javic was. Hiron was the son of Jagiv (councilor/lord) Hemin. He was also betrothed to Javaine Ana and would one day be the new Javic once Geriek died.
Hiron stepped back, “I do not love a traitor.”
“No,” Ana said, standing, “You can not love, it is not in your cold heart. I was wrong to assume you could have any emotion.”
Hiron marched back to the center of the room. “Now we must hurry, even now these Solites might be transmitting information to the ASA. We must load up and leave quickly! And this former Javaine must die!”
Soldiers rushed to and fro, unloading Warpers and placing them into some kind of metal box-like structure at the end of the room. Shane pointed it out to Daniel, “That must be the entrance to their mag-rail transport.”
Daniel waved his hand away, “Shane, they are going to kill her!”
Hiron marched back towards her, grabbing her by the collar and lifting her effortlessly into the air. Somehow, through some process that Earthling scientists had yet to understand, this armor could increase the wearer’s strength.
“There is nothing we can do!” Shane whispered, “We need to leave and warn the ASA.”
The warehouse floor rapidly cleared, and even the guards around Hiron left. Apparently, there wasn’t time to make a spectacle of her death. The soldiers loaded the warpers and themselves into the transport less than thirty seconds later.
Hiron shook his quarry, “You didn’t even accomplish anything in your treachery! I knew that you were useless!”
“You, Hiron,” Ana barely managed to gasp, “are a bottomless black hole. You are incapable of making anything new; you seek only to destroy!”
He dropped her limp body to the ground. She let out a weak cry of pain. He put one foot on her chest and pressed down, “How dare you say such things! I am the hero who will save our people and make us the greatest species in all the worlds once again.”
Ana let out another sharp gasp of pain as Hiron pressed down again. Then, with a loud shout of anger and power, Daniel swung down on his grappling hook and landed a blow on Hiron’s back.
Hiron tipped forward, crashing to the ground with a grunt. He spun to see Daniel standing over the Javaine, leveling a radial-19 at him. A powerful and destructive Earthling weapon that had yet to be tested against Zytoc armor, because humans invented it after the short war.
“This is Lady Ana Javaine of Zylistia. Stand down, Hiron! Dishonor her with your injury to her person!” Ana gave this a slight smile; however, she was still in pain, and Zytoc weren’t very good at smiles.
“You speak of honor?” Hiron laughed, crouching as if ready to spring, “You humans know nothing of war, valor, or honor!” he sprang up to land on top of Daniel. Still, Daniel, being a Solite, was already off to the side. He fired a radial laser into Hiron, who fell back with a shout but didn’t seem affected otherwise.
Hiron rolled across the ground, shifting the shape of his armor into a perfect sphere, ready to crush anything in his way. Daniel fired a grappling hook onto a piece of the scaffolding and swung away from Hiron, who smashed into the wall behind him. Hiron got up wobbly and activated every weapon possible, resulting in an extra pair of arms and wings formed by the armor rearranging itself to create new limbs.
Daniel could never figure out how the extra arms made entirely of armor moved, but they did. Four laser pumplers went off simultaneously, sending their purple explosions across the wall. Daniel dodged them with increasing desperation, knowing that if he got too near to just one, he was dead.
“Hey! Metal man!” Shane shouted, hurling an energy grenade to stick to Hiron’s chest. “Over here!”
The grenade went off, blowing Hiron backwards. he snarled, struggling to his feet and deactivating the wings he didn’t want for another pair of arms with laser pummlers on the ends.
Shane sprinted for cover behind a pillar. Hiron fired off, disintegrating it to dust. Shane scrambled, barely leaping over the next shot to come to rest behind a second pillar, but he leapt out almost immediately, watching it go up in smoke behind him. Hiron shot two more down and then caught Shane with the last. Shane saw the blast coming and swerved away, but the explosion caught him from behind, hurling him forward and out into the open on his back.
“And now you will die!” a triumphant Hiron shouted, “You and your cowardly friend up there!” He motioned towards Daniel, who decided just then to swing down and disengage his grapple to stand next to Shane. They both saw what Hiron didn’t, mainly that the scaffold section behind him had no pillars holding it up now. With a loud, drawn-out creak, the whole spire collapsed. Hiron didn’t even have time to shout as several tons of metal, wood, and stone crashed down on him.
Daniel ran over to Lady Ana. She wasn’t as injured as he feared, and she had already sat up, whincing and gripping her stomach, where Hiron had stepped. Lady Ana studied the two of them, “I must thank you once again for saving my life, but we have no time to waste; we must stop this war!” She spoke calmly and evenly as befitted her rank, not showing how upset she was. She looked briefly at the pile of wreckage over Hiron but forced herself to look away and calmed her breath.
“I’m sorry, Javaine,” Daniel said, “I can’t. Even if the ASA defeated the Zylistian ships, the war will still come. The ASA would come here and continue this war to destroy Zylistia. I’m afraid that at this point, one planet will be destroyed.”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head, “It is not like that, the Zytoc do not want another war. Back when our rulers and chiefs were out conquering Aquain and building rich places there, forcing the Aquainians to be their slaves, our people were here living in mud brick huts, trying to farm this desolate ground. While the ‘killer rulers’ built ships and weapons, we had pieced together our first roads, and we do not want to return to that! The Zytoc do not want this war. It is only the high-up chiefs and rulers, just like the first invasion of Earth, these leaders do not have their people’s support.”
“How does this help?” Shane asked.
Ana struggled to her knees, “If you stop the train of Warpers from reaching the field or stop the launch, the ASA will have time to come in and get rid of the generals who want this conflict. There is no need to have a war!”
Shane got up, “Well, it would be great if we could stop the mag-rail. How do we do it?”
Ana got up, “If we hurry, we can catch it. They’ve been loading up beneath the warehouse; what they were doing earlier was just sending the elevator down.”
Daniel snapped his fingers, “We’ve got to hurry, though.”
As he spoke, the floor trembled slightly. Shane rushed to the elevator and pressed the down button. Daniel followed, and surprisingly, so did Ana.
As the box descended, he looked at her, puzzled. “We have weapons and armor. You don’t have any. Are you sure you want to come?”
“You will need my help,” Ana said simply. Then they arrived.
The mag-rail was a tiny tunnel with a small, lightweight train that fit the tunnel almost exactly. Lines of magnets ran down each side of the tunnel, and Zytoc soldiers had just finished their loading work. Shane pulled his radial-19 and shot them down with Daniel’s help. The last one jumped into the back of the long canister that made up the train, shouting for it to leave. Daniel rushed forward, Shane on his tail, but there was no way in.
“What do we do?” Daniel asked Ana as she rushed for a computer console along the wall. The train lifted slowly and began to slide away. A gun port opened on its side, but Shane raised his weapon and shot it off.
“We have to stop the train. I’ll attempt to do it from here, but you’ll have to get to the front of the train if I can’t.” Ana handed Daniel an earbud. “I can keep in contact with you using this and give you information you’ll need to shut it down.”
“How do we do that?” Daniel asked, “Is there another secret entrance or…”
The train pulled away, and Shane fired his grapple to catch on the end of the cylinder, which began to drag him along. “Remember train surfing?”
Daniel shook his head, “Oh, come on!”
He fired his own grapple, and then the train shot away. Shane pulled himself up by the grapple, disengaging it once he was on the roof. The tunnel was pitch black, and the train made surprisingly little noise as it went along. Shane glanced over his shoulder to see Daniel still dragging along, only he was floating.
“Quit fooling around, Daniel, we have work to do!”
Daniel’s metal armor was suspended in the air by the same forces holding up the train. He tugged himself up and grabbed onto the train. “That is extremely uncomfortable!”
Shane climbed to the top of the slick metal train. He scooted forward tentatively. Daniel followed. Shane helped him up, and they continued together as the cylinder rocked along quietly. At one point, the train entered a large cavern, and the roof magnets were on a system of girders. However, it mostly went through a tight straight tunnel.
“We aren’t going fast enough!” Daniel called back to Shane, who nearly slipped off when the train tilted slightly heading further down before straightening again.
Shane pulled out his blaster and shot the Zytoc soldier who slid open a panel in the roof, then shrugged at Daniel. “We could go through the train.”
Daniel kicked the door shut. “Too risky, too many men inside there.”
They scooted further along. Ana spoke through Daniel’s earbud, “I can’t get into the systems. The driving is all automated, but it is too heavily locked down. I could do something if you guys were inside the engine.”
Daniel glanced back at Shane, “It is up to us, we need to move it!”
Shane pulled himself along, nearly slipping off again, “I can’t go any faster.”
Daniel consulted Ana, “How much longer do we have?”
“Less than two minutes.”
Shane looked up the length of the train, then pulled out his grappling hook attached to his wrist cuff. He aimed past Daniel and fired. The hook barely caught on the edge of where two cars on the train met. Shane let out a whoop of triumph and pulled on the rope, rocketing himself forward along the slick surface. Daniel followed ungainly, yelping as the train rocketed around a corner, nearly throwing him off.
Shane fired again, catching his hook on the next segment, as he slid forward through three doors opened on the next train car, with three Zytoc totting three weapons standing up into the gap. Daniel pulled out his gun to fire, but the train hit a bend, hiding the four ahead of him from his sight. Daniel readied his grappling hook and launched it across the next car to attach as soon as the train straightened.
Shane took out the first guard, but took an explosive capsule to his chest, throwing him back off the train despite his armor. Daniel whizzed past him, reeling in his rope, and he clutched Shane and pulled him back up. The two remaining soldiers aimed, but the next turn blocked them from firing. Shane grabbed and managed to settle on the top of the train. Daniel motioned towards the front and pulled out an energy grenade. Shane saw him and nodded, pulling out his own. As the train began to turn, they threw, and when the Zytoc soldiers came into view again, raising their weapons, the grenades hit them, going off with an explosion of purple light. Daniel fired his grappling hook into the trapdoor and pulled, falling into the room below before the door could close. Shane barely made it in, sliding in as it automatically shut.
The room was barely lit by a lightbulb swinging back and forth on its string. There were crates of weapons all around, but no soldiers. Daniel activated the lock picker setting on his cuff and rigged the door to open. They entered into the second-to-last compartment, the one filled with the Warpers. Warpers and soldiers, that is.
Shane ducked behind the door as a volley crashed into the far wall, buckling the door to the far compartment. Daniel grabbed at his radial-19 only to realize it wasn’t there. He searched for another weapon, finding only tools, until he found a spare static bow insert. Shane listened to the chorus of cocking weapons as the Zytoc soldiers on the far side of the room readied. He still has his radial pistol, far cry from the radial-19 supergun, but it worked. He fired into the room at random, unable to quickly distinguish targets. Daniel motioned for Shane to cover him and rolled out into the open, firing a blast from his static bow.
The edges of the bow folded out from his cuff and sparked dramatically in the air, lightning arcing from the edges. While the Zytoc reloaded their weapons, the static bow harnessed the electricity stored in charges throughout the air and, when ready, went off with a loud whining buzz. Charges in the air grouped together, forming a ball of sparking energy directly where Daniel pointed the bow’s sights, arcs of lightning shot away, striking anything that had metal, and then with a huge bang, the soldiers in the room flew apart, smashing into the walls, lightning still fritzing from body to body.
Daniel rushed in head down while Shane aimed and blew the door off. The train was slowing noticeably, and there was a sound from the broken door behind them of many angry soldiers attempting to break down the door. Through the window in the drive room, they could see the end of the tunnel ahead.
“What do we do now?” Daniel asked, and Ana muttered to herself on the other side. Daniel asked again, “How do we stop this thing?”
The door in the compartment behind theirs burst open, and soldiers rushed in, taking their places and firing off rounds at the Solites at the controls. Ana called out in triumph, “I’ve got it, enter the override code into the system, and the entire train shuts down!”
“What is the code?” Daniel shouted over the cacophony of bullet capsules exploding around him. Shane pulled out his radial pistol and shot into the crowd ahead of them, which moved forward slowly.
“23-78-B-7.904!” Ana said.
Daniel motioned to Shane, “Cover me!”
Shane nodded as Daniel reached down and grabbed the control panel. A bullet whizzed past his head as he found the override code and entered it into what Ana told him. An explosion sounded, blowing him, Shane, and the Zytoc soldiers to the ground.
Daniel looked up, and Shane was gesturing to the door. Looking out, Daniel saw Zylistian soldiers forcing the others to their knees. Daniel stood up as the train slowed to a halt just at the exit of the tunnel.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and saluted Daniel and Shane. “I represent the soldiers of the Zylistian government now that you killed Hiron and we removed his men from office. I am here to say that we serve Lady Ana Javaine of Zylistia, daughter of Geriek Javic, Zylistia’s rightful ruler of all Zytoc. Since our loyalties lie with those who are friends with ASA and Earth, we are your friends and allies.”
He bent his head in a small bow of respect. Daniel leaned against the wall and looked at Shane, “I guess she was right about them not wanting a war.”
“If you will excuse us,” said the soldier, “there are the rest of Hiron’s men to deal with at the train station and Myonian space field.”
The soldiers exited. Shane stood up and shook off the light coating of dust from his cape and armor. “I didn’t expect that, not that I’m not thankful for it.”
Daniel chuckled, “Well, I did, otherwise I wouldn’t have climbed on top of a train for a dozen miles!”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew that if Lady Ana was right, then most of the soldiers on the train would be the ones who didn’t know the plan until now, and would therefore mostly be those who wouldn’t go along with the plan. When they learned that a pair of Solites were on top of the train, it would only be natural for them to ‘join forces’ with us if they didn’t like the plan and assumed we were powerful enough to beat Hiron’s troops without them, and wanted us to be on their good side. It is one of the benefits to people thinking that Solites are practically immortal.”
Shane and Daniel dismounted from the train and followed the troops to the station. Daniel paused briefly and then continued, “You know, I think that today is the first time the Zytoc as a people have chosen peace, and I’m certain that they’ll be the better for it. It is about time the Zytoc found their place in this galaxy, I think they have.”