Free Fiction Ebooks: Free ebook sample of "Adventures at and Around the Galaxy" by Adam Quinn (powered by Smashwords)

“Why do they always send us on lame missions like checking geothermal readings?” Steve asked. “And in lame old ships like the Karnine? This thing hasn’t been used in 20 years!”

“It’s got geothermal gear from its days as a mining ship, though,” Aidan said. “Albeit ancient gear. Check zone 27.6.”

“Still, this isn’t the highlight of my career. Remember when Nathaniel and I saved Jayso from that Joltznirian spike beast? Those were the good old days. Who even cares about geothermal readings anyway?”

“The Cavalieri, apparently. We should try to meet up with Nathaniel again soon. Check zone 48.3.”

Aidan flew the Karnine back around to the other side of the site.

“I can kind of see why the Cavalieri are interested. This definitely isn’t a natural cave.”

“Why does Jayso get to go on pirate patrol and I get stuck with stupid geothermal readings?”

“Maybe if you don’t think about it … Wait! I’ve got a hot spot!”

“A geyser? Machinery?”

“I don’t know, but it’s moving fast! This could be what the Cavalieri are looking for! Take us down! Quickly!”

“Does this mean I don’t have to check zone 48.3?”

One: Ferosia and Erian IV

Exibluar jogged down the corridor, his lungs heaving from the exertion. He thought he saw something following him out of the corner of his eye, but whenever he looked back it was always nothing. When he played that prank on those nicos back in Karington, he hadn’t thought that it might end up like this. Exibluar was an adult Rosarian in good health, but his left shoulder and right hip had been burned by the nicos’ leader’s flame thrower, and he was limping more and more from the burns. Then Exibluar spotted an exit to the surface, glowing from the bright sunlight on Ferosia, the polluted dump of a planet he had ended up on. Just as he was turning towards the exit, a small furry shape stepped in front of him, silhouetted by the glowing exit. It spoke in a low monotonous voice that Exibluar had hoped to never hear from a nico again. “You cannot escape, Exibluar Hazahat.”

Exibluar dove to the right and tried to tumble past the nico, but he dismally failed and ended up in a singed Rosarian heap. A circular piece of the ceiling fell and knocked over the nico. Exibluar’s friend Steve Cryzdeklithis jumped down through the new hole, grabbed Exibluar, and executed a perfect tumble down the corridor and out the exit, where Aidan Dawn, another of Exibluar’s friends, was waiting.

“Nice one, Steve,” Aidan said. “But can you do this?”

Aidan squatted, placing one hand on the ground, and closed his eyes. The entrance to the underground corridors shuddered and collapsed. Exibluar sighed. Aidan was showing off his mind powers again. It would be annoying if Aidan and Steve hadn’t just saved his life. Exibluar looked behind him, saw a space transport parked on the rocky Ferosian soil, and said, “I vote we get off this rock.”

“I second that motion,” said Steve.

“We can stop at Erian IV to restock,” Aidan added with an air of authority. Steve and Exibluar boarded the transport, but when it was Aidan’s turn, he looked concerned.

“Something’s wrong,” he observed before turning to stare at a cluster of boulders a couple hundred yards away. A nico ducked behind the boulders and out of sight. The nico had probably thought he was undetectable, but his hiding skills were no match for Cavalieri perception. Aidan knew they had to leave before the nico reported their presence to whoever ran this tunnel network. Aidan boarded the transport.

“We need to get out of here. Now!” he said.

It was too late. Five black interceptor starships flew over the horizon and bombarded the transport with their laser cannons. BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP! Half of the lights on the control panel turned red. Steve dashed out of the ship while Aidan started pushing buttons frantically, trying to reroute the power, isolate the fuselage from the damaged weapons, and recalibrate the navigational computer all at the same time.

“They’re coming around for another run!” Steve said.

Aidan triumphantly pressed a button. Steve and Exibluar watched as the transport jettisoned its damaged left sear gun cannon. The cannon hit the leading enemy starship, which crashed into two others, leaving only two to bombard the transport. Several explosions sounded.

“They’ve hit the fuselage!” Aidan yelled. “Abandon ship!”

Aidan, Steve, and Exibluar jumped away from the ship seconds before it exploded. The two remaining starships circled back to finish the three friends off, but when they tried, Aidan and Steve used their mind powers again to jump fifteen feet in the air and grab hold of the starships’ hulls, distracting the pilots. They then proceeded to clamber on top of the cockpits and sliced open the interceptors’ Plexiglas domes with their Phase Swords. They threw the original pilots out, then entered the cockpits themselves. Aidan stretched out his hand, and Exibluar floated up and into Aidan’s newly acquired starship. Aidan yelled over to Steve, “Since we punctured the cockpits, we can’t fly these ships out of the atmosphere, much less to Erian IV, but we can fly to Karington and buy an interstellar shuttle.”

Steve agreed, and Exibluar’s two rescuers both turned their starships north and programmed their navigational computers to take them to Karington. The trip passed mostly in silence except for two times. Once, Exibluar asked Aidan why they were going to Erian IV instead of Erian II or Foonya, which were both closer.

“Someone on Ferosia knows that we are going to Erian IV but not why. Someone on Erian IV does not know that we are coming, but knows why. My only mission is to complete the truth,” Aidan replied, gracefully avoiding answering Exibluar’s question.

“Do you think those are those the nicos from Project 16?” Steve asked Aidan. “I know that we’re not supposed to be following up on that, but I just want to know.”

“Project what?” Exibluar said.

“Project 16,” Aidan said. “It was a Cavalieri project looking into widespread reports of nicos acting as assassins and thugs. Many people claimed to have seen them sneaking around or congregating into small armies. Some high level Cavalieri thought that it was all connected in some kind of conspiracy. Anyway, some big name politicians stepped in and forcibly cancelled Project 16. Steve and I were against it, but there was no way we could stop the cancellation. There were tons of rumors flying around that the Galactic Government was corrupt and that the Project 16 nicos had brainwashing technology, but nobody paid any attention.”

“Well I’d say yes,” Exibluar said. “Those nicos were definitely up to something.”

“Aidan and I did succeed in one regard, though,” Steve said. “We saved the Project 16 communications channel. If any Cavalieri has anything to say about Project 16, they know where to go.”

As the three friends neared Karington in their interceptors, they saw metal and glass skyscrapers towering around the edge of the Ferosian capital city like a great protective wall, while in the intermediate area, rows upon rows of one-story buildings the same color as the Ferosian soil, radiated out from the Central District. In the Central District, there were three very large metal buildings. One was the spaceport, and the other two were probably for government. Aidan knew that the Ferosian government had two major branches, the Yan and the Fin. The Yan were an oligarchy where one family ruled the entire branch and babies from that family would get their political powers when they turned twelve. The Yan controlled all of Ferosia’s diplomatic efforts and homeland regulation (a collection of duties that included things like maintaining the infrastructure). The Fin was a 375 member branch whose members were chosen during an election every five years. The Fin controlled the Ferosian monetary system (as well as the government budget) and the military. Since the Yan controlled diplomacy and the Fin controlled the military, they both needed to agree to go to war.

Aidan and Steve landed in Zone Four of the spaceport and got out of their interceptors. Exibluar’s hobby was trading; buying, selling, bartering, haggling, they all appealed to him. Aidan knew this, and sent him to trade the two roofless interceptors for something spaceworthy.

To pass the time that he was gone, Aidan and Steve played claw grabber games that were scattered around the landing zone to amuse bored travelers. The two friends won almost every time they played, but this was only because every time they missed a prize they covertly levitated it out of the machine.

Half an hour and sixteen stuffed animals later, Exibluar returned with good news. He had been able to trade the two interceptors to a retired spacer for his beat up, but still spaceworthy shuttle, Moon Jumper. Steve showed the spacer where the interceptors were while Aidan and Exibluar went to find Moon Jumper. When they got to it, Aidan took a quick look at some of its capabilities. It could hold about 20 people, had enough supplies to last at least two weeks in space, was unarmed, and could go moderately fast with both its fusion and flip drives. Aidan sat down at the controls and tried to familiarize himself with them, while Exibluar criticized the flip drive mount.

“It’s terrible!” Exibluar said. “There are dozens of stress points that could fracture during a flip drive journey! Dozens!”

“You’re the one who traded for it, so be quiet and fix it if you feel so inclined!” Aidan reminded him.

“Why don’t you fix it, Mr. Mind Powers?”

“Hey, I didn’t choose to have mind powers, but if I could have I would have. The Cavalieri are not only the most elite forces in the galaxy, we also keep the Galactic Government running! We’re the police, the army, the peacekeepers …” Aidan paused to take a breath for a moment. “Do you want to live in a galaxy with a defunct GG? Because that’s what it was like back in the Union of Twelve Worlds, before the GG even existed.”

Exibluar grumbled and muttered things under his breath as he took a palm welder out of a storage cabinet and then threw it away in disgust. A few minutes later, Steve returned.

“The spacer likes them,” he said. “Says he’s going to use them to fly from his getaway in the southern hemisphere to Karington, where his grandchildren live.”

“You Cavalieri are just …” Exibluar began. Steve spun around and glared at Exibluar.

“I didn’t rescue you just so I could hear you trash the Cavalieri,” Steve said, anticipating what Exibluar was about to say. Exibluar fell silent and sat down on a seat in the back of the ship. Steve sat in the copilot’s seat, next to Aidan.

“You should apologize,” Aidan told him as they powered up the ship’s ancient fusion drive.

“Why?” Steve asked.

“You weren’t being very kind to Exibluar.”

“The Cavalieri saved the galaxy! If he wants to see how it was back in the Union of Twelve Worlds, I’ve got a nice cozy asteroid with his name on it.”

“Good point.”

The control panel crackled for a few seconds before sputtering to life. Aidan started the ascent out of the atmosphere.

“This ship needs a new name!” Steve told Aidan.

“Something about the Cavalieri, say, Cavalieri Jumper, like its old name,” Aidan replied. Exibluar groaned and covered his ears. Steve glanced back at him.

“Excellent choice,” Steve agreed.

Cavalieri Jumper hovered higher and higher until it was outside of Ferosia’s atmosphere. At this point, Aidan input the jump coordinates for Erian IV and engaged the flip drive. Vvvvvviip! To any observers on Ferosia, it would have looked like Cavalieri Jumper had simply disappeared, but in reality, the ship had flipped into the seventh dimension, where it was possible to go faster than the speed of light. The seventh dimension journey to Erian IV took about two days, but Aidan and Steve did not squander these days sitting around (Exibluar did). The two Cavalieri practiced their Phase Sword techniques and minor acrobatics, all while checking on other Cavalieri on missions via their Cavalieri Wrist Computers (CWCs).

Oddly enough, the profile of the leader of the CSLB, the Cavalieri Senior Leadership Board, the leaders of the Cavalieri, said he was alive and well in the Cavalieri Headquarters, but there was an urgent message on the emergency channel that said that he’d been assassinated. Aidan dismissed this as a technical error and moved opened the Project 16 channel, eager to check up on anything to do with it, after the nico appearance.

There turned out to be two interesting tidbits posted. First, there was supposedly a new type of nicos in circulation that his old friend Joseph from the Cavalieri had encounter, Elite Guards. They were still nicos, but they were advanced way beyond the level of ordinary troops. This could mean trouble. Another post was rather suspicious in its own right, since it had been posted by a non Cavalieri! On a Cavalieri channel! It told of a nico space station, built to be their headquarters and a center for brainwashing new troops. It was called Dark Minds. Aidan shuddered. He didn’t want to trouble his companions with this information, much less let it fall into other people’s hands, so he locked the channel. No posting and no reading without Aidan’s Cavalieri password.

Though he wasn’t ready to disclose the activity on the Project 16 channel yet, he knew he had to get to the bottom of this. If he drew his last breath doing so, he needed to complete what Project 16 had started. Aidan and Steve were playing checkers with their mind powers, moving the checkers with their thoughts alone, and Exibluar was sulking when Cavalieri Jumper returned to the third dimension. Vviiissssss!

Aidan rushed to the cockpit and grabbed the controls, narrowly avoiding a collision with a space transport flying away from Erian IV. Erian IV glimmered like a giant green marble in the vast darkness of space. Steve took the copilot’s seat again and checked in with the Erian IV commercial space station while Aidan navigated towards the planet’s surface.

“Bon Farno … Main Spaceport … Zone Six,” he muttered, staring at the planet.

Steve was pretty sure that Bon Farno was a city on Erian IV, one of the dozens of mini metropolises suspended on giant platforms high in the canopies of Erian IV’s plentiful temperate forests. What he didn’t know was why Aidan kept coming up with seemingly random but increasingly specific places. Sure enough, Aidan requested to land in Zone Six of the main spaceport of Bon Farno. Cavalieri Jumper finally landed in Zone Six, and the Cavalieri and Exibluar disembarked. In that moment, Steve saw the reason for their journey leaning against some crates, wearing a Galactic Government issue helmet and polishing the retractable stock on a sear gun carbine.

“Nathaniel!” Steve exclaimed as he rushed forward to meet his old friend.

“That’s all we need,” Exibluar grumbled. “More weirdos.”

Aidan dashed forward without warning and lunged at Nathaniel. Nathaniel, his soldier instincts kicking in, whirled out of Aidan’s way and swung his sear gun carbine around to point at him. Aidan hit the crates Nathaniel had been leaning on and toppled them. When he emerged from the toppled crates, he was holding something. An arrow. Steve turned just in time to see a nico scurry away with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that the arrow had a scroll wrapped around its shaft and sealed with tape. Aidan carefully removed the tape and unfurled the scroll. Exibluar, Nathaniel, and Steve leaned in closer to read it.

The scroll read:

To: Misters Aidan Dawn, Steve Cryzdeklithis, Exibluar Hazahat and Nathaniel Lin.

From: The Dark Cult of Nicos and their masters.

You may have noticed that several attempts on the lives of the members of your group. This is because:

Your group has been declared a target by the masters of the Dark Cult of Nicos.

Your group contains two Cavalieri, the sworn enemies of the Dark Cult of Nicos.

These attacks will continue unless you come to 877 W. Broadleaf Street in Bon Farno before 8:00 PM today. If you turn down this offer you will surely be destroyed by the inevitable might of the Dark Cult of Nicos.

“At least somebody knows what a Cavalieri is,” Aidan said, elbowing Exibluar.

“Dark Cult of Nicos?” Steve muttered. “A little melodramatic if you ask me.”

“Nathaniel Lin?” Nathaniel fumed, “Stalkers! I never tell anyone my last name!”

“So, do we go?” Exibluar asked.

“Why not?” Steve asked. Exibluar smiled evilly and started listing out loud, one by one, the bad things that might happen to them if they did what the Dark Cult wanted.

“I bet my connections from my time in the military could score us a regiment or two,” Nathaniel volunteered.

“Wait, your ‘time in the military’?” Steve asked. “Did you quit?”

“Yeah,” Nathaniel answered, “but they let me keep all of my stuff. I’ve always admired how you guys have jobs that entail adventuring through the galaxy and hated that I spent most of my time marching back and forth in a fort, so I quit. I was trying to decide where I would go first when you arrived.”

“I hope you’re ready to live a dangerous life,” Steve said. “Because our brand of adventuring isn’t all fun and games.”

“Don’t worry too much, though. If anything bad happens there, I have a plan to end it before it starts,” Aidan added.

“If?” Exibluar complained. “And isn’t that technically impossible?”

Aidan gave Exibluar a withering look and told him to go guard the ship. While Exibluar walked off, Aidan told Nathaniel and Steve his plan, and a few minutes later they split up, Aidan and Steve heading towards Broadleaf Street, and Nathaniel grabbed Exibluar before heading off towards the city’s police station.

Later, at 877 West Broadleaf Street, Aidan and Steve spied on several squads of “Dark Cult” nicos using a small skylight. They were scurrying around, apparently preparing for the arrival of Aidan and his friends. 877 West Broadleaf Street was a very large house, and Aidan could see at least fifty nicos inside. They appeared to have no idea that they were being observed, as they continued their tasks heedlessly. They built barricades, set booby traps, installed mini laser turret emplacements, manned sniper posts, and at the severe risk of overdoing it, set up two artilleries. Aidan knew that his plan would take enough power to leave him exhausted, but he was willing to try it anyway. Aidan and Steve raised their hands, concentrating on the mansion-like house.

The nicos were still running around setting up equipment and distributing weapons when the entire building started to shiver. All the nicos stopped what they were doing and looked around. Then the entire roof started crashing down in a series of catastrophic explosions of metal, wood, dust, and smoke. An artillery was crushed, and barricades were flattened. Nicos were buried or crushed. Sniper posts were shredded and turrets were destroyed.

Aidan and Steve, panting from exhaustion, looked down on the destruction from a piece of the ceiling that had “coincidently” survived the destruction. A few nicos who had survived the collapse tried to fire the remaining artillery at the two Cavalieri, but instead they hit a piece of debris, and the resulting explosion destroyed the last remains of 877 West Broadleaf Street’s interior. Aidan and Steve tried to back flip off the roof piece and land on the street, but ended up mostly tumbling to the ground and being caught by the 12^th police squad, who Nathaniel and Exibluar had brought as back up. Four police supported the two Cavalieri in a standing position. Aidan’s power was every bit as spent as he’d thought it would be, but he knew that the effect had been worth it. They had destroyed a Dark Cult base.

“That worked rather well,” Aidan breathed as the four friends and the 12^th squad walked back to landing Zone Six. At Zone Six, the police helped Aidan and Steve enter Cavalieri Jumper and then departed.

Two: Eluding the Cult

“Where to next?” Exibluar asked, sitting down next to Aidan. Nathaniel sat in the pilot’s seat and looked back over his shoulder, waiting for directions.

“I have an idea,” Steve spoke softly. “Let’s go to Sambourloin. It’s sparsely populated and out in the far reaches of the galaxy. We’ll keep a low profile for a couple of weeks and see if the Dark Cult really is inevitable.”

“I like that idea,” Nathaniel said, turning back to the control panel.

Cavalieri Jumper took off and swiftly flew away from Erian IV, but Aidan soon noticed that there was a ship following them.

“Input the coordinates!” Aidan ordered.

“They’re firing missiles! Activate the defenses!” Steve yelled hoarsely, having also seen the pursuing ship.

“We don’t have any defenses!” Nathaniel replied. “Coordinates set!”

“What in the galaxy made you buy a ship without defenses?” Steve asked Exibluar.

“The missiles are 150 yards away!” Aidan said.

“Navigations calibrated,” Nathaniel said.

“100 yards!”

“Initiating flip drive.”

“50 yards!”

Steve was still scolding Exibluar when Cavalieri Jumper flipped to the seventh dimension. Vvvvvviip! CRRACK! CRRRACK! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“What happened this time?” Steve groaned.

“I TOLD YOU to fix those stress points, Exibluar!” Aidan yelled as he used some of his last reserves of strength to lunge forward and hit a series of green, red, and orange buttons. Vviiissssss! Cavalieri Jumper returned to the third dimension.

“If we had gone any longer, we would have exploded,” Aidan whispered. “We’re still in the Erian system, but we’re closer to Erian VII now. Nathaniel, isolate each operating system and scan for energy leaks. Then eject the flip drive. We can’t risk activating the fusion drive until all of that is done. If you don’t mind, Steve and I will be taking a rest.”

“It’s amazing how short of a time it takes for us to severely damage ships,” Nathaniel told Exibluar as he started working. “Isn’t it, Exibluar?”

“Don’t blame me!” Exibluar said.

“Why not?” Nathaniel asked.

“Because … uh … I …” Exibluar struggled to find an excuse.

“Just go take a rest with Aidan and Steve,” Nathaniel suggested. “I need to work on this alone for a while.”

Nathaniel pulled an energy routing display. Blip! Blip! Blip! Several points on the display were flashing red.

“Seven fractures in the energizing chamber?” he whispered dejectedly. “I’m going to be up all night.”

The next morning, when Aidan woke up, the entire shuttle was scattered with parts and tools, several metal wall panels were unscrewed, and Nathaniel was asleep in the pilot’s chair. Aidan checked the display and found that though Nathaniel had been able to isolate the operating systems successfully, the energizing chamber’s leaks had proved irreparable, and activating the engines or ejecting the flip drive mount would have proved fatal. Aidan checked for escape pods and found none, but he did find that, if separated, the cockpit and main body could operate as independent ships. Since the problem was in the main body, Aidan woke everybody up and ushered them into the cockpit. He then activated the routine that transformed Cavalieri Jumper into two separate ships. The two separator doors closed, and mini rockets on the cockpit propelled it away from the main body. When they were a safe distance away, Aidan let Nathaniel take the controls and lead them towards Erian VII, and looked back at the part of Cavalieri Jumper they’d left behind. Aidan didn’t know how long it would take for the energizing chamber to destabilize, but he hoped nobody was around when it did, because the main body still held enough fuel and air to produce a very big bang.

“How many explosions have we witnessed since Ferosia?” Aidan sighed, thinking wistfully of his days at the Cavalieri HQ, when explosions were something to watch on video files and ‘wow’ at.

“Two!” Exibluar exclaimed.

“What about those interceptors? It was at least five!” Steve countered.

“But the house had at least two, so that makes six!” Nathaniel shot back.

“It was a rhetorical question!” Aidan grumbled, his memories of peace lost. Five minutes later, Cavalieri Jumper’s cockpit landed in a rundown spaceport on Erian VII. The separation door slid open and the four of them stepped out.

“Oh, come on!” Aidan said, looking at the gunboat that had almost hit them with its missiles, parked a few meters away.

“How did they get here before us?” Exibluar asked.

“They probably slipped past us while Nathaniel was trying to repair our broken ship, Exibluar,” Steve said.

“Well let’s not let a good ship go to waste!” Nathaniel smiled.

“Are you proposing that we ‘borrow’ it?” Aidan asked, also smiling slightly.

“Only long enough to trade it for a better ship. I’m sure the nicos won’t mind,” Nathaniel assured him, placing his hand on the door to the gunboat. Apparently the nicos did mind, because six sear gun bolts thudded into the door, burning a hexagon around Nathaniel’s hand. Nathaniel jerked his hand away just in time to avoid an arrow landing in the center of the hexagon.

“I guess they do mind,” Nathaniel muttered, glancing around for the hidden attackers.

“Go for it!” Aidan said, stretching out his hand and mind-blasting the door to splinters. Steve and Exibluar dive-rolled inside and drew their weapons. Aidan dodged another volley of arrows and sear gun bolts, distracting the attackers, while Nathaniel provided cover fire with his sear gun carbine. After a few seconds the gunboat hummed to life and started thrashing back and forth, looking suspiciously like two people were fighting over the controls. Aidan back flipped into the gunboat and levitated Nathaniel in as well, dodging a couple more arrows.

The few people who had been near the run down spaceport had scattered, so Nathaniel fired several more rounds of sear gun fire all around the area, causing the attackers to stop shooting long enough for the gunboat to fly out of range.

“Why were they shooting arrows at us?” Nathaniel asked. “They obviously had sear guns as well.”

“They probably had the bow and arrows left over from the ‘message’ they sent us on Erian IV, and wanted to confuse us by using it,” Aidan said.

Aidan made his way to the cockpit and looked around. Steve had taken the controls, and Exibluar was sulking in the far corner.

“I wanted to drive!” Exibluar whined.

Both of the gunboat’s drives were satisfactory, and its armament and shields were decent.

Steve flew the ship all the way to Bon Teejay, the capital of Erian VII. When they got there, Exibluar went to the commercial district to trade the gunboat for something without a blasted door, only this time Nathaniel went with him to ensure that he did not get a used ship with numerous defects, like Cavalieri Jumper.

Aidan and Steve spent the 45 minutes Exibluar and Nathaniel were gone searching the capital for evil nicos. They found none, possibly because their gunboat was stolen. Aidan and Steve returned to the spaceport where they had landed at roughly the same time as Exibluar and Nathaniel. Exibluar and Nathaniel were accompanied by a starship broker who had agreed to trade four interceptors for the gunboat.

“Now this a good deal!” the broker said as the four friends walked away. Exibluar led the group to Zone Sixteen, where they found the four interceptors.

“It’s 10:30; I’m going to find a hotel room,” Exibluar announced.

“I’ll go with him,” Steve added. Aidan shrugged and he and Nathaniel locked themselves in their interceptors, where they promptly fell asleep. Exibluar and Steve walked away.

The next day, the four friends met up at Exibluar and Steve’s hotel for breakfast before buying some supplies and setting off, heading for Sambourloin. Vvvv-Vvvv-Vvvv-Vvvvvviip! All four interceptors flipped to the seventh dimension smoothly. They each had two small sear gun cannons, but no shields, and drives that were in excellent condition, making the far journey to Sambourloin go by in only two days. The Ferosia-Erian IV journey had only taken two days, but it was a shorter distance, and Cavalieri Jumper‘s drives had been much lower quality. In the somewhat cramped interceptors, nobody could practice Phase Sword techniques or anything like that, but by the time they arrived at Sambourloin, their mini-squadron was named Squadron Four, in honor of its four members. Vvii-Vvii-Vvii-Vviiissssss!

“Squadron Four, welcome to Sambourloin,” Aidan announced. Sambourloin was larger than any planet in the Erian system, and a lot larger than Ferosia. It didn’t have enough gravity to crush most creatures, but it could make people native to smaller worlds uncomfortable.

“This is Four-2, requesting permission to land,” Steve joked.

“Permission granted, Four-2. The city closest to our position is called Karlduct,” Aidan responded, “Let’s land there.”

“Good idea, Four-1. I’m on my way,” Steve said. Four-2 zoomed ahead of the other three interceptors, headed for Karlduct. The four interceptors descended to the planet’s surface, and landed about 150 meters away from Karlduct. The four pilots disembarked and headed towards Karlduct on foot.

When they arrived, Aidan and Steve took a map from a basket under a sign that said “Welcome to Karlduct!” There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so the two Cavalieri read the map as the group approached the center of town.

“This is weird,” Steve said. “Everything has a subtitle in Darhuvvian.”

Aidan froze, his eyes open wide, thoughts in his brain almost audibly clicking together. Aidan unfroze and gasped, staring straight into Steve’s eyes.

“We’re leaving. Now!” Aidan told him, getting ready to make a run for the interceptors.

“Why?” Steve asked.

“Darhuv is nicknamed ‘The Under Planet’ for its huge underworld, which grew because Darhuvvians value assassins and minions and all that kind of stuff. Who would love to use an army of evil nicos to take down the Cavalieri and possibly the whole Galactic Government more than them?”

“So what does this have to do with vacating this peaceful …”

“Peaceful!?” Aidan balked. “Rearrange the letters of Karlduct and you get …”

“… Dark Cult! Hiding their identity isn’t these people’s strong suit, is it?”

Aidan and Steve ran towards the end of town beyond which the interceptors were parked, and Nathaniel and Exibluar followed them. Unfortunately, as soon as they started running, every door and several windows burst open and an entire army of nicos flooded out into the open. Aidan ran to a two story restaurant and scaled it before jumping from rooftop to rooftop away from the center of town.

Aidan waved his hand and the several nicos in his rooftop path were mind-blasted onto the streets below. Steve tried to follow Aidan, but Sambourloin’s increased gravity effect hit him at just the wrong time, and he (a bit dizzily) retreated to the alley where Nathaniel and Exibluar were taking cover. Steve leaned against a wall, trying to recover and think of a plan while Exibluar and Nathaniel fired away with their sear guns, barely even slowing the advance of the nicos.

But Aidan had other problems.

As he reached the edge of town and ran towards the interceptors on the ground, he spotted two gunboats, also going for the interceptors. Aidan reached the landed squadron first and leaped into Four-1. In the gunboats’ first attack run, Four-2 and Four-4 were destroyed. Aidan took off and maneuvered Four-1 into a classic attack position. He sprayed the gunboats with sear gun fire, not penetrating their shields, but deterring them from destroying Four-3, which was still on the ground. Next, as the gunboats swung around for another attack, Aidan clapped his hands together, altering both of their trajectories by fifteen degrees, making them crash into each other in a blazing fireball.

When he flew back to Karlduct, however, he could not locate his friends. The nico army had overrun the alley and was starting to disperse back into their hiding places. Aidan was pretty sure that Exibluar, Nathaniel, and Steve were either captured, dead, or had escaped. Aidan was not an expert on sensing other people, but he picked up that, dead or alive, they were still in Karlduct.

Aidan decided that he was going to need resources that not many people could acquire, so, unwilling bring his issue up to galactic or sector level just yet, he headed for Lé Sambour, the capital of Sambourloin. As he flew, it occurred to Aidan that he had been spending a lot of time in capitals lately, not as a good or bad thing, but just as an interesting fact. Then it occurred to him that the Dark Cult crisis was important enough for him to spend a lot of his time in capitals. In fact, he would be surprised if he didn’t take a trip to the galactic capital before Project 16 was said and done.

With Four-1’s excellent fusion drive, the journey was not very long, so Aidan had no more time to ponder. Being so remote and out of the way meant that not even Sambourloin’s capital had a spaceport, so Aidan landed right outside its borders. Lé Sambour was small compared to other planetary capitals like Karington and Bon Teejay, so Aidan had no trouble finding a two-story brick building with a sign that read:

SHAMBORLÉ

(GOVERNMENT)

When he entered, Aidan found an atrium with several benches and a receptionist. The receptionist scheduled him for a hearing with the Council (the highest tier of Sambourloinian government) in twenty minutes. Aidan left the government building and, since it was 12:30, bought himself lunch at a nearby diner. He then returned to the atrium and ate his lunch. Aidan was not yet finished when the receptionist called him, so he stuffed the rest of it in a bag and clipped the bag to his belt as two guards opened the large doors to an adjoining room. There was a window on the right wall, a drawing board on the left wall, and a rectangular table in the center. A man adorned with several badges occupied the head of the table, and the rest of it was occupied by seven younger people, four women and three men.

“I am the overseer of this council, and these are the seven delegates of Sambourloin,” the older man explained. Aidan walked around the table, shaking everyone’s hands and exchanging greetings and introductions. Some of the delegates identified themselves by the regions they represented, some by their last name initials, some not at all.

“Delegates of Sambourloin, a threat to your power, the power of the Cavalieri, and the power of the GG rests on Sambourloinian soil!” Aidan began. Several delegates’ eyes flew open. Aidan smiled. Power threats always worked on politicians. “The Darhuvvians have created an army of nicos brainwashed in ways the likes of which we do not know, and are using them to menace the galaxy at large! My friends and I have found nico bases on Ferosia, Erian IV, and Sambourloin, though now my friends have gone missing at the nico base on Sambourloin, the city of Karlduct!”

Several delegates actually gasped, surprised that a threat so severe was on their planet.

“Now I ask of you to provide me with military forces to find my friends, vanquish this threat, and liberate Karlduct!” Aidan said. The Council applauded. The overseer started pointing to delegates and asking them their votes. Only the delegate from the Suunam and the delegate who’d identified himself as Delegate Z voted against the measure.

“Aidan Dawn, on a vote of 5 to 2, I grant you one legion of Sambourloinian troops,” the overseer explained. “They will aid you in driving this threat out of our city, our planet, and our system, and also to aid you in finding your friends so you can continue your valiant battle against evil across the galaxy. Your troops will assemble in the center of town and board the troopships that will take them to Karlduct as soon as you leave this room,”

“Thank you Council, overseer, for providing me with the resources I need to complete this task. Thank you also for making the decision on such short notice. Most governments I know would take a month and a half to get me a hearing and another six just to make the decision,” Aidan said before leaving. As he walked from the government building to Four-1, he saw a hundred men and women wearing an assortment of jumpsuits and carrying an all different kinds of sear guns splitting into four groups of twenty-five and boarding four troop transport ships. This army was not a professional GG fighting force, it was just a collection of disorganized civilians with sear guns. Aidan felt a bit sorry for himself, that he had to somehow beat an army of mindlessly loyal nicos with the legion before him, but he felt far sorrier that he had to lead these civilians into a battle (which he doubted any of them had ever been in)—a battle that he knew not only would be difficult, but would cost many of them their lives. Armies and battles should be saved for action movies, but that wasn’t even remotely likely. There were too many different cultures, ideals, species, and religions in the galaxy for galactic peace to be possible for more than a short period of time. And that wasn’t even counting crazy Darhuvvians who wanted to take over the galaxy.

Three: Fighting Back

Aidan got back into Four-1 and flew over to where the troopships were beginning to take off. He could already tell that the troopships had much slower fusion drives than Four-1, so he flew ahead until he was just outside of regular sensor range of Karlduct. Once there, he practiced flying Four-1, as he had not gotten an incredible amount of experience with it, until the troopships caught up.

When all the troopships had arrived at Karlduct, they landed and Aidan oversaw the deployment of troops. Hoping to catch the nicos in a Cannae encirclement (his favorite strategic maneuver), Aidan placed some of his heavily armed troops in a curved formation protecting the transports, and some of the more lightly armed (and therefore faster) troops on two hills, one in front of each wing of the heavy defense.

Aidan sent the small group of medium-armed troops to fill in the gaps between the heavy wings and the light hill positions. As for the closing force that would trap the nicos, Aidan would see to that personally. Aidan left command of the troops and a few tactical instructions to an officer and left in Four-1, heading for Karlduct.

Almost as soon as Aidan left, the nicos sprang again from their hiding places and charged at the Sambourloinians. Aidan wondered if their notions of his prestige as a commander had been holding back their attack. Aidan swooped back and forth over Karlduct, mind searching for his friends. He could still feel that Nathaniel and Exibluar were in Karlduct, but he couldn’t really tell if Steve was, or where within the city Nathaniel and Exibluar were. He didn’t, however, end up needing mind powers at all. A couple squads of nicos had stayed back from the battle to guard a nondescript warehouse, so Aidan decided to check it out first.

He stealthily landed his interceptor on the roof and got out. Even from this distance, the battle was deafening. Hundreds of feet marching, hundreds of sear guns firing dozens of officers yelling orders; Aidan was glad that he wasn’t in the middle of it. He activated his Phase Sword and cut a circular hole in the roof as Steve had done on Ferosia. Aidan heard alarms go off. As the roof piece hit the ground he jumped in. The warehouse was dimly lit, but Aidan could see a table with chairs around it, a bunch of nicos scrambling to grab weapons, and thankfully, Exibluar and Nathaniel in a jail cell like structure in the corner. Aidan mind-blasted the nicos away from their weapon rack and cut a hole in the jail cell. As Aidan fended off the nicos, Nathaniel and Exibluar escaped through the hole and ran off towards the weapon rack. Nathaniel grabbed a sear gun carbine, and Exibluar grabbed a huge auto-sear gun. Within a minute, they had vanquished all the nicos and exited the warehouse.

“Nathaniel, as far as I know, Four-3 is still intact. Get in the air and end this battle with minimal casualties.”

“Yes, sir!” Nathaniel replied, his soldier instincts kicking into high gear, before running off south.

“Exibluar, where’s Steve?”

“I don’t know,” Exibluar responded. “He tried to escape by mind-blasting the cage, but they caught him and put him on a ship they said was bound for Ferosia. He could be on Ferosia, en route, or they could have been lying. He might even have escaped!”

The sound of a pair of small sear gun cannons firing punctuated the noise from the north, and Aidan knew Four-3 had entered the battle.

“Those Sambourloinians can’t last forever against all those nicos, but I set them up in a Cannae formation, so if we get up there and close the trap, we might stand a chance.” Aidan grabbed his Phase Sword. “Let’s go!”

When Nathaniel arrived at the Northern edge of town, the fight was going badly for the Sambourloinians. He saw that half a legion of reinforcements from Lé Sambour had arrived and established a forward formation to keep the nicos out of the Cannae formation until the Cavalieri returned. Unfortunately, the nicos’ large numbers allowed them to gain ground yard by yard until Nathaniel joined the fray, bombarding the nicos with sear gun cannon fire and halting their advance in a bitter hand-to-hand skirmish atop the last hill in front of the Cannae. Just then, Aidan and Exibluar arrived, attacking the nicos from behind. The nicos stopped fighting and turned to look at Aidan and Exibluar for a split second.

“CODE CANNAE!” Aidan yelled in the split second in which the battle ceased. The remnants of the half legion promptly broke formation and fled, secretly regrouping behind Aidan and Exibluar. The nicos flooded into the midst of the Cannae encirclement, thinking that they had won a major victory. Once all the nicos were inside, the light formations swung inward, and Aidan, Exibluar, and the half legion blocked their retreat. Too late, the nicos realized that they were completely surrounded. Some tried to form defensive squares, while others tried to scatter, turning their uncannily coordinated army into a disorganized blob.

The Sambourloinians charged because they saw that the nicos were weak. Aidan charged because he wanted to end the battle. Exibluar charged because he liked charging. Sear gun fire hammered the nicos from the city, the hills, the land, and the sky, and the Battle of Karlduct was over in less than two minutes.

As soon as the battle was over, the Sambourloinians sent patrols to search the city for more nicos and possibly data to help identify this new threat to Sambourloin, while the rest of the unharmed troops helped tend to the wounded and clean up. Aidan sighed and sat down. The adrenaline that had seen him through the heat of the battle was leaving him, and he wasn’t sure whether he was encouraged or upset by the outcome. Yes, a threat to the galaxy had been eliminated, and yes, 2/3 of his friends had been located. Also though, Steve was still missing, the Dark Cult was nowhere near defeat, and the actual battle (which Aidan himself had engineered from the start) had caused many casualties on both sides. Aidan and the Sambourloinian officer he had left in charge met in the middle of the battlefield.

“I’m going to Ferosia to find Steve,” Aidan explained. “Can you spare a ship?”

“You can have a troopship,” the officer said. “We’ve got six, and I don’t think we’ll need that many to get back to the capital.”

Both Aidan and the officer looked, a little sadly, at the ragtag group of thirty-five who had not been injured or killed.

“Thanks,” Aidan replied. “Come on, Exibluar, let’s get that troopship off the ground.”

Aidan also signaled to Nathaniel to land Four-3 inside the troopship before running to the nicos’ warehouse command center to get Four-1. Once both interceptors were inside, Exibluar closed the large doors and took off. Aidan would not have guessed that the troopship was space worthy or that it had a flip drive, but both were true. Aidan had decided to put the interceptors inside the troop transport (now named Four-5 by Exibluar) so that all three friends would arrive together. (The interceptors’ flip drives were much better than Four-5’s.)

Vvvvvviip! Four-5 flipped into the seventh dimension. The combination of the incredible distance between Sambourloin and Ferosia and Four-5’s terrible drive made the journey ten days long. Not bad, actually, considering the number of light-years traversed. On the first day, Aidan fought a practice skirmish with Nathaniel and Exibluar in the main hold. Exibluar accidently damaged Four-3 with his auto sear gun, and the rest of the skirmish was postponed. During the next three days, Aidan modified Four-1, Nathaniel fixed Four-3, and Exibluar broke part of Four-5’s control panel. Nathaniel spent the next two days fixing the control panel while Aidan kept a close eye on Exibluar. On the seventh day, Aidan rested up and practiced various mind powers all day while Nathaniel and Exibluar studied holographic maps of Karington and several other locations on Ferosia. The last three days of the journey were spent making, arguing about, and finalizing their plans about what to do when they arrived at Ferosia.

Vviiissssss! Four-5 finally returned to the third dimension.

“Identify yourself,” a much too familiar monotonous voice sounded over the communications system. Exibluar muttered something inappropriate for anyone younger than twenty and sent their ship’s I.D. to the gunboat floating ominously in front of Four-5. Aidan and Nathaniel donned their flight suits and entered their interceptors.

“Troopship Valiant, can I speak to your captain, Officer Shato?” the voice asked.

“Uh … we’ve been captured by the Dark Cult of nicos to bring supplies to their base on Ferosia,” Exibluar explained, opening Four-5’s side doors. “Say, where is your base anyway?”

“You should know that, unless you’re not really on our side,” the voice noted suspiciously, “Although, now that the Cavalieri have discovered its location, I doubt that it will be in service much longer. Wait, why are you releasing interceptors?”

Aidan and Nathaniel zoomed forward and started their attack run, damaging the gunboat since its shields were down. Exibluar closed the communications channel and raised Four-5’s shields. The gunboat fired two missiles at Four-5 and one at Four-1, costing it any chance it had to raise its shields before Nathaniel flew in and destroyed their shield generator. The two missiles aimed at Four-5 slammed into its military grade shields, slightly shaking the ship but not damaging it. Aidan’s interceptor, however, did not have military grade shields and Exibluar was worried about him. Exibluar permanently gave up worrying about people who had trained for years in the Cavalieri HQ’s flight simulators as he watched Aidan zoom up, over, and behind the missile, getting it to turn around to chase him. He then quickly swerved back around it, blasting it, which ignited its explosives. The missile turned into a fireball, which crashed straight into the damaged gunboat, destroying it. The remnants of Squadron Four regrouped before heading towards Ferosia, opening a communications channel as they did so.

“I didn’t know these nicos had enough power to take over a planet and attempt to blockade the space above it,” Nathaniel said. “What do we do now?”

“I’ll go find the nicos’ base and see what I can do about Steve. They said that the Cavalieri had discovered its location, so I bet it’s the place we were checking out with the Karnine,” Aidan suggested. “You two will go to Karington and see if the army or the government are still around. My guess is that the nicos only have a light hold on this planet that could be toppled by the Ferosian army if given half a chance. I also think they’ve been keeping it pretty quiet, since if they hadn’t the GG would already have wiped them out. If the situation is hopeless though, report back to me and we’ll go to Galactica to get some help. Invasion is a very serious crime.”

Galactica was a medium sized world with about a 50-50 ratio of land to water. More importantly, it was the capital world of the GG. It also used to be a member of the Union of Twelve Worlds, but not its capital world.

All three ships were about to fly off on their separate missions when Aidan asked a question. “Wait a second, what were you doing in that Dark Cult base, Exibluar?”

“Well, um, there were a few nicos in Karington that I saw at a diner, and they got a little mad at me for completely absolutely no reason at all, so they tricked me into coming to their base and attacked me!” Exibluar stammered

“Completely absolutely no reason at all?” Aidan asked skeptically, shaking his head.

Four-1 flew off on a slightly southward course while Four-3 and Four-5 continued north, to the capital.

Half an hour later, Four-3 and Four-5 landed 50 meters outside of the capital and their pilots exited them.

“Let’s go.” Exibluar hoisted his auto-sear gun and jogged slowly towards Karington. Nathaniel took out his sear gun carbine, flipped down his visor, and followed Exibluar. When they had both reached the perimeter of the city, Nathaniel made a military hand signal and Exibluar, not entirely sure what Nathaniel meant, jogged off into an alley that he thought Nathaniel was pointing to.

Aidan’s trip to the nicos’ tunnel network took only about 5-10 minutes, due to his ship’s excellent fusion drive. He landed next to the wreckage of the Karnine, the freighter that he and Steve had used to investigate the tunnel network’s bizarre geothermal readings incognito for the Cavalieri. He also saw bits and pieces of the interceptors that had attacked them, no more than spare parts now. Aidan was surprised that the nicos hadn’t cleaned up the mess after Steve, Exibluar, and himself had left for Karington. Walking about ten feet south, Aidan found what he had been looking for: a hole near a pile of rubble in the middle of the Ferosian desert. Where most people would see some kind of deserted wolf-like Ferosian Garfland den, Aidan saw a hole in the ceiling of an underground tunnel network.

Aidan silently jumped through the hole, taking its existence as a sign of understaffing. The corridor was dimly lit, damp, and smelled rancid. Aidan activated his Cavalieri Wrist Computer and told it to scan the surrounding corridors. It worked fast, and when it was finished it emitted a beep. Aidan pressed the mute button, but it was too late. Be-be-be-be-be-be. The beep echoed throughout all of the surrounding corridors.

Two nico guards raced around a corner, obviously having heard the beep, and heading straight for Aidan. Aidan lunged through the air, acting as quickly as he could. The next second both nicos were lying on the ground, and Aidan was putting his Phase Sword away. Now that his CWC was muted, Aidan had it do an electrical scan on the network. When he determined the location of the nearest electrical hotspot wall segment, Aidan approached the wall it was behind and visualized its wires twisting, melting, and deforming. A purple misty trail actually seeped out of Aidan, going through the panel, and carrying out Aidan’s mental commands. Aidan instantly felt somewhat drained of energy, and a second later two things happened. First, the wall panel blasted out of its socket, barely missing Aidan. Second, the whole tunnel network went dark.

Meanwhile, in Karington, Exibluar and Nathaniel were hiding in an alley, watching a squad of nicos march past.

“Go!” Exibluar whispered. Nathaniel dive rolled across the street behind the nicos. Exibluar dashed down his alley and made a right turn behind one of the squat reddish dwellings. Nathaniel ran off in the opposite direction, making a wide U-turn across many alleys until he was headed towards the Central District from the western side of town. Upon arriving, he wheeled around and dove back behind a reddish building, seeing the three metal buildings guarded by at least a hundred nicos.

“There are a ton of nicos here at the Central District,” Nathaniel radioed to Exibluar. “How many at the military HQ?”

Exibluar reached his reconnaissance position inside a deserted reddish dwelling near the military HQ and quickly counted the nicos.

“About 50, I think,” he radioed back.

“Excellent, I’ll be there ASAP,” Nathaniel replied. Exibluar had thought he was well hidden in the reddish building, but a few minutes after his conversation with Nathaniel, a nico burst through the doorway and demanded in its monotonous voice that Exibluar show himself. Exibluar’s position was not clearly visible from the doorway, so he stayed there.

“What’s the magic word?” Exibluar asked.

“It’s either ‘please’ or ‘abracadabra’,” the nico answered.

“You’re pretty smart,” Exibluar said.

“Yes, I am,” the nico said.

“I’m smarter.” Nathaniel stepped out of the shadows next and shot the nico twice with his sear gun carbine.

“Nice entrance,” Exibluar said, this time sincerely.

“One down, Forty-nine to go.” Nathaniel sighed.

Aidan dashed silently down one of the nicos’ corridors with more speed than a normal human could practically attain. But then again, Cavalieri weren’t normal humans.

Aidan zipped past corridor A71. He was getting closer to the center of the base, where he thought Steve was being held. Just before he reached the first corridor he knew to be guarded (based on thermal scans), he stopped to check the equipment he was carrying in his satchel. There was a large block of explosive gelatin, a kitchen timer, a small blowtorch, and a sear gun.

Perfect.

Aidan repacked his satchel and charged down corridor A11. The guards in the next three corridors tried to fight, but Aidan quickly mind-blasted them and proceeded to the more central corridors. When he got to the last corridor before the central room, however, Aidan was a little more cautious.

Aidan sensed something behind him and immediately whirled around, activating his Phase Sword. He was just in time to slice the steel sword out of the hand of the Elite Guard behind him. Apparently, Elite Guards were more than just a myth on a cancelled projects’ discussion channel. The Elite Guard tossed away the broken sword and drew two sear gun pistols. Two regular nicos joined the Elite Guard, also carrying sear gun pistols. Aidan took a defensive stance.

Exibluar’s auto-sear gun shook violently as he discharged two more ten-shot rounds into the nicos’ ranks. This kept Nathaniel and Exibluar’s position in the doorway of the reddish house relatively safe while Nathaniel fiddled with a small device that Aidan had left on Four-5. Nathaniel adjusted two more miniature controls before lobbing it at the remaining thirty-six nicos. Bzzzzzt! Almost half of the nicos were then engulfed in a fit of shivering, and fell to the ground, unconscious.

“What was that?” Exibluar asked as he pulled himself back behind the doorway and loaded yet another ammunition chip into his auto-sear gun.

“The label said that it was a Neural Impulse Disruptor or NID grenade,” Nathaniel explained. “Apparently it infiltrates your nerve system and makes your brain think that you’ve taken enough damage to knock you out.”

“Awesome! You have another one?”

“No, keep firing.”

Exibluar pointed his auto-sear gun back out the doorway and continued his barrage. When Exibluar and Nathaniel had reduced the nicos’ numbers to eleven, the nicos finally decided to retreat to the military HQ, sticking their sear guns out every now and then to squeeze off a few shots at Exibluar and Nathaniel.

“Go lock the knocked out nicos in the basement of this house. I’m going for the ones in the military HQ,” Nathaniel told Exibluar

Nathaniel charged across the battlefield while Exibluar made his way towards the NIDed nicos. Nathaniel entered the building and aimed his sear gun carbine at the nicos. Only there were a lot more than eleven. More like thirty. Even with his soldier training, Nathaniel only managed to get off six to ten shots before taking several painful but non-fatal hits and tumbling head-over-heels out the doorway. Seeing Nathaniel getting blasted out, Exibluar hoisted his auto-sear gun and ran up to the doorway, directing not only ten rounds of sear gun fire, but also his uncontrollable anger at the nicos. He felt like he was somehow possessed. Exibluar’s eyes blazed as brightly as his auto-sear gun’s barrel, and most of the nicos were afraid to return fire, seeing the rage of a mighty Joltznirian spike beast pent up in a small Rosarian with a sear gun. When there were only nine nicos left, the auto sear gun ran out of ammunition, but Exibluar didn’t care. He simply grabbed the back end of it and swung it like a mace, clobbering all nine remaining nicos. For a moment, Exibluar just stood there with a ferocious look on his face. Then he collapsed.

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