Zyr: Blasted
Air flooded Zyr’s lungs as he breached the thick layer of blasted salt and rubble that was once Larasab’s mountain hideout. Dirt and small rocks fountained up as he shoved his way free, using what little stamina for Spell he had left to exhume himself from Pormos’ newest crypt.
Falling backward, ignoring the sharp stones, he just enjoyed the sensation of being able to breathe again. His chest shuddered with each breath as he reintroduced his body to oxygen.
Overhead, two cruisers went toe-to-toe in close orbit, their capital ship-class laser cannons lighting up Pormos’ midnight sky with murderous lightning. One was his cruiser—his home—slugging it out with an unknown opponent. Zyr rested there, watching the two ships maneuver around each other, trading alternative volleys of laser blasts and trying to avoid each broadside while smaller ships darted between them, and then he felt a tremor in the rocky soil underneath.
Spreading his hands flat against the ground, he gathered his energy and sent a pulse through salt, soil, and solid rock. Something was moving.
“Vena,” he whispered to himself.
Rolling stiffly to his knees, Zyr planted his hands, dug his fingers into the rock, and pulled on earth as hard as he could. The ground shifted, rocks and boulders rolled away, and finally the dirt and cracked salt rippled out from deep beneath the surface. Within a few moments, Vena’s dented helmet appeared, its ruined finish still somehow glinting in the pale laserlight from on high.
Vena floundered to get out of the rising soil, and it took Zyr a moment to realize she was only using one arm. Vena clawed herself out with one hand, while the other clasped glimmering Krysar crystal.
Panting, cursing, and scrabbling, Vena hauled what was left of Fexzii out behind her. Both the Krysar’s legs had broken above the knee, leaving it with sharp shards to hopelessly tear at the ground, and its left arm was broken off at the elbow. Zyr gave it credit, as Fexzii began to awkwardly crawl away, digging furrows into the upturned earth with its shattered legs and levering itself forward on its good arm. Leaving his companion to gasp for breath as he did earlier, Zyr walked over to the Krysar and kicked it over on its back.
“Explain that,” Zyr demanded, pointing at the battle overhead.
The Krysar stared into the night sky, its red eyes still burning as the flashes of green and blue played across its dusty, chipped face. It clacked softly, the Krysar version of a sigh.
“That is the ship intended to get us off Pormos, and the one that tried to kill us all. It is a Human cruiser—the group I advise. When I offered them assistance as part of the Mission for Universal Advancement, we hit upon the idea of orbital platforms to protect Asylum from you. It was logical. Pterri hold too much sway in this system. You cannot continue to act as a check on all other species.”
Vena had stopped gasping and coughing, but she was still on her side. Zyr took a long look at her and noticed how her legs trailed off behind her at an odd angle. At the very least her back was broken, he concluded. Her gaze flicked up to Zyr, but he said nothing. The Krysar’s clicking voice filled the void between the two commandos.
“I often wondered why you stole the plans for yourself, Pterri. You are not a scientist. You have no forces of your own. Yet you allowed Larasab to escape and pursued her here. You did not strike her down instantly, or engage. You hesitated quite obviously,” Fexzii said, idly running its crystalline fingers through Pormos’ rocky soil. “You have a greater plan. I cannot ascertain what you intend to do, specifically, but you are working counter to your orders and certainly counter to what the fleet is instructed. Perhaps I could have worked with you in some mutually beneficial capacity had I realized this earlier. Unhappily, it is too late.”
Fexzii turned to look at Vena, and his glowing eyes brightened.
“He will kill you next, Pterri. Prepare yourself in your accustomed fashion. Thank you for allowing me to see the night sky and its glittering stars one last time.”
Zyr dropped to one knee and blasted the Kyrsar’s head into a thousand shards with his sonic gauntlet. The high-pitched crack raced across the blasted wasteland and its thin echo bounced off the furthest peaks.
Silently standing, Zyr strode over to Vena and dropped down beside her. She was looking away from him, visor still trained on the decapitated Krysar and the glitter of fragments fanning out from its collapsed shoulders. Zyr, for his part, gazed skyward, and saw how the Human ship was trying to outrun the Pterri cruiser. Oxygen, fuel, and a half dozen other vital liquids were venting from the Human ship’s hull, while the Pterri ship closed in for the kill. Small, weaker, blasts of laserfire erupted at odd moments from the Human ship, leading Zyr to assume their reactor was damaged.
“Get over with it, Zyr. I will not beg.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
“Why?” Vena asked, squirming on the ground so she could finally look up at the black sky. However, her gaze turned toward the dark horizon where the Orb would rise in the morning. “Why betray the fleet? The mission?”
Zyr leaned back, digging his hands into the soil again. He focused on the battle overhead, which was over. The Human ship was drifting, slowly succumbing to Pormos’ gravity as the Pterri cruiser lined up for the coup de grace. For some reason he couldn’t bring himself to simply turn his head and look at Vena. He found that odd, since it was such a simple action.
“I’m betraying the home fleet and its mission. Not our fleet. Not our true mission.”
Finding the words to explain how their fleet should thrive in Ocost rather than blindly serve faraway masters under the thumb of deluded overlords was beyond Zyr. One day, he knew, that would change if he was to ever gain any influence and loyal forces of his own. In the meantime, a good comrade—a worthy commando—would have to die thanks to his own inadequacy.
“I don’t understand,” Vena whispered.
“I know,” Zyr said, just as quietly.
Using his Spell, Zyr forced Pormos’ soil to start crawling over Vena’s numb legs and still arms. She kept staring off into the horizon, never making a sound, as the ground opened up beneath her and pulled her back down. There were no last words and no parting gestures before she sunk deep into the planet’s crust. It was the death of a Pterri commando accepting the end.
Fexzii’s corpse disappeared a moment later, which left Zyr alone with his ambitions and regrets. He looked down at the empty space where Vena had lain, and in that instant a bright orange light blanketed the land.
Overhead the shattered remains of a Human cruiser flash froze in the vacuum of space and its debris began to streak through the highest reaches of Pormos’ atmosphere. Zyr watched as the long arcs of sparkling light burned through the night sky, slashing away the darkness. He couldn’t help but wonder if a Pterri ship would leave the same trails of fire behind when it exploded.
“The home fleet will rend space itself and burn like a thousand stars by the time I am through. I swear it.”