Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

Kysaek surveyed the second half of the area in the same place and saw the practical side of it all. “Yeah, it’s good to be on the other side of the surprise attack for a change.” The battle was not yet won, however, and a handful of enemies stormed the hangar on their side. “We’ve got company!”

Despite the warning, the long distance, the large amount of cargo and the various flying machines gave the Neo Solaris soldiers sufficient cover to establish a new position in the hangar and they were not alone. Two other soldiers also approached on the walkway, gaining an advantage due to their height and greatly restricting the radius of action of their targets.

“We were a bit too offensive!” Kysaek admitted as she and her men had to retreat between the bolt dropper and the crates. There were just too many bullets and plasma charges hitting from above. “Have you got any more of your fireworks, Vorrn?”

“Already loaded and unlocked!” replied the Hishek and had placed a new missile on the assault rifle. However, a slowly approaching Neo Solaris Guardian Bot, hiding behind its portable shield and unleashing its powerful barrage, changed Vorrn’s view somewhat. “It’s going to take me two or three attempts!” Wisely, he opened one door of the Bolt Dropper and climbed into the transporter. The Hishek wanted to open the next, outer door as well and attack from there, but just as he was about to start, it happened!

Suddenly, the Sentinel Bot was destroyed and melted by an immense, bright-blue charge of plasma, which must have come from at least one tank! But the hangar entrances were too narrow for that and there was nothing in the air in front of the open bay. All of the Neo Solaris soldiers suddenly aligned themselves in the new direction of attack and fired everything they had. “The hell! What the hell is that?” a female soldier standing below shouted in shock. Whatever was attacking her tore her and the rest around her apart with a short but furious streak of bullets.

“I’m gone!” said one of the soldiers on the walkway, running away.

His partner had no intention of doing otherwise. “Wait for me! Neiarrgh!” But he had run off seconds too late and was torn apart by bullets through the footbridge before the metal floor shattered.

“Is that reinforcements?!” Tavis murmured carelessly, wanting to check as the angle was too poor to see.

However, Kysaek’s arm shot out and held him back. “Stay down! Something’s wrong!” she said suspiciously and waited. A powerful thunderclap rang through the hall, but its source was not yet visible to her. Heavy footsteps set in motion, which must have come from at least one Eporan, but they were much faster and Kysaek immediately pulled Tavis down even further when she saw him, her nemesis.

The monster was smaller than before, but still a head or two above Dorvan’s height, and the sewage from Themis hadn’t changed the invincible creature’s basic, muscular form. However, it was less powerful than before and its right arm now appeared to be some sort of organic weapon, a large, glowing bright blue cannon maw outlined by firearm-like muzzles.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” it escaped Kysaek quietly, more annoyed than afraid.

“So that’s it,” Vorrn murmured covertly, fascinated, his lizard eyes narrowing out of pure focus and excitement, like a child at Christmas. “You weren’t lying.”

“Don’t even think about it!” said Tavis quietly. “It probably didn’t see us! Let it pass!” In fact, the Palanian was right, because although the creature inspected its immediate surroundings with its devilish red eyes and knocked over some crates, it was not poised to attack. “Ky-saek,” the creature snarled. Its mouth was wider, but the X shape was gone and it passed the centre of the hangar.

“So much for the other side of the surprise, eh?” puffed Vorrn, who was only too happy to let go of his rocket.

“That bastard Douglas isn’t even coming himself,” Kysaek seethed sourly, and despite the enormous danger, she wasn’t about to let the monster pass unchallenged. “Vorrn, get ready.”

“Gladly.”

“Do you have a death wish?” Tavis asked reluctantly. “Or have you forgotten our last encounter with this thing? We shouldn’t do that!”

“We shouldn’t,” Kysaek agreed conscientiously. “But we have to. If our friend leaves here, he won’t just slaughter his way through the ranks of Neo Solaris.”

“And wouldn’t a warning do?”

“We know best and have been warned. But neither of those things is a guarantee of survival.”

“Great,” Tavis sighed readily and reloaded his weapon covered. “Just keep motivating me. Your talent for this is unrivalled.”

“Sorry, I’m still practising - are you ready Vorrn?” asked Kysaek as the armoured Hishek opened the outer flap of the Bolt Dropper and Kysaek ran off with Tavis. “Cover us!”

The PGI creature took no notice of the run, but the launch and hiss of the missile was unmistakable to it. A lightning turn and a loud roar did nothing more for the thing than to see the missile coming and be roasted by its flames. The blast also caused it to lose some of the flesh on its chest, but it was the same old story. The explosion and lingering flames did not prevent the beast from regenerating tissue quickly and, burning, it immediately went on the offensive with its arm cannon. For every plasma shot from the cannon maw, however, it had to stand still, it seemed.

Vorrn swiftly dodged wide before a fired plasma charge turned his Bolt Dropper hideout into a hot liquid hell and the Hishek got help.

Kysaek and Tavis attacked from different positions and although the monstrous creature was still a marvel of self-healing, this time it was more vulnerable to attack. Because of its slightly smaller, less massive form, the bullets from the magnetic weapons were not simply swallowed up by its body. They partially penetrated it completely and slowed down the attacker.

“Ky-saek,” it drooled, spotting its obvious primary target and climbing onto one of the fighters. The creature had already had steam before, but now it was even more agile and made another leap to a few metres in front of Kysaek. It ran the remaining metres, pushing everything aside or pulverising any object that protected its target.

Again, it was more of a fight of retreat, but it was a fight and not a flight, an eye for an eye. “How about a little fire cover?” shouted Kysaek as she dodged the beast’s swings between the crates. The containers flew over her head and some were loaded with ammunition and other explosives without detonating. For now, however, she had to save herself and resorted to a tried and tested method. After the monster got its fist stuck in a metal container and couldn’t get it down, Kysaek fired at its eyes from a safe distance, but this trick no longer worked.

Even before the first bullet could rob it of its sight, the monster formed a protective steel visor over its optic nerves with its black skin - it had learnt!

A few well-aimed shots from Tavis, on some ammunition boxes and Vorrn’s plasma continuous fire were enough to keep the fearsome foe away from their leader and even push it back. It was so much damage for the beast that it finally went down dripping with black, slippery blood and twitched wounded.

“That’s the way to do it!” Vorrn puffed in victory.

Kysaek continued to keep a safe distance. “Don’t get reckless! It’s not over yet!”

That wasn’t just an empty phrase, it was the reality. The knockout was just a knockout and the cycle started all over again with a little surprise.

An airlock opened in the hangar floor and a five-man unit of Neo Solaris soldiers drove up with a wide platform. “Gotcha!” said one of the soldiers. However, the unfortunate troop stood backwards near the beast and it growled angrily, which was reason enough for the frozen unit to descend again. “Don’t move,” mumbled someone in the group. Unfortunately for them, the beast didn’t care and not only fired several plasma charges into the closing lift shaft, but also threw explosive crates after it, turning the closed can into a flaming volcano that blew the closed airlock away.

“Do we actually have a plan?” asked Tavis rhetorically. “Because I have the feeling that you haven’t thought it through to the end!”

“I’m still working on it,” replied Kysaek.

“Sit back and learn!” said Vorrn fearlessly, copying the monster’s tactics. “Nothing is indestructible!” He attacked the beast unerringly with his two plasma assault rifles, even though it was back on its feet and realigned its plasma arm, leading to a lightning-fast counterattack from the Hishek. Vorrn took a grenade in his mouth and stuffed the enemy’s heated cannon maw with a well-aimed throw, depriving the Hishek of half its forearm and the ability to fire.

This did not weaken the creature, however - it made it furious and loose body fibres swirled and wriggled out of its wound like tentacles that didn’t quite know where to go, but it didn’t stay that way for long. Deadly spikes began to sprout from its still-healing left arm, a spiked club of its own, and the creature stomped towards the Hishek, swinging, but suddenly it was caught by the firm claws of a ceiling crane and lifted into the air with a jerk.

“Subject incapacitated,” said a familiar, digitally underlined voice.

Tensely, Kysaek looked back up to the second level of the hangar. “About time!” she said with relief when she saw Dorvan’s bot and Wolfgang at one of the crane controls and the fighting paused.

“Scientific solutions take time,” the doctor replied tepidly, while the monster tried in vain to get free and he sounded convinced. “No, you’re not getting out of there!”

“The crane’s maximum compressive force is dozens of tonnes,” said Dorvan’s bot. “It’s amazing that the unknown subject isn’t simply crushed.”

“Kind of...” Wolfgang reluctantly agreed and switched on an analytical visor that hung from his right ear, creating a tiny data window in front of the corresponding eye. “Our moody friend is building up considerable counter-pressure, but that doesn’t matter now. Clear the space.”

Dorvan’s bot nodded and was about to remove one of the fighters from the refuelling stations with another crane. “Will do.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Kysaek.

“Fuelling the thing!” replied Wolfgang. “Interstellar fuel is absolutely harmful and deadly for any form of cells.”

“Good idea!”

“I know! I know their origin!” grinned the doctor with a smug grin and drove the angrily bellowing Fang to his execution.

Dying was not yet on the monster’s agenda, however, as it suddenly began to spew plasma and heat up the steel of the crane as if it were a blowtorch. The iron material around it quickly glowed reddish hot and rapidly became unstable. The crane was almost at its target, only for the monster to break from its softened grasp just before it did and still in the fall its entire missing arm came back, but as a normal hand and hit the ground, the beast began to mutate out of nothing. Size and mass increased considerably and even the liquid steel was absorbed by the monster, strengthening parts of its body.

“We need a new idea!” Tavis interjected. Like him, everyone was firing everything they had at the forming colossus and Thais had also joined in with a compression cannon.

Bullets, plasma, explosions, prismatics and pressure were now even more useless against the ever-growing enemy, but Kysaek recognised an opportunity. “The old idea was good enough!” she said, aiming her assault rifle at the upper section of the fuel lines. One pull of her trigger was enough to punch dozens of holes and the green glowing liquid shot out as toxic rain over her nearby opponent.

The prophesised effects worked instantly as the creature was doused and let out a pained scream. Within seconds, it slumped as corrosive vapours rose from its non-metallic skin. “Ky-saek,” the creature gasped relentlessly nonetheless, resisting the effect of the fuel with all its unnatural strength. Its hands flapped and it staggered menacingly towards its target at a snail’s pace.

“Unruly beast!” said Vorrn. “Science seems to have failed!”

“Fighting and science alone are useless,” Kysaek remarked, walking backwards. Her opponent’s speed did not require her to be quick and she had little else to fear. “Let’s see what both can do together! Fire!”

The toxic fuel and every possible attack now had an effect on the monster. Its formerly dangerous, long tentacled tongue hung limply out of its mouth and it could no longer even fire its thorny projectiles. Only incomplete spikes grew from its palm and these either got stuck or fell down without any drive. Every movement of the monster made it more sluggish and every second caused it more injuries without it being able to heal properly. Finally, it caught fire on its hands as it walked through a small burn and seemed to lose its bearings as it staggered towards the flaming lift shaft.

“Hold your fire!” ordered Kysaek. “Stop it!” She remained extremely vigilant, although her eyes told her otherwise. The surface of her opponent’s body was a single, bloody battlefield, shot up, mangled, burning and half of his head was missing. Every moment she expected a new, unpleasant feature from her nemesis, but he showed no reaction at all, shoved a few ammunition crates into the shaft in front of him and simply followed them. Kysaek kept her distance from the opening, from which came a dull thud and a new, explosive shockwave, before she went to make sure of the outcome.

Everyone wanted to, but the fire and the fuel, which had turned into a green, extremely opaque mist because of the flames, made it impossible to see clearly. “Be careful, inhaling the smoke is poisonous!” said Wolfgang. On the other hand, nobody believed that the thing had survived anyway. “That was only my second encounter with it,” said Tavis. “I’m lucky there won’t be a third.”

“That means you think it was the same thing?” asked Thais.

“I hope so, because I don’t want to imagine PGI making them in one piece.”

“Better not.”

“You’d better hope,” Wolfgang remarked, looking at the rather demolished hangar. “Whether that’s enough for the general.”

“It’s still usable enough,” Kysaek replied and part of the ceiling panelling of the fuel lines fell down. “Let’s make sure it stays that way - secure the perimeter!”

After this battle, the rest was almost child’s play. Neo Solaris made a few more attempts to recapture and escape with the small ships and failed every time. Soon the first consulate soldiers entered the hangar and the battle for the base slowly came to an end. Smoke and faintly blazing fires lined the area, as did damaged buildings and vehicles.

Although the base was still being combed, a large number of surviving Neo Solaris members had laid down their arms and were being held in groups in the base’s muster area or loaded onto waiting lorries in old-fashioned chains.

“I heard there was trouble?” asked Galaen, a little away from the commotion.

“One or two,” said Kysaek. She was sitting on the bonnet of a burnt-out vehicle, a fresh breeze caressing her face and short hair. She had shed the enemy’s colours and what remained was the Nano suit. “But I didn’t expect things to go smoothly here.”

“Considering the situation, your penchant for understatement is unusual. I just don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“It’s definitely a good thing,” Tavis said, picking something crumbly off his shoes. “Believe me, when I was recruited, I thought a lot of it was an exaggeration and I was proven wrong. So if this is how Kysaek reacted, it was really far less bad than it seemed.”

Galaen took note. “I’ll keep it in mind, but it’s not over yet. Thanks to the base, we can now track down the enemy’s hideouts and only when we have eliminated their ship and their fleet will the terror be completely over.”

“Unfortunately, we have no ship of our own,” said Kysaek. “Nothing we can do to help.”

“You’ve done more than enough,” Galaen replied in praise. “More than you had to, and I’m sure your part in this won’t be forgotten. For now, however, I must return to my duties.”

“I’ll see you later,” said Kysaek, wiping his head, exhausted. A previously organised cigarette was just what she needed to switch off and she let her eyes sink to the ground. The battle against Neo Solaris had been won and according to General Akaro, his soldiers had found the shattered, charred remains of the PGI creature just as Kysaek had described it and she hoped, like Tavis, that it had been the same pursuer all along and there weren’t any more like it.

“There’s nothing better,” Vorrn said, lighting a cigar full of Satio’s herb. “After a fight, it’s easier to squeeze the fire of battle and the pain out of your lungs and muscles.”

“You can feel something like pain?” Thais asked teasingly.

“Pain is my friend, because it lets me know that I’m not dead yet. Not that a Talin would understand that.”

“Don’t we?”

“Your people normally walk around in silk scarves and worry more about how to disguise their bald heads or how not to scratch their fine, delicately strung skin than they do about pain,” Vorrn mused amusedly. “Or are you saying the opposite?”

“No, it’s just that I’ve had my little girl phase for centuries, even if I don’t like to cultivate the friendship with pain you mentioned, but I know how important it is.”

“Good girl.”

Re’Lis and the twins hadn’t been quite as glorious as the rest. “You’re all having your moment right now,” Kuren said. “And I don’t like to ruin it.”

“Yes, she does,” said Dios.

“Yes, well, I do. I’d just like to know what happens next. We have no more ship, no clues, no ship, no evidence and oh, did I mention no ship?”

“I already know exactly what we’re going to do next,” Kysaek said thoughtfully and with a serious look, while the cigarette smoke was blown away by the wind in front of her sweat-covered face. After that, however, there was not another word.

“...Yes?” Kuren asked. The fact that she didn’t get an answer wasn’t due to her leader’s lack of planning, but to her eyes, which the Sororanian followed.

There were certain disagreements between some of the Consulate’s soldiers, who were a truly colourful mix of species. “Come on - who cares about the loss?” a Calanian complained discontentedly.

An older, human soldier spoke gently against him. “No one, but that’s not the bloody point!”

“Then what is it about? Morality?!”

“Yes, it’s part of it. It’s also about justice.”

“Morality?!” the Calanian was indignant and his tone became harsher. “We are morality and justice! The rules of war apply! If these bastards end up in our courts, they’ll just go to prison and go on living!”

“He’s right!” a Palanian soldier eagerly agreed. “We’re going to do what only soldiers can do! That was a battle and our blood was spilt and our comrades are lying dead in the dirt everywhere! Like for like!”

“You’re getting too carried away,” said the human soldier. He matched the rising tone, although he tried to remain reasonable. “It was a tough fight, but we’re not butchers!”

Opinion was divided among all the soldiers listening, and there were more and more of them. “I wonder if he’d be such a vigorous defender if they weren’t human,” the Palanian soldier accused his comrade and received a lot of grating agreement.

“Yes, would you be?” the Calanian added venomously. “Sympathising with humans, no matter how bad they are?”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with it!” the human soldier defended himself, now also venting his anger. “Whether human, Talin, Hishek or whoever! No matter who was kneeling next to us as a prisoner, I would say the same thing!”

“That’s so easy to say,” scoffed the Palanian soldier. He put a hand on his pistol and tightened his grip worryingly. “The question is though - would you stop us? Are you turning against your comrades, for them?”

“I’m following orders and directives. If you behave undisciplined, I will disarm you and put you out of action!”

“Something’s breaking here right now,” Tavis said quietly from further away. “We shouldn’t be in the line of fire.”

“The soldiers are under a lot of pressure,” Re’Lis said cautiously. “If this goes on, they’ll soon be acting irrationally.”

“An extra fight?” Vorrn asked ready and spat out the half-smoked cigar. “Let them come. I’ll be happy to help them relieve the pressure!”

“Don’t do that, you brute!” said Wolfgang bitingly. “We’ve already got enough stupid people over there doing stupid things. We don’t need you on top of that.”

“We’ll soon have no choice and then you’ll love my way of doing things.”

It got worse with the prisoners. “These aliens are just animals!” grunted a Neo Solaris soldier and immediately received a hearty punch from a Talin fist.

The Calanian soldier from before also reached for his pistol. “Dirty, rotten Ba-!”

“Soldiers, calm down now!” Galaen demanded loudly and stood between the parties. “Come to your senses! There will be no vigilante justice, but I understand your pain and will therefore overlook your misbehaviour!”

For a fleeting moment, the discussions among the soldiers died down. At least until the Palanian troublemaker continued. “Are you serious, troop supervisor?”

“I am dead serious.”

“How can you defend this scum?” growled the Palanian soldier, while some of the prisoners grinned and laughed at him for his growl. “Do you see that?”

“I see it and I ignore it,” Galaen replied sternly, worthy of her officer rank. “And I expect the same from you and everyone else.”

“What are you doing here and what do you have to report?” questioned the Talin, who had joined them. “How can your command rank be so high on a mission like this when your actual rank isn’t?”

“What do you expect ... Not everyone can be the general’s daughter,” said the Palanian soldier dismissively. “An outcast general.”

Until now, Galaen had always been disciplined, but these words hit her somehow and she had to control herself not to hit the man with her claws. Nevertheless, she broke her previously strict etiquette and became abusive, but not so much because of the insult to her person. “How dare you talk about my fa-, the General, like that! Who are you to make such judgements? You are unworthy and a disgrace! Fall in line, soldier!”

“And you have nothing to say to us!” Talin countered, pushing the Palanian woman away. “Come on, let’s finally kill these xenophobic murderers!”

That was the famous straw that broke the camel’s back and heated discussions turned into a scuffle and more than a few weapons were brought to bear. However, it was difficult to see who was in favour of whom among the hundreds of soldiers and there was not much left for the final collapse. One shot would probably be enough for a catastrophe.

Galaen wasn’t holding a weapon, but she was ready for a melee, as no officer should be.

“It really is high time we left,” Thais said anxiously. She and everyone else were ready for it. “Let’s go-” The Talin’s words went to an empty space where Kysaek had been before. “Where is...?”

The leader of the group had recently jumped up, unnoticed by everyone, and scaled the scrappy remains of a BB, but she wasn’t alone. Dorvan’s bot was at her side, or more precisely, standing next to the broken heap of metal. It served as a loud voice amplifier for Kysaek, just like all the sound systems in the area that the hacker had tapped into for her. “ENOUGH NOW!” she said firmly, and all at once, her all-drowning organ brought calm to the charged crowd of soldiers. It was an almost incomprehensible silence, broken only by Kysaek herself. “What are you actually doing here? Is this what you fought for? For you all to end up killing each other for a brief feeling of satisfaction?”

“Hey, wait a minute!” demanded the unruly Palanian soldier. “I know you! This is a wanted criminal! This is Elaine Kysaek!” Like the rest of the troops, he didn’t know anything about the helpers and hadn’t paid attention to them in the excitement

“Who I am is meaningless right now!” Kysaek countered. She turned everything against the soldiers. “The question is, who are you? Do you really want to be someone who turns his justified anger against his own allies? Against your comrades and friends? Half an hour ago, you were fighting side by side, you were wounded and some of you died, damn it! And now this?! Are you serious?”

“What do you know!” the Calanian agitator complained. “You have nothing to do with this”

“You’re mistaken!” Kysaek steadfastly affirmed as her comrades-in-arms gathered around her makeshift podium. “I know what I need to know and that’s all I need to know! My companions and I walked into the consulate and saw justice like no one has ever given us before! We were listened to and given our due freedom and a choice. It was a choice to go in peace or fight for something worthwhile and looking around, did General Akaro tell me the truth or do you all think otherwise?” No one disagreed with Kysaek because that would have meant that every dead man had died in vain and apparently no one wanted to dishonour their fallen comrades. “I can sympathise with your anger, better than you probably think, but the way you use it, you’re just becoming like Neo Solaris yourself! You judge others for belonging to their species, just like those alien-hating murderers do, here and everywhere! I saw it once on Cipi and just think of Euphoris!”

“Yes, everyone knows what happened in Euphoris,” the Palanian agitator conceded more calmly. “But is it really so wrong to want to kill our enemies for their crimes?”

“To want it? No,” Kysaek replied honestly. “That’s only normal for anyone who isn’t jaded. Doing it, however, is a completely different matter. Revenge and justice can be one and the same, though, if you think just a little further!”

“And where do these thoughts take us?” asked the frustrated Calanian from before.

“To a better place! Take Neo Solaris’ poison and give it to them yourself!” Kysaek interrupted as she jumped off the BB. She mingled with the soldiers and spoke to them eye to eye as she walked through the ranks, all of them glued to her lips. “Our fight is not over yet, because the danger in space is still there and who knows if one of the prisoners has important information about it. Yes, kill them now and you will surely experience a brief satisfaction, but let them live and you will be truly satisfied!” The more Kysdaek spoke, the more the mood shifted to the better and derogatory comments from the prisoners were ignored by everyone and her. “Just imagine - let them live! Let them see you resist their poison and stay united! Don’t let them create a second Euphoris! Show them what the Consulate stands for! End the danger in space by their own means, once and for all, and then throw them in prison, where they will have to live with the fact that their views have failed for the rest of their lives!” Kysaek said with full conviction and from the bottom of her heart. More and more she heard quiet yeses and saw the nodding of the soldiers. “Neo Solaris thinks many of you are pathetic aliens and your human friends are weak traitors to humanity! I say - so what? That’s their stupid view and these cowards will have to live with the fact that they were beaten by weak and inferior individuals for the rest of their lives! Their path has failed and that of the Consulate continues! Just imagine Neo Solaris drowning in his own poison!”

“That’s right!” roared the former Palanian troublemaker. Everyone’s anger, and his, had turned. “It’s like you say! Let Neo Solaris see us win, united and unbroken! That will cause you more pain than death itself! I am in favour of Kysaek’s way!”

“Me too!” came from the crowd and was repeated elsewhere. “Me too!”

“Yes, let’s follow their example!”

“Let’s do it! Let’s end this terror! We’re behind you, Kysaek!” shouted first one and then all of them. It was a never-ending praise of victory, confidence and gratitude, free of all hatred and with fists raised and weapons thrusting to the sky. “Kysaek! Kysaek! Kysaek! Kysaek! Kysaek ...”