Chapter 5: Clarity
Brando Rek lay sprawled out on the tangled mess of sheets, his chest heaving with the effort of catching his breath. He turned his head to the side, his cybernetic eye glinting in the dim glow of the motel room's holo-lamp. He found Alice Chen beside him, her body glistening with a sheen of sweat, her black hair fanned out on the pillow like a dark halo. She looked at him with a softness that felt both sudden and unexpected and yet completely natural.
He lights a cigarette and takes a few drags before the golden silence is broken.
“Are we gonna talk about what that was?” Chen asked, still breathing heavy.
“Chen, I don’t think I have words for what that was.” He answered.
She chuckled. “Let me have one o’ those, Cowboy.” She playfully asked.
He lights another next to the one he’s already dragging from and gives it to her. “Here you, go.” He says.
“Thanks.” She responds.
They sit and smoke and let their bodies come back down to Earth.
“I feel like we should have an understanding of what happens next, Rek.” She says.
“How do you mean?” He responds.
“We work well together. My skillset coupled with yours we could pull ten times the money either of us could do by ourselves. I can open doors for you so you don’t have to blow all of them off the hinges…” she proposes.
“…and I can make sure your sweet ass makes it out o’ there.” He chimes in.
“I’ve never gotten into a jam I couldn’t get myself out of. But last night was the first time I felt…safe with another person.” She looks at him seriously.
“Alice…” he brushes his right hand gently across her cheek. “I didn’t know life had anything like this left for me. And now that I’ve felt it, I don’t want to go back. So if you want to do this, you gotta be serious.” He holds her gaze.
“Brando I’ve never been through anything like I was last night. I can’t go back to what I did before, knowing it can be that good.” She says, her eyes slightly watery.
“You scared, darlin’?” He asks.
“Not anymore. Not with you.” She answers.
He wipes her tears away and kisses her passionately. He brings her close to him and they spend the next 30 minutes just kissing and taking in the taste of each other.
They lay there for several more hours, drinking, smoking, rolling over to fuck again. As they recover from their most recent quickie, she lays with her head on his chest and sees the roadmap of pain his fit body has become. She traces his musculature and scars with her fingers. “What are these from?” She asks.
“A lifetime of moving from one battlefield to the next. Blades, bolts, incendiary rounds, I’ve been hit by damn near everything that hurts.” He says with a slight smile.
She reluctantly moves her fingers to his implants. “And these.” She asks, somewhat anxiously.
“That…was from the day I died.” He says.
Flashback
The city scape was a war zone. It looked as though the world had already ended. The enemy was a brutish bestial race, hyper intelligent, unbelievably brutal and terrifyingly intelligent.
They were a pre spaceflight species called the Vartaahg. The Vartaahg were pure nightmare fuel. 8 feet tall and muscled like oxen, they had claws on their hands like a tigers and claws on their feet like a raptors. They were impossibly quick for how big they were, which ranged from 800-1500 lbs. Their mouths opened like a blooming flower excepts every petal was a spring-loaded trap with rose of serrated teeth. And if that wasn't bad enough, they were inherently poisonous. They were the perfect predators.An initiative vessel managed to capture one, noting their natural musculature and keen predatory instincts would make them ideal for covert uplift.
Too ideal it turns out. Within days it learned our language. After a week it could read, write, and communicate in 20. A month and it was proficient with every weapon and spacecraft it could get its hands on.
Our arrogance lead us to our near extinction as this beast killed and ate the crew of its vessel and piloted back to its planet where it trained its species to a point where they evolved 200 years in a matter of months.
The Vartaagh only did one thing, kill and consume. They were tracked to the first planet they targeted near their homeworld and took no time reducing it to ash. There was no option, they all had to die here.
First there was a straight up firefight. Colton and Brando leading from the front, slaughtering thousands upon thousands, suffering no shortage of casualties of their own. The Vartaagh had no regard for their own people and were throwing them at the initiative like bugs against a windshield, but the men were dying too. Every soldier the Vartaahg got a hold of was so outmatched physically that they were torn apart, even in armor and bitten into, some of their limbs being consumed whole. Colton and Brando had to come up with a different strategy.
Brando ordered Colton to stage a retreat, gradually moving the men back while he used their shifted focus to his advantage, infiltrated their ship, and jury rigged their nuclear drive core until it was effectively a warhead. He escaped unnoticed but knew that his unit had put themselves at great risk to distract the enemy so he would give them room to escape and draw them closer to the explosion. He scaled a building and with his mounted machine gun and peregrine rifle, promptly got to work. He started mowing them down from behind. Taking out the horde in astonishing numbers before they changed direction.
He set up the weapons in different locations so they could not zero in on his position. He was clinical in his execution. One shot, one kill. Eliminate groups with his scatter gun. Grenades and RPGs from the tertiary location. His heavy machine gun turret could be fired with astonishing accuracy from his hands. Their black eyes holding no life behind them, only death. Like sharks, mindless beasts knowing only the desire to kill and feed, their mouths bloody and their appetites insatiable. He would fire fifty rounds and ready his next strip of ammo, then dive and roll ten meters to where he positioned his rifle, the Peregrine. Obsidian barrel with recoil muffler and adjustable barrel attached to modified pistol grip stock with extension. He aimed for Vartaagh at the back of the group to throw them off as to where the shots were coming from. Another ten meters from there he would fire RPGs into clusters of them at random points. His adrenaline, conditioning, and basic training had him locked in. There he was, deep underwater in an ocean full of hungry sharks, covered in blood, his scent thick, refusing to be their next meal, refusing to drown. No, he would not drown. As far as they were concerned, he was God, readying his meteor, the messenger for their extinction.
He fought for 18 straight hours before he got the word that Colton and all members, dead and alive, were secure at a safe distance and that he was clear to come in. He knew that it had to end here, or they would simply reproduce and continue until there was nothing left in the universe. “Copy that, Mav. Going dark.” Brando said. Resolute in his decision. One man dies, many live. Easy choice. He triggered the bomb.
Present day.
Alice looked up at him teary-eyed. He kissed her forehead and wiped her tears. “Sweetheart, I’d have blown myself up a lot sooner if I knew it would lead me to you.” He said, reassuringly. She chuckled a bit but couldn’t help but sob.
“It’s ok.” He said. He felt such warmth from her pure empathy for him. A comfort he had not felt ever before. He held her tight and stroked her hair. “It’s alright now.”
They drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.