Mari:

  Despite the alarms that went off, panic didn’t spread. Everyone was on their feet, but every adult was gathered with their friends already, and those friends were, in many cases, people who had fought side-by-side some fourteen years prior. For an old world like Sylpharia, that was a vanishingly small period of time.

  Every adult held to their training, and in many cases, the brain functions for panic had been stripped away by horrific genetic sculpting.

  All that to say, Mari was shocked. Voices remained low and calm, people organized, and children in the area quickly gathered into their classes to be escorted into carefully planned out emergency lockdown locations. Groups of ten, split by instructors that were used to their drills, spread out to each exit and crouched down to await their rapidly-arranged escorts.

  “Kris! Class one, over here.” An instructor called out, but he hadn’t approached.

  “She is coming with me.” Karin’s voice brooked no argument, and she had already drawn a device from her clothes, which unfolded into her own modified Magball glove. Metal spheres followed, minus the padding usually seen for the game. Mari shivered at the expression on the woman’s face. She was scary when she got serious.

  A text box appeared in the lower field of Mari’s vision.

  [Alert: Captain, a mission is being assigned to you.]

  She narrowed her eyes, instantly suspicious.

  [Mission: Afflicted life forms have been detected within the Garden. Please remove these troublesome weeds.

  Reward: Information on source material for Cpt. Marielle Smith/Mari Kishibe.]

  She had several questions, but there wasn’t enough time for them. Also, she wasn’t really expecting an answer to be forthcoming.

  Mari laid her palm on the grip of her sidearm, feeling the reassuring presence of strangely familiar leather and metal. “Let’s go. We have to hurry.” She drew the Remera from the holster on her thigh, slid her finger across the action and flicked her wrist. A wave of satisfaction hit her as the cylinder clicked free, and she checked her ammunition with more bizarre familiarity before flicking the cylinder back into the weapon with a heavy clunk.

  Eyes met hers from across the clearing. Her teacher, a Ravien man, was frowning at her, lips nearly pulled back in a snarl as he turned on his heel and herded his group of students towards a shelter. She was probably supposed to be with them, but he hadn’t shown any concern for her safety.

  Mari turned towards Karin to find her fiddling with Kris’ glove. Kris, meanwhile, was staring at her, and Mari swore she caught the tail end of her friend licking her lips. That was some weird shit, and Mari didn’t want to tackle it during an emergency.

  “Good to learn to handle your own problems. I am proud of your resolve, though we will see how you back it up.” Karin finished whatever she was doing, then handed the glove back alongside a metal sphere. “Kris, be careful. This is not designed for these modifications like mine is. A last resort option, since you will probably only get one shot.”

  “We’re running out of time.” Mari didn’t wait for Kris to reply. She could hear the distant sound of firearms and it didn’t sound like a two directional battle. “What we’re hearing is what a massacre sounds like.”

  At Karin’s appraising look, Mari shrugged and took the lead towards the most direct exit. Straight for danger.

  Sort of straight, at least. Kris made a quick stop to grab her bag from the changing rooms, but not long enough to change into her usual outfit. Not that Mari or Karin would be in a hurry to have her take off the inertial dampener from the match. It probably wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it could turn aside a glancing blow from most things.

  The first encounter came at the atrium of the school. Four obvious intruders were there, two with the prim posture of snobbish elitism that Mari had internalized as being characteristic of Sylphariens. The other pair were a shock to her system. They were faintly familiar.

  Like the memories she had that were not from Sylpharia.

  “Movement at nine o’clock.” The first soldier spoke in short, precise English.

  “You two stay in cover.” The duo of armed men had tactical gear on, but it was obvious that only the first of them had real combat training. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

  Mari risked another peek around the corner and nearly lost an eye for it. The bullet hit the wall and ricocheted as she ducked back into cover. She felt the fear stab into her from the near-death experience, then felt a reassuring presence. Not one that took over, but one that had her back. Marielle’s presence stifled her roaring emotions and calmed her nerves.

  “Come on out. See what we’ve got for you.” A terse, rugged voice came to her ears, and she immediately felt Marielle’s memories surface. Time with her squad. The man who’d spoken sounded like Second Lieutenant Barclay, if a bit older, maybe.

  Mari considered her situation. Barclay was a hothead at the best of times. Jumpy, too. He’d been put through more hell than most. He wouldn’t give her a rational conversation until he was forced to. Thanks to her eyes and makeup, her appearance wouldn’t give him pause, either.

  With her limited cover, she didn’t have long, so she glanced at Karin, who nodded at her. She nodded back and repositioned herself to let Karin closer to the corner.

  “One of them is from my old team. Non-lethal, if you can.” She felt a little distraught at how casually she was willing to compromise on the man’s life. Marielle had made peace with doing things she didn’t want to do, but Mari hadn’t.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Karin nodded and closed her eyes, the metal sphere revolving around her hand as she knelt down. Within a few moments, the sphere was moving at a violent speed, carefully contained by the magnetic field. Then, with a sharp motion, she flicked her wrist around the wall and a cry of pain resounded from the entrance of the building.

  Gunfire barked in response, trying to form suppressing fire, but the stonework of the city could withstand the impact without breaking, and Karin didn’t have to leave cover, only the sphere did, at the outermost part of the orbit.

  Barely a few seconds later, another orb flew, and Mari stepped out of cover the moment the attackers would’ve hidden to avoid the incoming projectile.

  The entryway was occupied by two reception desks to either side, a smattering of chairs and tables scattered about, and little else for cover. The two Sylphariens had uselessly tipped over tables for cover, and Karin’s first shot had punched through the material and into one of them.

  Karin’s first victim was bleeding from a devastated leg, with the entire thigh turned into a mangled mess where the femur had turned to shrapnel. The blood was immediately highlighted to her vision.

  [Affliction: 1%; stable strain detected]

  She had no time to consider the label, instead feeling like time had slowed a little. The second of Karin’s orbs finally connected with Barclay’s calf, ripping a shout of pain from him as he fell behind one of the reception desks.

  Mari’s brief encounter with slow motion ended as her gun snapped up, aimed for the other Sylpharien, lining up the dot from her HUD with the man’s forehead as he peeked over the table with wide eyes.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  Time stopped, her body locking up just before the trigger moved, and she knew.

  I can’t.

  Her aim fell, centering on an exposed arm that held a rifle, still halfway behind cover.

  She finally pulled the trigger, and the shot seemed loud enough to give herself hearing problems.

  No blood sprayed. The shot hit a barrier of force before it reached the arm, but the impact was still terrifyingly effective. The man was literally thrown by the impact as the force of the bullet wrenched the body it was attached to and resulted in a sickening snapping sound as the whiplash wrenched the Sylpharien’s neck. It was a moment Mari knew she’d be thinking about for a long time.

  Next, she turned towards the other armed man in tactical gear, who aimed his weapon her way as reality caught up with perception.

  “Andrew Brooks. Hold your fire.” Mari ordered in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. She had her gun trained on his chest, but she wasn’t sure if her finger would respond properly.

  Then, motion caught her eye, and she sidestepped at the same time as multiple gunshots rang out. Simultaneously, she spotted the man with the mangled leg leveling a handgun at her—already firing before he had lined up the shot—when his head turned to paste from a bark of gunfire that came from behind the desk.

  “Well, fuck me sideways, Captain.” Barclay’s voice sounded deeply unhappy and very much in pain. “Boy, you best put that gun down before you hurt yourself.”

  Andrew slowly put his gun down and raised his hands. Mari kept her gun up anyway, flicking it towards the whiplashed Sylpharien, just to be safe.

  “I thought for sure you’d never listen to someone while in a combat situation, Barclay.”

  “Did you put a steel marble through my goddamn leg?” He grunted in pain, and Mari stepped forward, kicking the rifle away from the Sylpharien who just laid there, face down into the ground, motionless. She knew it would probably haunt her, but also knew there were far worse memories tumbling around in her head. Turning, she saw Barclay digging into his wound with his fingers, prying the metal sphere out with more expletives.

  “She put less power into that one, and didn’t hit your artery. You’ll live once you get patched up.” Mari jerked her chin, and Andrew scooted to the older man’s side, medkit in hand.

  “You think I wouldn’t recognize that handgun anywhere, Smith? After getting pushed around for years by these assholes, I took my chances on a way out.” As he spoke, Mari studied him. He’d aged by a decade or more. He had greys in his dark beard and hair.

  “Major Kishibe to you. That Captain rank sounds like mockery coming from your mouth.” She blandly corrected on behalf of the voice in her head. “There’s no way that was all that you were going off. And I’m not entirely her, either. Those Sylpharien Imperials cloned me, experimented on me, and I only recently got my original memories back.”

  Truth was, Marielle had only been taking the role of Captain aboard the colony ship, while her actual military rank was much higher. Civilians didn’t really know the difference, so they’d just called her Captain because she was in charge of the ship. She didn’t mind the jokes, but Barclay was an asshole, so she wouldn’t let him get away with it.

  “Merry Christmas, then. I’m just old now. We gotta catch up, but not now.”

  “Agreed. What do I need to know?” She could see him faltering slightly.

  “Ask Andy, here. I’m losing too much blood.”

  “Alright, Andy. What do I need to know?” Mari could tell Marielle’s presence was getting impatient, and she had to admit she was feeling that way, too. “I need a threat analysis. What am I fighting?”

  “There were a dozen, based on who was coming and going. They brought these caged nasty animals, too. I thought it was weird they never fed them, but I guess turning starved animals loose would be effective.”

  “Got any idea what their objective is?”

  “They targeted the big building with the waterfall, then split us off to go after some woman with pink hair.” That statement was concerning. The attackers knew exactly where to send a team to go after Karin. Only four people seemed a bit light for that job, though.

  “How many from our ship were with you guys?”

  “Originally, we came out of the freezer pods as a group of ten. If I had to guess, it was alphabetical. Barclay, Bell, Bennett, Black, Brooks, four Browns and one Butler. Only men, though.”

  “Bell?” She latched onto one of the names. “Julian Bell was with you? No, never mind. Now isn’t the time.”

  She looked to her side and noted the cautious expressions of Karin and Kris, the former holding the latter back with one arm. Julian was one of the clones in their school. She’d assumed Barclay hadn’t been cloned because he hadn’t been part of the original colony effort. If one of Sylvia’s geneticists was both a clone and walking around in his original body, then it put holes in her theory that they’d only cloned the people who were infected with the bioweapon.

  “Yeah. But only the two of us came here. I’m looking for my wife and kid.”

  “Sorry, I haven’t seen them. You have military training, Brooks?” She finally had put together where she recognized him from. He was a structural engineer that she had personally interviewed for her father’s colony ship. She just couldn’t fully pin down all the details of his file.

  “Just mandatory training.”

  “Can you keep this position safe, cover Barclay, and wait for me to come back? We’ll talk then.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He focused on tying off the bandage for Barclay’s leg, then scooped his rifle back up and took position behind the desk.

  “Karin, Kris, let’s go.”

  Patreon!

  discord server is the best place to get in touch with me!