Part 7: The Value of Life

   ‘I was wrong, it would kill,’ thought 4423 as he lay on the ground looking up at the alien he had tried to capture. The elite Acquisition team had been spread out throughout the facility once the alarm had gone off. His personal plan was to use the alien’s pacifist nature against it, and he decided to use the open door to lure the unsuspecting alien to him. The plan failed, and now he lay dying on the cold metal floor struggling to breathe as a pool of his blood grew under his motionless body. He would not to use his remaining life to prevent its escape; it had earned its right to be free. Closing his eyes a part of him wanted to smile as he felt death’s grip tearing away at his life force.

   A mere second after closing his eyes he felt soothing warmth replacing the pain in his gaping wound. Feeling this new sensation, he snapped open his eyes to see the alien kneeling next to him. Her hands were placed over his chest wound and a radiant light was being sent from her hands into his wound. The alien had her eyes closed and her face showed intense concentration as she tried to save her attacker. 4423 stared at the alien with an emotionless gaze as he managed to say with pauses between each word, “I was the one who captured you. It is my fault you are here.” Talking was a struggle for the horribly wounded man, and each word required pain and significant effort to say.

   The alien did not stop healing him nor did she open her eyes as she replied with a harsh yet enchanting voice, “I will not take your life, even if you seek to harm me. I never meant to harm you, and I must fix my mistake before it leads to your death.”

   Feeling life starting to return to him the clone stared at the alien as he fought to produce his response, “I am your enemy, why do you care if you kill me or not?”

   “I do not take the lives of others even if they are my enemies. I do not want my spirit to darken like your kinds’ has, “replied the angry yet beautiful voice. The alien’s breathing was getting heavier as sweat appeared on her forehead showing how much she was straining herself to save his life.

   “My life has no value. I am a clone, a soulless copy of life, my death and life has no real meaning,” replied the clone as his breathing became easier thanks to the healing. Her words and actions reignited his confusion and wonder of the strange alien that would spare and even save her enemies from death.

   The alien opened her eyes and her head turned to face the terran with a look of confusion on it. After staring into his eyes for a moment she looked back at his wound and said with her mystical sounding voice, “All life has value, including yours. I will not be responsible for ending yours, no matter how valueless you claim you are. Even if you do not believe you have value, you cannot see the impact your life has on others.” The alien’s voice softened from hostile to pity as she spoke. Soon the sounds of boots could be heard moving toward the pair, but their owners were not in view yet.

   For the first time in years true emotions publicly appeared on 4423’s face as his stone cold expression melted into a solemn look as he considered the alien’s words. “I am a tool created for a specific purpose, one that can be replaced… I am no different than the machines you see us terrans using,” replied the man his voice hinting that he was not content with this fate.

   “That is a lie, your machines… I have felt them. They have no breath, no life, and no spirit. You have these, and while you might have been created for a singular purpose I believe… I know as an individual you can find your own path to take,” replied the alien as her body began to shake from fatigue.

   The clone did not respond to her statement. Looking down the hall, the man could now see the owners of the boots: a group of three guards running toward them. The warmth stopped and in its place the clone felt weigh on his chest, looking over he saw the alien had collapsed on top of him from exhaustion. Before the guards reached them the alien whispered in her weakened voice, “You can choose another path.”

   The guards rushed up to the alien and two of them each grabbed a hold of one of her arms. They picked her up and began to drag her off as the third guard pointed her weapon at the alien. As they dragged the re captured alien away, 4423 just stared at faelin’s face, which hung motionless. 4423 caught a glimpse of tears beginning to roll down her cheek as they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. 4423 continued to stare at the wall the other guards and the alien disappeared behind. Chaos enveloped the man’s mind as the faelin’s words tossed around in it.

   Medical personnel showed up two minutes later to tend to the wounded clone. They seemed baffled by his stable condition, despite the large amount of blood under him and evidence on his clothes suggesting a massive wound. He was transported to the base’s medical facility and was released a day later with medical papers saying he was fit for duty. His chest bore a scar from the event, but the impact of that day ran far deeper than a little scar tissue.

Part 6: Prisoner

   When Lynia woke, her head was spinning and the world around her was covered in a shifting haze that clouded her vision. Fear started to envelope her mind as she realized she was enclosed in a small metallic grey room. Her instincts to flee started to take over as the lifeless walls started to close in around her. She tried to move but her limbs refused to properly respond to her commands, and Instead of standing up, she only managed to get her limbs to twitch and jerk randomly. Her struggle to move only resulted in her falling from her position on an elevated hard slab to a cold lifeless ground.

The impact with the hard metal caused pain to shoot through Lynia broken ribs and arm, and elevated her emotions that began to overwhelm her dazed mind. Tears poured down her face like small waterfalls as the reality of her situation sunk in. Looking up again, she tried to make sense of her surroundings as the world seemed to collapse around her. She closed her eyes and fearfully tried to curl up into a fetal position as her out of control emotions began to dominate every corner of her mind. Once again, her body refused to move as she commanded, and this further damaged her already weakened spirit.

   ‘Gather control of yourself. Do not let the fear consume you. Do not let despair disable you, you need to find your inner strength, ‘thought Lynia as she tried to recover her mental strength after crying for several long minutes that to her felt like an hour. She needed to regain control of herself so she could find a way out of this cage. Deciding to meditate in order to reconnect her mind and body as well as retake control of her emotions, she closed her eyes and began to calm herself the best she could. As she calmed down to enter a state of meditation, she ended up drifting off to a drug assisted sleep as her mind calmed.

   The next time Lynia woke, she felt different than before. Her entire body lacked feeling, and she couldn’t move her arms and leg. Her eye lids felt like they were being held down by many stones, but at least her mind felt less hindered. Forcing her eyes half open with significant effort she began to look around at her new surroundings. Instantly she wished she had not awakened, as her eyes revealed she was in a nightmare. Her naked body was lying flat on her back with straps holding her arms, legs, and head. She looked down the best she could with her head immobilized by one of the leather straps and saw several machines moving around her chest and abdomen. Looking at the machines she quickly realized they were covered in blood and were doing something to her unfeeling body. She could not look down enough to see exactly what the machines were doing to her, but her imagination filled her mind with terrifying possibilities. She tried to summon energy to protect herself, but as she did one of the arms spun around and faced her. Its three black claws held a long needle that it started to approach Lynia’s neck with. She watched it insert a needle into her neck the best she could, but she could not feel the puncture. Seconds later her eyelids grew too heavy for her to keep open and they slowly slid shut surrounding her in darkness once again as the new drug overwhelmed her mind.

   Waking up a third time she quickly sat up and felt pain shooting through her stomach. Looking down she realized her clothes were gone and all she had on was a lightweight white gown that covered her to her knees. Lifting the thin material to see her stomach she was horrified to see bandages wrapped around her chest and stomach. It had not been a nightmare! What did they do to her? She did not know the answer to the question, but she knew she had to escape as soon as possible. Grabbing a hold of her still broken left arm she sent healing energy into it. Her arm felt warm and tingly as the warm yellow light caused her bones and flesh rapidly mend. She used the same healing abilities on her left side and her stomach once her arm was healed. Once she was done healing, she felt fatigued from using a vast amount of energy.

   Resting for several minutes, Lynia looked around her prison. A single door was the only indication there was a world outside her tiny prison, and there were several strange terran devices that she had no idea how to use. The room these devices took up only made the already small prison feel smaller. Lynia carefully stood up, making sure she was not still suffering from the effects of the drugs that had been forcibly injected into her. Determining her ability to move was not being hindered any further, she decided to walk over to the one of the devices, both of which looked bowl like. One was a large deep bowl had strange dark blue liquid water in it, and was close to the ground. The other stood taller and its bowl shape was shallower and it held nothing in it likely due to the hole at the bottom of the bowl with a cylinder leading into the wall. Kneeling down close to the blue liquid filled one, she pulled her head back as the strong smell of chemicals quickly reached her nose. Standing up, she frowned at the liquid that could not be used to satisfy her thirst. She looked at the taller device for a second before she turned and walked over to the door.

   After standing in front of the door for a second, the faelin reached out to touch it. A burst of energy greeted her right hand as she was about to touch the door. The energy burned her offending fingers and caused her to pull her hand away violently. She stared at the door with a curious before closing her eyes. She reached out slowly toward the door again and as her right hand approached the door she could feel a wall of energy protecting the door. Suddenly a plan formed in her mind and she reached forward with her left hand as well.

   Lynia used her energy manipulating talents to carefully draw some of the shield’s energy into her hands. The energy felt very strange to her. It felt both dangerous and powerful, and was hard for her to control compared the energy of life she was used to using. Unlike life energy, she would be unable to turn this power into anything other than a destructive force. Forming a volatile orb of the energy in each hand she carefully backed away from the door as she combined the two orbs into a burning red sphere that tried to lash out at the air around it with vines of pure destructive energy. Once the two sources of energy had been combined, she used a thrusting motion with both arms to launch the energy toward the door. The orb of energy quickly lost its shape as it impacted the shield it had been formed from. The focused energy tore through the shield with ease and continued onto the door behind it. The energy violently blew a burning hole through the door, and continued its destructive path through the wall on the other side of the hall, revealing an identical empty cell. The material around the newly created exit glowed white from the heat as an acrid smell started to filled the air. Hope returned to the faelin as she darted toward freedom.

   As Lynia moved toward her self-created exit, a guard that was barely missed by the blast, poked his head and weapon into the faelin’s cage. He had a startled look on his face as Lynia moved past him. Holding out her left hand, the woman touched the barrel of the weapon as she unleashed a burst of energy that burned through the shocked guard’s weapon. Lynia seamlessly took a turn to the right, putting her back to the guard as she quickly sprinted away. The guard just stood there staring at his weapon helplessly while the alien escaped. A loud siren filled the building followed by mechanical voice announcing that the faelin had escape and for all guards to capture her. It insisted that the fleeing alien was not to be killed, which meant that the terrans would likely not use their weapons on her. The loud noise hurt the faelin’s sensitive ears, but she did not bother to cover them as she moved quickly through the halls of the compound. The announcement told of her location and her direction of travel and prompting her to suddenly take a left turn down an intersecting hallway.

Coming to a three way intersection, she quickly rounded a corner to the right, where she almost ran into a scientist engrossed in some flat square device. Lynia didn’t stop or slow down as she ran past them. She avoided the researcher by making a quick hop to the right so she could easily run past the terran. The scientist seemed surprised and just stopped to watch the faelin dart past. Lynia continued down this hall until it turned into a T intersection. She initially was going to take another right, but as she curved around the corner she saw there were two guards moving down the right hallway in her direction. Making a quick 180, the faelin darted down the left hallway as the guards yelled for her to stop.

   She rapidly created distance from those guards and took a right turn at another T intersection in order to lose them. She continued down this hall and found herself facing off against another guard. The guard stopped moving when she saw the escaped prisoner and held up her rifle up to her face. The woman demanded the alien to stop and surrender with a firm voice. Instead of listening to the guard, Lynia continued running toward the guard, gathering energy in her left hand as she closed the distance. She held up her left hand and closed her eyes once she was a meter away from the barking guard. The faelin released a burst of intense light that temporary blinded the terran. Opening her eyes after releasing the blinding strike, Lynia darted past the terran. The plan worked perfectly as Lynia was able to take another turn before the terran’s eyes could recover. Lynia had correctly guessed that the terran would not shoot since the alert kept emphasizing to not kill the faelin.

   Frustration and fear filled Lynia’s mind as she ran through the seemingly endless maze of dull grey hall ways. She was quickly tiring as she continued to flee, and she seemed to be running into more and more guards. As she ran past another intersection, she caught a glimpse of natural light. She quickly stopped and back tracked as hope filled her heart. There was an opening to the outside! A smile appeared on her face, as she bounded toward the welcoming light of freedom. The door began to slowly close as she approached it, but that would not stop her now. She started focusing energy into her right hand to blast through the door if it closed before she could reach it. As she smelled fresh air, a large figure suddenly appeared from behind a doorway ahead of her. The terran was quick and she did not have time to react before she was slammed to the ground by the attacker’s tackle. The sudden impact knocked the breath out of her and caused herself protective instincts to bring up her hands to try to shove away the attacker.  The gathered energy stored in her hand ended up hitting her attacker in the left side of his chest and tore through his body violently. The force of the energy knocked the attacker off of Lynia, allowing her to recover.

   Lynia recovered to her feet quickly as the shrinking beams of sunlight promised her freedom. Lynia was about to leap forward as her nostrils were suddenly filled with the smell of burnt flesh, and her ears picked out the wheezing breathe of the human she had hit on accident with the energy intended for the door. Looking down at her attacker, she saw the large man lying on his back with a fist sized hole through the left side of his chest. A pool of blood quickly began to form under him, as his storm grey eyes looked up at her. The faelin’s mind was torn, would she escape and allow her attacker to die? Or would she try to save him and forfeit her freedom and perhaps even her own life?

Part 5: Mission Complete

   Lowering the dart rifle slowly, 4423 took a step forward and his foot ended up directly on the top of one of the holes created by the energy darts the alien had released. The clone stopped and looked down as he moved his boot back to inspect the impact point. The hole was several inches deep and had burnt straight through a rock. The soldier leaned down and picked up the grey stone that appeared to have been the size of his palm before the energy hand torn through most of it. Now it looked like a crescent moon with his grey pitted surface and the perfectly cut crescent shape. Looking at the other impact points, it was clear each of the bolts of energy had created similar damage. Had the alien not changed the attack’s trajectory at the last second, 4423 would be dead. Looking up at the alien again he thought, ‘Why?’ His mind started to contemplate the answer to this question as he activated his radio and said in his controlled monotone voice, “Target subdued, but it took some damage. 1767 get here immediately to inspect the target before movement.”

   The clone soldier then continued toward the alien and kneeled down next to her unconscious body as he slipped the stone in one of his pockets. His radio was filled with celebration over another successful mission, but he tuned out the noise in favor of his thoughts. He inspected the alien that had spared him as his mind continued to question her actions. He thought about what she had said before passing out. She should have killed him, he was her enemy and her merciful act resulted in her capture. Why did she show mercy to a merciless attacker? It did not make any sense to the man who was raised for the sole purpose of fighting and killing. He suddenly reached over and pulled out the dart out of the alien’s skin. Looking at the dart and then the alien, he started to contemplate what would be full scope of her decision to spare him.

   4423 was deep in thought about the faelin’s actions, when the transport re-positioned itself overhead and dropped 1767 via zip line. Rushing over to the alien, the medic moved next to the second in command while asking in his smooth voice, “Did you move her?”

   “No,” replied 4423 as he moved out of the way so the doctor could inspect the alien. 4423 slowly put the dart in his pocket with the stone as the doctor retrieved a scanning device from his belt.

Using the small rectangle scanning device, the medic quickly assessed the alien’s condition. “Looks like she has several broken ribs and a broken arm, she should be in good enough condition for the corporates. I’ll stabilize the broken bones to prevent further damage and then we can get her back to the facility,” said 1767 with a little sigh of relief as he removed his helmet and slipped off the bulky medical pack from his back. He started rummaging through the medical bag; taking out disinfectant, cloth gauze, a plastic combat splint, large needle, and a small bottle with a clean liquid in it. He applied the disinfectant to prevent infection then he splinted the compound fracture. As he worked on setting the arm the medic suddenly said, “You know, for an alien she is pretty attractive. I like green designs on her skin, they are beautiful.”

   4423 looked down at the medic passively, but before he could reply to 1767’s comment 9124’s voice came over the radio. “Shit, we have some trouble over here; looks like some of the primitives didn’t like us crashing their party. Normally I wouldn’t be worried, but there a lot of them and I do not have a lot of ammo,” said the woman’s voice which was quickly followed by sounds of the squad leader’s and heavy weapon specialist’s side arms as the two started fending off the aggressive eurians.

   “I’m going to assist! I will return in a second,” said the team’s pilot, 0082, over the radio as the gunship suddenly turned and moved off toward the sounds of pistol fire as a hidden door slid open on the right side of the nose revealing the ship’s anti-personnel Gatling cannon. A second later the distinct whine of the 30mm cannon unleashing its 80 rounds a second fury filled the forest. Sounds of explosions from the anti-infantry rounds quickly followed, and then there was a deathly silence that washed over the forest for a few seconds.

   “Well that worked, all survivors are retreating and pissing themselves after that display. Thanks for the assist there ace. Could you drop the recovery lines so we can get out of here?” said a slightly amused voice belonging to 9124 over their radio channel.

   4423 looked down at the medic and asked without using the radio, “Is the target ready to move?”

“She should be, but I do not see any reason to rush. I am sure the Succubus showed the primitives any rescue attempt is futile,” said the medic in a calm voice as he pulled a large needle out of the alien’s side where he had injected a biodegradable substance while the gunship dealt with the hostile locals. The substance would help keep her ribs stabilized for a few hours. Once finished the medic began putting away his medical supplies, as 4423 scanned the environment around them for any possible enemies. The medic looked up at 4423 for a second before saying, “I guess I should carry her.”

   4423 looked down at the man and said, “You are the medic, you would know the best way to carry it without damaging it further.”

   “That means you will get to carry my bag. Be careful with it,” said the medic.

   “I will be careful,” replied the dull voice of the second in command.

   The medic smiled as he grabbed his helmet and put it on his head again. The other man picked up the medic’s bag and put it on his back before watching the medic carefully pick up the alien. “Wow, she is a lot lighter than I expected, “ said the medic as he held the alien.

   The team’s sniper, 6132, walked up to the two as the medic stood up with the alien in his arms. After giving the female faelin and medic a quick glance, the sniper turned to 4423 and said, “Good call on positioning me where I had a clear shot on it.”

   4423 replied with a nod as their transport returned to a hovering stop above their heads. A few seconds later zip lines fell through the opening in the lush canopy above them and the sniper quickly attached himself to the line and motioned for it to be retracted. After the sniper went up, a basket was lowered for the team’s prisoner. 4423 and 1767 secured the alien in the basket with several straps and then 4423 radioed for her to be pulled into the ship. Watching the basket go up 4423 looked over at 1767 and said in a directive tone, “I would recommend keeping your thoughts about the target’s appearance to yourself.” The medic looked over at 4423 and gave a slight nod as his answer.

   Once Lynia’s unconscious body was inside the transport, 1221 and 9124 carefully removed her from the basket and strapped her down to a metal gurney. As the alien was being secured, 4423 and 1767 were pulled up into the transport. Once the ramp and door had closed the transport’s engines started to output more thrust causing the aircraft to gain altitude and speed. The Succubus was soon on its way back to the research facility.

Part 4: The Ceremony

    Lynia’s lilac purple eyes looked up at the starry sky as she wondered what it was like out there in the vast darkness beyond her home world. Eur’s spirit servants told her that most of those tiny specks of light were vast burning bodies called stars, like the one that warmed this world during the day. Did each of the stars have worlds they kept warm? What might these other worlds might be like? What could be living on them? Her mind imagined both wonderful and terrible possibilities these potential worlds offered.

   

   As the faelin’s mind considered what these worlds might be like, she looked down at a small pond fed by a tiny bubbling creek below her perch. A tiny waterfall emptied into the pond creating ripples that danced in the pale blue light emitted by the unique bulbs of the large Vali tree she was sitting on. Her perch was one of Vali’s lower branches that was ten feet off the ground, and grew out six feet in length before bursting into teal leaves and glowing bulbs. These trees were massive in both girth and height, but they were best known for their unique bulbs that glowed pale blue at night. The view around Lynia made her smile, she considered herself lucky to call this world her home, but suddenly the thought turned dark.

   Lynia’s right leg and tail stopped swaying back and forth in unison as she sat on the branch. This was not her real home, the faelin’s real home world was somewhere far away, out there among the stars. The questions that haunted her about her unknown origins began to fill her mind once again. What was her real home like? Eur told Lynia that she had come from a world very far from this one, and Eur’s spirit servants had saved her from being killed along with the rest of her kind. Why were the faelin destroyed? What killed them? Why did Eur and her servants not save more of her kind? Why did she have to be the last faelin? Frowning, her ears drooped as she was reminded of the fact she would always be alone. She was nothing like the miztan, or Eur and her servants.

   There were the terrans, who she shared many physical traits with. They excited Lynia when she first saw them from a distance. She initial thought they could be related to the faelin somehow, and for a second she held hope that she would no longer have to deal with feelings of isolation. Her hope was crushed when she saw the terrible things they were doing to this world. Many miztan tribes had lost their homes to them, and large stretches of serene forests had been destroyed to make way for their hideous constructions. Their monstrous machines destroyed life without regard for the damage they were doing to this world and the pain they were causing. They seemed blind to their crimes and did what they desired without regard for trees, animals, miztan, or the natural cycle of life. Lynia could feel her loneliness, despair, and now anger grow as all these thoughts moved through her head. She could feel her emotions starting to overwhelm her, and she needed to keep them under control.

   The faelin’s slender arms came to rest on the top of her thighs, as she brought her legs into a crossed position in front of her. Her hands opened with her palms pointing toward the stars above. Closing her eyes she began flowing energy through her body and slowly created a field under her body. Slowly the field lifted her into the air so she was levitating as she entered a state of meditation. The designs on her skin glowed slightly as she focused her mind on world around her. Her unique energy abilities allowed her sense not only the energy in her own body but in the life around her when she focused her mind. In this form of meditation, the world transformed as she saw and felt the energy emitted by all life around her. In her mind, she was seeing life itself in spirit form, and one’s vision and mind was influenced by the differences one would see in physical bodies when looking at life in this manner. It did not take long for her meditation to make her elevated emotions to calm. Smiling once again, she then remembered she should be leaving soon. It was about time for the miztan’s joining ceremony, where she was the guest of honor.

   Lynia grabbed a ceremonial robe that was sitting on the next to her. She slid her arms into the dark green sleeves of the garb before fastening the lower section to her belt that looked like leaves made from a silk like material spun from a plant. This allowed the middle and top to slowly open up showing her fabric wrapped chest and the blue crystal that was attached to her clothing in the middle of her chest. The robe had intricate silver designs that mimicked those on her skin, and leaf like designs like her collar and belt. Looking around at her favorite meditation spot one last time, she hopped down to the ground and began bounding toward the miztan ceremonial fields.

   Minutes later, Lynia was standing on the edge of a field that served as the local miztan tribes’ ceremonial grounds, she quickly brushed her long bangs out of her face, and picked a branch out of her tail. After making sure her outfit was properly sitting on her body, she walked toward the ceremony with a warm smile look on her face. She controlled her pace so she was not moving more gracefully than her normally energetic gait. The festival was one celebrating the miztan’s unique form of relationships where three individuals would form a family unit for three seasonal cycles. Three was the sacred number for the indigenous race who had three eyes, legs, and fingers per each of their three arms. Lynia’s presence was considered by the miztan to be a blessing from Eur, who they worshiped as goddess of this world. As soon as she was spotted, the elders of the local tribes moved toward her before they raised their arms toward the sky in respect and shouted an ancient miztan phrase in their language that sounded like a series of whistles and clicks. They then proceeded to lead the faelin to her seat of honor on top of a large boulder that was in the middle of the clearing.

   Once Lynia was seated on top of on the large flower covered boulder, the miztan began the ceremony with percussion based music and the dance of attraction. This beginning dance would be one of three and it was the first step where miztan showed interest in each other, allowing miztan to pick out potential partners for the next stage of the ceremony. This part would last until all the miztan had found partners or had tired out. The entire time Lynia would light up the dancing ground with orbs of burning light high above the heads of the miztan. Following this initial dance would come a period of feasting and rest before the dance of forming began. The faelin could not wait to partake in a little of the food, but she could not eat her fill due to her much higher metabolism and larger size meant she could easily out eat three miztan. She didn’t want to appear gluttonous despite her growing hunger.

   After first dance concluded, Lynia dispersed her orbs with a gripping motion following by her hands quickly opening to instruct the orbs of energy to explode in a brilliant display of light that brought cheering from the miztan. Smiling, Lynia slowly stood and nodded to the group of elders giving them permission to begin the feast. Just as she was about to step off the boulder, her sensitive ears picked up an unnatural whining sound quickly approaching. Her ears lifted up in the air as she scanned the horizon right as large black shape flew over the ceremony grounds a hundred feet above the treetops. 

   Growling, her ears pined themselves to the side of her head as she glared at the aircraft as it spun around in place after coming to a hovering position on the opposite side of the clearing.

Lynia quickly yelled to the miztan while motioning toward the edges of the clearing, “Run! Flee into the forest! I will deal with the invaders!” The designs on her arms began to emit an intense glow as she pulled energy from both her body and her surroundings and funneled it into her hands. She had to buy time for the miztan to flee. As hovering ship’s back opened up Lynia hopped off the rock and charged toward the ship hoping to keep its attention as energy from her left arm dispersed and wrapped around her body into an invisible protective layer. Once the ramp and door were fully opened, two zip lines fell out of the gunship and two of the terrans began a quick descent to the ground. They pointed their weapons at Lynia as they descended, and began to opened fire as they fell. The faelin was bounding toward the point the soldiers were going to land in a zig zag pattern to make herself harder to hit. Despite her dodging movements, the highly skilled soldiers hit her several times, but her protective barrier deflected the darts.

   Her right hand then released a pair of burning darts that hot out out from either side of the faelin as the terrans landed on the ground and quickly disconnected themselves from the ship before continuing to attack the faelin, while moving toward her. The energy spikes spiraled off to the side before beginning to arc back toward the human attackers, gaining speed as they converged on their targets. Two seconds before she reached the pair of warriors, the darts had come around and burned through the terrans’ weapons, rendering them useless. The bursts of energy then impacted each other creating a motionless orb between the cursing humans. Dropping her shield, Lynia reached out and grabbed to brilliant orb as she leaped high into the air doing a flip between the two disarmed humans, who tried to grab the agile alien. The humans were too slow to catch the agile faelin as she jumped over their heads. Mid flip when she was upside down facing the terran ship, she threw the energy orb that quickly split into a dozen tiny bolts that flew toward the terran flying machine’s open door. The burning bolts caused the other terrans still in the ship to dive for cover deeper inside the ship’s belly. The ship’s shields flashed a brilliant bluish hue as the energy impacted the protective barrier, and causing weakened ripples of energy around the impact points. The faelin’s flip landed her several feet away, and facing in the opposite direction from the two humans. Her feet landed firmly on the ground and she fell forward into leaning posture with her left hand braced against the ground to prevent her from falling.

   Looking over her shoulder Lynia gave the humans a teasing smile, before she stood up straight and sprinted for the nearby tree line. “Go! Get the target! We will pursue by foot!” ordered the taller human’s sandpaper like voice as he motioned toward the troops in the back of the transport with his hand. The pair of humans dropped their useless weapons before pulling out their side arms and starting toward Lynia. At the same time, their ship quickly rotated around and started toward the faelin as well. Lynia’s ears perked up when she heard these words as she crossed into the tree. She rapidly removed the ceremonial robes so they would not catch on anything and slow her down. She now realized they were after her, and not the miztan. Once the robe was removed she started into the forest with a renewed urgency and quickly began to ascend the trees by leaping gracefully from branch to branch.

   She hoped she could evade her pursuers quickly because she was already starting to feel drained from the extensive use of her abilities. A feeling of fear slowly began to invade her mind. What if they caught her? What would they do to her?

Name Change

OK I named the alien Lycia by just putting some letters together around the name of a character that helped inspire her. Little did I realize Lycia was actually a geopolitical region in Turkey until I randomly decided to wikipedia it.

That being said (and now that I've done my research) her name will be Lynia. So if you happen to see any references to Lycia please help me out and point those out so I can edit them. I will be going back over the first part and editing it. Next part is coming I have just decided to edit it a billion times, and still keep looking over it. Hopefully it will be the best part yet!

Part 3: The Target

  LK-1132-0082 walked into the briefing room 45 minutes after the team had landed. She had a frustrated look on her face as she entered the small room with long rectangle table on the opposite end of the room and a single small round table in the middle. “Sorry maintenance wanted to run some tests,” announced the pilot with and edge of irritation in her voice as the door slammed closed behind her. Her voice caused the other members to glance up at her for a second before returning to what they had been doing. The director that had escorted the rest of the team to the room was not in the room, making it clear the pilot missed the brief. Squad leader AZ-1030-1221 motioned the pilot over to the small round table with a swift gesture of his muscular arm. He, 4423, and 1767 were standing around the elaborate wooden table with a boxy metal holographic device in the middle that was projecting several images, a video, and paragraphs of information several feet into the air at the same time. Walking over to the table the pilot’s eyes grew big as she was able to make out the images of the subject that the holograms were focused on.

Before she could speak 1221 said in his gruff voice, “This is the target, our mission is to capture it.” He then touched the holographic video rewinding it to display a helmet camera video that showed the alien’s brilliant energy attacks disarming of an entire squad of soldiers at once. The image focused on the alien as she approached the soldiers after her attacks had burned through the personal shields and coil rifles the soldiers were using on the eurians.

“She looks almost human,” said the baffled pilot. Just then the alien spoke to the soldiers in the videos making the pilot exclaim, “She can speak terran! Where did she come from?” The pilot leaned in to inspect the image closer, while everyone stared at her silently.

1221 sighed in irritation at 0082’s interest in the alien as 4423 answered her question in his monotone voice, “We do not know where she comes from. This is the first and only encounter with her species.” 4423’s glaze turned from 0082 to their leader, whose hand was covering his face at this point.

The pilot cocked her head to the side as she inspected the images of the alien. She suddenly thought out loud, “She is beautiful in a strange way… she makes me think of one of those creatures of fantasy… one with the long ears.” The pilot then pulled out her PDD and started to use it to look up the name of the fantasy creatures the alien reminded her of.

1221 dropped his hand from his face for as he said with a frustrated voice, “It is dangerous, it effortlessly disarmed an entire security force team, and it could have easily killed them.” The leader then took a deep breathe before continuing in a calm serious tone, “SyCorp doesn’t care how we capture it, as long as the alien isn’t killed or too badly damaged in the process. They made it clear if we kill it, we will never recover from the failure. We are only allowed to use the special issue non-lethal weapons on this mission, “said 1221 motioning over to the rectangular table off to the side of the room that had several compact rifles on it. The team’s sniper, 6132, and heavy weapons expert, 9123, where inspecting the weapons and both of them seemed less than pleased with them.

“Why are we capturing her?” asked 0082 as she glanced up at 1221 for a second before returning to her PDD.

“Research and development wants to study it,” replied 1221 without hesitation.

“To study what makes her able to use those abilities. I would guess that both her unique energy manipulation skills mixed with her human like appearance have peaked the interest of company’s geneticists,” added 1767 confidently, his words dancing off his tongue as he spoke while his arms laid crossed on his chest.

1221 nodded toward 1767 to agree with his assessment and then added, “We are currently on alert status. We need to be able to launch within an hour of an alert if the target is found. Command is hoping the eurian’s semiannual rituals they preform around this time will draw out the target.”

“I still say we set a trap by attacking an eurian village and wait for her to come to their defense like we saw here,” said the cold heartless voice of 6132 as he motioned toward the video.

“That is the backup plan, I would prefer to catch her when she is not ready for a fight,” said 1221 as he glanced over at the sniper who had disassembled one of their dart launching weapons.

“Elf… that is what she kind of looks like… the ears at least,” suddenly added the pilot as she held up her PDD to the hologram to compare the two. 4423 at this point had taken control of the hologram and was slowly going through each frame inspecting the alien’s attack on the soldiers. When 0082 held up her PDD, he glanced at it then the hologram before nodding at 0082 in agreement. He then returned his focus to the slowly playing video.

“Either way the brief is over, I recommend everyone getting some food and rest. We need to be ready to move at any moment,” said the squad’s leader ignoring 0082’s attempts to compare the alien to a creature of fantasy.

9123 nodded her head and walked over to 0082 and put a hand on her shoulder before saying, “Let’s go get some food.” 0082 shook her head as she tried to showed 9123 the PDD. The older woman watched 6132 walk out of the room with his weapon before glancing at the PDD as she asked, “Why are you all so interested in this alien?”

“Studying the target, trying to figure out how it might think so I can try to predict its actions,” said 4423 his dull voice failing to reflect any interest in his self-imposed task.

“It’s an alien, save your time, we will not be able to understand it,” said 1221’s rough voice as he turned toward the door. “If you do happen to discover any interesting information let me know,” ordered the leader as he walked out of the room.  

“What are you trying to figure out exactly?” inquired the team’s medic as he looked over at the team’s second in command. 1767 stared at the other man then the hologram to try in figure out what was interesting the man about this alien.

“Why it did not kill its enemies? Looking at its attack, it could have easily wiped out the squad instead of just destroying their weapons. They were slaughtering its allies, but it still did not kill the soldiers,” said 4423 neither his voice nor his face showing any curiosity, but it was clear he was by the words he spoke.

“Likely she does not like killing,” replied 1767 his voice filled with sincere consideration of the question. “I would not assume she will stick to those beliefs once we try to capture her. Like a cornered animal she will likely lash out in desperate self-protection when we try to take her down. Considering her level of power, I would recommend against making her feel cornered at any time. When we capture her, maybe you should ask her why she did not kill those security guards,” added the man his voice transforming to a casual almost mocking tone as he finished the last sentence.

“Capturing her without cornering her might be tough,” said 0082 looking up at the medic. The medic was looking at the other members of the team as he propped himself up with arms firmly braced against the table.

“Well if those pieces of junk do as advertised and, the drugs work. She will only realize she is cornered when she is drifting off into a drug induced sleep. Can we discuss this over a hot meal? I want to eat something other than a MRE,” added the tall brown haired woman impatiently as she looked toward the door longingly.

“Sure why not,” replied 1767 casually as he stood up straight. 0082 nodded in response as she continued to stare at the alien. 4423 turned off the hologram device by pressing on a small black button on the base of the metal device casing diverting 0082’s attention back toward her friend behind her. The four then left the room in order to search for food while discussing the alien.

As the Acquisition Team waited for the alert to call them into action, they studied the environment, discussed tactics for capturing the target, prepared and trained with their new equipment, and assisted the local SyCorp security forces. Free time was a waste of SyCorp resources, and was not tolerated for any of the company’s clone soldiers so the team kept themselves useful at all times.

In the meantime, SyCorp unmanned drones scoured the skies above the forests of Eur. The thick forest canopies and size of the forest make acquisition of the target difficult. However these drones were in constant patrol in SyCorp controlled territory as their mechanical “eyes” searched the alien surface below at all hours of the day and night.  

Six days and eight hours after landing on Eur, the members of the Acquisition team were alerted and within 37 minutes their Succubus’ quad engines were coming to life as the team loaded up fully equipped for the operation. A drone monitoring a growing Eurian gathering had spotted the target. Its powerful camera allowed spotted the target as it joined the celebrating Eurian.

The hidden landing bay’s doors opened, the roar of engines intensified as the transport, call sign Ghost 09 for this mission, quickly climbed into the air. The team onboard were double checking their equipment when a male command and control agent came over their helmet’s transmitters, “Acquisition Team Nine, your updated SITREP and ROEs are as follows; Target is surrounded by Eurians. You are allowed to engage the Eurians at will, but remember to conserve sleeper darts for the target. If the situation gets hot, GHOST 09 is cleared weapons hot to engage the Eurians, but you will not fire on any hostile within 30 meters of the target or the target itself. Remember killing target will result in complete failure. Good hunting.”  As the transmission ended the noise dampeners kicked in reducing the powerful engine’s whines to murmur as they rotated into forward flight mode in less than a second. The team members tried to commit the situation report and rules of engagement to memory as the transport started forward toward their target. A red timer over the ramp and door spat out in big red numbers that showed they had less than twenty minutes until they would be engaging the target. The hunt was on…

Lynia, Chosen of Eur

I decided to get a commission of Lynia from fusspot @ thefusspot.tumblr.com after I got a refund from a problematic Kickstarter. I am unable to draw well, and I wanted to do Lynia justice so I decided on this route.

Parts 3 and 4 are in the works and I hope to have part 3 up soon.