Fall of Icarus

Uligart’s dark blood. She angrily realized how much she wanted to do the same thing to Cardax. Looking up with a renewed determination, Keryn led Adam out of the town and into the desert separating the mining community from their landing field.

The gunfire Keryn expected never came. Whether their distraction worked better than she had anticipated or the townsfolk had lost their heart once Cardax was gone, she didn’t know. However, she counted her blessings as she and Adam sprinted through the tough shrubs that littered the desert floor. As they rounded the edge of the plateau and the landing field came into view, flames leapt from the bottoms of two of the ships as they ignited their burners and began lifting off from the planet’s surface. The two ships seemed fairly nondescript, but Keryn knew that one of the two carried the traitorous Cardax. Increasing her speed, she sprinted the rest of the distance to the cleared landing zone. By the time she arrived, however, the air was thick with traces of burning plasma exhaust. The smell burned her lungs and caused her eyes to water. More importantly to her, though, was the fact that both ships were little more than distant specks on the horizon by the time she reached the nearest of the still parked ships. Cardax was getting away and she had yet to even reach the Cair Ilmun.

As they hurried through the smoky haze, the exhaust from the departing ships became thicker. The once distinct figures of parked ships became nondescript, amorphous shapes all around Keryn. She staggered forward, supported only by Adam’s comforting touch on her back. Keryn’s eyes burned and she coughed roughly as she searched for the telltale lines of the Cair Ilmun. With tears streaking from her eyes, she didn’t notice the limp shape lying on the ground before her. Keryn’s foot caught on the figure and she fell to her knees before the body.

“Stop!” Keryn yelled moments before Adam would have tripped over the body as well.

Adam stopped and pulled free his rifle. His soldier instincts took control as he turned, scanning for any nearby threat. “Is it one of ours or one of theirs?”

The body was face down before her and, in the darkness, it was hard to make out any details. Frowning, she slipped her hands underneath the body in order to roll it over. As her hands slid between the body and the sand, she felt them sink into a thick, tacky fluid. In surprise, she immediately pulled her hands away. Dripping from her fingers, a mixture of sand and blood fell from her fingers in congealed droplets.

Though she felt her stomach turn, she slid her hands back beneath the body and rolled it over. The face was badly torn and bloodied, but evidently Uligart. Keryn let out a sigh of relief and sat down heavily in the sand.

“It’s not one of ours.”

“There are more over here,” Adam said coldly.

Keryn didn’t bother looking at the other torn figures that were strewn around them. She already knew how they would appear. The Uligart’s stomach had been torn open and the exposed entrails were coated in sand. The man’s throat had also been torn away, leaving a ragged wound from ear to ear. Keryn felt bile rise in her throat at the sight. While she hoped that this was the work of one of her teammates, she feared that they had met a similar fate.

From behind her, sand crunched beneath a heavily booted foot. Keryn leapt to her feet and pulled free her pistol, as Adam turned toward the sound as well, his rifle at the ready. From out of the smoke, a humanoid shape emerged. The pink, fleshy skin and straw-like hair showed predominantly Pilgrim features, though most of his skin was covered in blood. His arms were held defensively before him, his palms outward, in a sign of peace. Despite the reassurances that the Pilgrim was unarmed, Keryn and Adam didn’t lower their weapons.

As they watched, the fleshy skin began to peel away from the Pilgrim’s hands and face. It sank beneath the surface, revealing the cold, smooth Lithid exterior. The clothes themselves melted as well, all part of the illusion created by Penchant as he walked unnoticed through the landing field.

With a sigh of relief, Keryn lowered her weapon. “Penchant. Where is Cardax?”

The featureless face motioned toward the stars above. “He left on one of the two ships.”

“Which one?” Keryn asked impatiently.

Penchant looked toward the distant horizon for a moment before turning back and shrugging. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Keryn asked indignantly. “How can you not know? This was your one responsibility!”

“I was a little busy!” Penchant yelled back, his voice sounding like boulders crashing together. The Lithid motioned toward the bodies strewn about. “Cardax left us a present while you were gone.”

“McLaughlin,” Adam interrupted. Keryn, too, remembered the radio transmission saying that the Pilgrim had been injured. “Where is he?”

“Cerise already took him into the Cair Ilmun, but he has been hurt pretty bad. He was standing close to a grenade when it exploded.”

“Rombard and Keeling?” Adam asked, though he lacked the conviction in his voice.

Penchant shook his head. Keryn felt her heart sink. She had no doubt that Rombard and Keeling were already dead. Now, with McLaughlin injured as well, that nearly reduced her team in half, and they were no closer to capturing Cardax. Grimacing, Keryn realized that she no longer wanted to capture Cardax. To hell with the High Council and their directives. Keryn had every intention of making the Oterian pay for what he did to her team on Pteraxis.

“Get in the ship,” Keryn said sternly. “We have a smuggler to kill.”

“You mean catch?” Adam asked.

“I didn’t say catch.”

Without another word, the trio, led by Penchant, found the Cair Ilmun and climbed aboard. A part of Keryn wanted to go to the medical bay and check on McLaughlin. The more sensible side, however, knew that the more she delayed, the better the chance that Cardax would escape. Instead, she turned toward the cockpit and strapped herself into the pilot’s chair. Bypassing the majority of ignition protocols, Keryn cold started the engine and, within moments, the Cair Ilmun was lifting off the planet’s surface.

She didn’t give a warning when she began a heavy acceleration within the planet’s atmosphere. The conflicting gravities between the planet and the inhibitors on the ship made her feel even queasier then before, but she knew that Cardax had a head start. She no longer had the luxury of patience. When they hit the atmosphere, Keryn was nearly tossed from her seat by the impact. At first, the Cair Ilmun skipped like a stone against the protective layer around the planet. Finally, the ship eased through and rocketed into space.

As telemetries came online, the console before her showed two distinct engine signatures. Though they passed through the atmosphere at the same time, they immediately branched off. One began a slow arc away, heading toward the back side of the sun. The second hurtled away from the planet on a trajectory that would take it far outside the system. Keryn immediately read through Cardax’s strategy. The smuggler would burn at a high acceleration out of the system in order to save himself while his support craft would hide behind the sun and launch a surprise attack once she began pursuit. In a normal scenario, Keryn would have been impressed by his tactics. In fact, she would intentionally destroy the guarding craft first before pursuing Cardax. This, unfortunately, was a far from normal situation. Aside from her desire to kill Cardax, the Cair Ilmun had been heavily outfitted with state of the art armor and weapons. Even if Cardax’s support craft ambushed them, Keryn stood a strong chance of destroying both ships with minimal damage to the Cair Ilmun. Confident that she was making the right choice, Keryn accelerated toward Cardax’s ship.

Though she watched the radar to ensure the guardian ship was still traveling toward the sun, Keryn’s focus was on the plasma engine burning brightly before her. With the modified engines, the Cair Ilmun was quickly catching the fleeing craft. Reaching forward, she entered a series of commands into the console and brought her weapons online. A compliment of plasma rockets activated in the launch tubes beneath each wing. Machine guns whirred in preparation for the pending assault. Within the cockpit, Keryn’s violet eyes burned with rage and revenge. Though Cardax was fleeing at maximum speed, he would soon be within targeting range.

On the console, the targeting array turned from green to red, indicating that she was finally within range to fire her first volley. Keryn snarled as her hands fell to the console and she uploaded the final data to her missile launchers. With all preparations completed and Cardax’s ship within her sights, Keryn’s finger hovered over the firing mechanism.

With a pang of remorse, Keryn remembered the training her team had gone through together on the