~ * ~ * ~
In a room high above the streets, Rafian VCA sat with Lucci Vadosh—a Ranalos war hero and fellow Mera Ku martial arts master—and a host of other resistance fighters. Lucci was a legendary leader in the underground movement and was responsible for their success on old Talula. He had met Rafian one day while selling rare cyber-knives, and when Rafian met him with their fellowship’s bow, he gave him his deadliest knife for free.
Lucci took Rafian in as an apprentice in the Mera Ku arts and became his comrade in military affairs. They had become quick friends and fought alongside each other in many skirmishes across the city of Veece. The Ranalos master was invincible in Rafian’s eyes, and Rafian yearned to have the skill and cunning to match his friend.
The discussion in progress was on the affairs of Talula. It seemed that Lucci needed help on the old moon. The plan was for a small mobile unit to move upon one of the Felitians’ primary training camps. They would kill stray units while moving slowly on the camp.
Looking over at Rafian, Lucci pointed at him and said, “This will be our leader for the expedition.”
Not knowing why he was selected for the job, Rafian reluctantly accepted but quickly explained his “wanted” status on Talula.
“That’s quite fine, my friend,” the Ranalos said. “You are on the list now, brother. You are an enemy of the Felitians, and it is very well known. We will hit Dearin, Talula, covertly and then run the lands towards the Fel camp. The only thing you need to worry about is bringing us victory.”
Ranalos eyes always glossed over with an odd light, and that was how they blinked, due to having no eyelids on their large, orb-like eyes. Rafian was still not used to seeing it, but he watched it flicker several times on Lucci’s face before nodding.
Leaning back in his chair, Rafian looked off into the distance and sighed. He had not been back to Talula since his escape with Riyah. It brought up painful memories, and he wished he could completely forget about her. Maybe this was fated, he thought.
The next day, Lucci provided him with a false ID card, and they boarded a shuttle that was heading towards Talula. It was a small shuttle, and thanks to Lucci’s well-planned disguises, they sat next to a couple of Felitian troopers, who were unaware of them as resistance members. For Rafian, it was odd being so close to the enemy without fighting them, and the trip seemed to last forever. When they finally touched down, he was all too eager to be away from the starport and away from the soldiers he had grown to hate.
The two monks checked out of the large lobby and were met by a shady fellow who was heavily armed under a closed trench coat. Glancing for a second at Rafian, the fellow greeted Lucci warmly and motioned them to enter a car.
Lucci’s friend seemed very dangerous and was dressed as if he meant to take on the Fels by himself. Every item on his person was black, even the five or six guns he had strapped to his body, and he bore the tattoo of the Bounty Hunter Guild—a mark to be feared by anyone who knew about them. He mostly spoke in a whisper and was so quiet that Rafian wondered if Lucci was hearing everything he was saying to him as they drove.
“Rafian, this is Eagle,” Lucci finally said. “He’s my best friend and probably the galaxy’s most dangerous bounty hunter. He says we are going to rendezvous with a man named Kael for the raid.”
Rafian took in the lush Talulan landscape at a glance and thought deeply as he nodded. It was a sunny day, and the wind smelled of Vendris, the native blue flowers that Riyah used to love. Eagle was extremely unfriendly, but that was always the nature of bounty hunters, at least in Rafian’s experience. This made sense to him, as they regarded everyone as a couple hundred credits away from being a potential mark.
They made it to the landing zone where they were supposed to meet Kael, and it turned out to be a bushy expanse of field that was bordered on three sides by dense forest. Kael DAL was a dark-skinned man like Rafian, but he had long, gray hair that flowed down his back, and the spikey bones that jutted from his jaw revealed that he was part Daltak.
He was a noble-looking resistance fighter, but this wasn’t reflected in his speech as he stumbled over the plans for the night to follow. Rafian listened and relayed his own thoughts, instructing Kael’s group of six to scout the main Felitian headquarters inside the town. They would rendezvous later, communicating by old radio, a technique the resistance used to stay off the airwaves of the Felitian spies.
Shunning all covert tricks while in the bush, Rafian quickly dressed himself partly in darsteel armor—stolen from the Felitian museum—and partly in a Mera Ku robe. He had grown more serious about the training and was slowly converting to the spiritual side of things. The armor and robes had become his trademark look, with the mustard-colored breastplate, white shoulder pads, matching bracers, Mera Ku Hakama, and metallic, resistance-issue steel-toed boots to complete the ensemble.
His weapon for today was his newly acquired war staff. As part of a swordsman’s training, this was a weapon of choice due to its enormous heft and the incredible discipline required to master it. It was also devastating in close combat, especially towards blast-resistant machine-types.
Lucci and Eagle seemed to be at home in the bush, floating through the tall grass and trees like panthers. Rafian stuck close to them as they crawled, and after two hours of tracking, they made motion to camp and take a break. Pointing east, Lucci spoke. “The Fels are just over that hill about a mile away. We’ll camp here until night, and then we’ll make our move.”
Calming his nerves to slow his heart, Rafian carefully stared east as if to visualize the upcoming battle. This was very different from the raids he had become accustomed to. “Look alive, all, we have company,” he announced, and the others filed forward to see for themselves.
“Yup, that’s a troop coming,” Lucci said. He motioned for his two trained Ro-cats to come over. The cats were part of Lucci’s legend because they loved Felitian flesh as much as their master did. They were huge feline droids formed from scrap metal, and their demeanor made Rafian uncomfortable. The cats were always quiet, and they had cloaking technology, which made them the ultimate predators.
“That thicket of aplopes over yonder can conceal us,” Rafian said, suggesting the old resistance trick of hiding among aplope bushes to avoid body-heat detection by Felitian scanners. The smell was never pleasant, but the reward of stealth was always worth it. The trio of men scurried over to the bushes, and while it was hot to the touch, they hunkered down and waited while Lucci petted the wiry manes of the two killer cats.
The troop neared their position, and they could make out three cadets and an instructor.
“Sha!” Lucci whispered to the cats, and instantly they broke from the aplope bush, sprinting towards the troop. The poor fools could not react fast enough, and one fell from having his throat torn out.
In the confusion, they barely noticed the three rebels approaching them, but when they did, they began firing, some to hold back the cats, while others aimed at the fighters. Gunshots flew past Rafian as the troop leader suddenly caught fire and went down screaming. Eagle had sealed his fate and the man’s face melted as if it were plastic.
Finishing off the others in a barrage of kicks and staff blows, the small party proceeded to the north and pounced on another unexpected troop. The ambush games went on like this until they heard an alarm. Worried about his reconnaissance people, Rafian radioed Kael to get an update.
“Hey, Kael, what’s going on?” he whispered into the radio.
It was quite evident that Kael was out of breath, as he could barely speak. “I’m so sorry, sir. We’ve been detected. I couldn’t control the men! One guy ran in recklessly, and now we have Fel troopers combing the area.”
Frustrated, Rafian relayed the message to Lucci. “We need to leave fast!” he said, and then the ground began shaking.
“What the hell is that?” Rafian asked, and then he saw it. An air-to-ground mechanized drone was coming towards them. It was one of the large
floating tanks that the Felitians used for mass destruction. As a single unit, they began running as laser fire peppered the ground around them. They outran the machine and gained the clearing, but before they could make it to the car, Lucci stopped Rafian short.
“Rafian, Eagle and I are going to go back.” This didn’t make sense to Rafian, and he inquired why.
“This is what Eagle and I do all the time. Trust me. Get off of Talula, and I’ll radio you the details later.”
Nodding in spite of himself, Rafian wished his friend good luck and started back on the long drive to Dearin and then home to Tyhera. He had never flown a flying car before, but somehow, the controls came naturally to him. He was at the starport in a matter of hours and then on Tyhera by the following afternoon.
Hours later, over a large bowl of soup, Rafian received a call. “Hello, brother, its Lucci Vadosh. I see you made it back in one piece.”
“Hey, old man, I see you made it. What’s the body count for the Fels?”
There was a bit of a pause before Lucci continued. It sounded as if he was at a camp, eating. “Let’s just say we killed every last cadet in that facility, my friend. The Felitians will not be having a fresh batch of troopers coming from our moon anytime soon.”
This was major, and Rafian could not believe his ears. “You men are unbelievable. Well done, Lucci!” he exclaimed.
Excited about the huge success of Lucci’s revenge run, Rafian eagerly summoned his friends to share the news with them. They celebrated with a round of beers at the saloon and tipped the dancers heavily that night. When he had sobered after the celebration, an empty feeling came over Rafian about the mission. The tactics and bravery of Lucci and Eagle had brought success, but in the grand scheme of things, they were detected and routed, so in fact, the operation was a failure.
Talula would now be under the microscope of the Felitians just as Cally was, and for what? He thought they were capable of much more than that. The ideal operations would be the covert ones in which the Felitians would lose a lot, but the resistance would not have to atone for much more than they already did. He pondered this for an extremely long time and then got up to return home.