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Science Fiction Fiction

Thirtieth story!!!


Ok, guys! I've been a bit caught up with my Reedsy cast story, but if there has been anyone waiting for this (which I highly doubt) Here it is!


In the Uprising underwater covert:

Rune paced around the room, formulating a plan. The sniper, Colden, was watching him through the glass. Several times he had tried to spark conversation, and every time, Rune ignored him. Now there was a tense silence, broken by the scuffing of Rune’s boots on the floor.

It was half the day before Rune decided attempting to escape would not work. He would help Artemis, but he might have to change some of his plans.

Rune turned to Colden. “Get Artemis.” he commanded. Colden frowned. “why do you-?” The Lieutenant glared at him. “Just do it.” The sniper shrugged and turned away. He returned a few moments later, Artemis at his side.

“I’ve decided,” Rune said. “But there is one thing I need first.”

“.. your siblings? That may prove harder than you think.” Artemis looked skeptical at Rune’s demand to get his siblings off Zenith. The two of them, along with Colden, stood in the glass control room. Rune stood stiffly with his hands behind his back, gazing into the dark waters beyond the glass.

“I don’t care if it’s hard, I only care if it gets done.” Rune said roughly in reply to Artemis’s statement.

The leader pursed his lips, but nodded. “when do you plan to go?”

“Now.”

An hour later, Rune stood beside Artemis, twenty men in front of them. They all stood in the dimly lit room where the van had been parked. They moved it when Artemis said they were leaving.

“I cannot join you, but you must all keep close together. Follow Rune’s orders, but if something goes wrong, just come back. Your comlinks are connected to mine, so we can keep in touch. Do you all understand?”

All the men nodded, and Artemis turned to Rune. “If you do anything to hurt or escape from my men, you will regret it.”

Rune nodded his understanding and stepped away from Artemis. “I hope to be back by this evening. If we are not, something probably went wrong. See you later. Maybe.”

The twenty rebels, along with Rune, filed into the transport. This was an AT, armed transport. There were two large guns mounted on top of the sleek spacecraft and four on either side. When Rune saw it, he instantly recognized it. It was sarsh technology.

He was confused, but Artemis explained he and his men had stolen many sarsh spacecraft and vehicles over the years that their rebellion had existed. Of course, this slightly miffed Rune. He remembering several times in his life when vehicles randomly disappeared. He quickly shook off his anger, focusing on the task ahead.

Inside the AT, Rune stood aside from the humans, his arms crossed. They were in the hold. Most of the men had strapped themselves down for the liftoff, but Rune stood. He barely moved as the ship rolled forward, out of the base and a few moments later, lifted off the ground. It tilted dramatically as they shot up into the atmosphere, Rune leaned against it and stayed upright. He smirked at the rebels staring wide-eyed at him. There had been absolutely no reason to remain standing except to show off, which is exactly what Rune had been doing. However, his fun quickly ended as he realized they would arrive on Zenith soon. It took a mere few minutes to near the massive, looming circle of a ship.

The AT neared the ship; the rebels unstrapped and stood. They had their weapons at the ready, ones they preferred not use. They said it would be the last resort. Fists, feet and tranquilizer pistols would work just fine. Rune didn’t need any weapons. He was the weapon.

The rebels ship latched onto Zenith without detection. Because it was a sarsh spacecraft, it didn’t trigger the alarm. Artemis had somehow gotten his hands on the entry code to get safely into Zenith. Rune wasn’t particularly pleased with that idea, but he shook his head and decided it was best to not say anything.

Quickly, quietly, the rebels slipped out of the ship. They wore body armor, Artemis called it Kevlar plus. He claimed he had designed it himself. The rebels wore helmets and carried body length shields. Rune had snorted when they handed him one. He gave it back. It would only get in his way.

The twenty soldiers quickly dispatched all the sarsh in the bay, raising no alarms. Rune knew everyone had already seen them. There were cameras everywhere. They had to hurry. He strode in front of the men, leading them rapidly towards his old home. Most everyone was on duty, few women were out and stared at the humans, led by the escaped cybersoldier. A few of them rushed off, no doubt to tell a general. Rune ignored anyone and anything, striding purposefully through the outer ring.

They hadn’t even arrived in the middle ring when they heard a shout behind them. Rune groaned and turned to face their rear. There was a large group of sarsh behind them, their guns all pointed at the small cluster of rebels. “Halt!” the sarsh shouted. “Drop your weapons!”

None of the rebels complied, gripping their weapons harder instead. Rune stepped through the rebels, his arm slid into the blade as he stepped forward. “Let us pass. We are not here to hurt anyone or anything.”

His command was met by another, painfully familiar voice. Orlan. The man who was supposed to keep Rune safe stepped forward. “you’re forgetting something, Lieutenant.” He said simply, calling Rune my his title instead of by name.

Rune tilted his head. “What’s that?” he asked sarcastically. But just then, two things happened.

Rune remembered.

And his mind went blank.

There was a flash of memory, quickly cut off by fuzz. It was if someone stuffed his head full of fog. Rune could feel himself moving, but he could neither control himself nor tell what he was doing.

The rebels watched in horror and confusion as Rune turned and smashed the gun out of one of the rebel’s hands. The man frowned at Rune, peering into his blank eyes. “Rune?” he waved a hand in front of the sarsh’s face. Rune mechanically caught the man’s wrist and twisted it, knocking the man to the floor with a cry of pain. Each of the rebels stepped forward. The leader, an older man, shouted to Rune. “What are you doing, Lieutenant? Didn’t Artemis warn you?”

The sarsh’s head turned, his face entirely devoid of emotion. He pushed his way through the rebels, a few of them latched onto him, weighing him down. He threw them off and continued for the leader.

However, before he could reach him, he pivoted and headed for the group of sarsh, who waited expectantly like this was supposed to happen. What the rebels didn’t know was, it was.

As Rune neared the sarsh, the rebels snapped out of their stupor. They all rushed forward, a few of them taking hold of Rune and the rest clashing with the sarsh. Loud bangs sounded as sarsh shot warning bullets harrowingly close to the rebels. Already, there were several sarsh out cold on the ground and a few rebels nursing bullet wounds. “Abort!” the leader called. “And get the Lieutenant!”

Rune was still fighting his way mechanically through the rebels. His movements were not as smooth and quick as they usually were, so he had many a bruise. There were a few cuts across his face and arms, but he paid no attention to them. He was oblivious to all around him, even to his own body. Because he was not in his right mind, he was slow and more rebels piled on top of him, knocking him to the floor and pinning him down. His head cracked against the floor as he fell and he lay stunned momentarily.

It was only a few seconds before his eyes cleared, but full of confusion and fear at the mass amount of elbows, hands and faces in his line of vision. The rebels were dragged him away from something, he couldn’t remember where he was or what had just happened. His body felt like someone had smashed it. He couldn’t move. “what..you doing?” he grunted, his brow brought together in a line of confusion. A few of them glanced down at him with wary expressions. Their faces were pulled tight with worry and fear. “We had to abort.” one of them said.

Through his befuddled mind, Rune didn’t understand what they meant. He didn’t remember where he was either. He struggled to his feet, all the rebels’ hands still on his arms, supporting him. Rune glanced behind him, saw all the sarsh and his eyes widened. They weren’t attempting to follow, but dispersing. Why were they letting them go? Rune’s fuzzy mind wondered.

The sarsh stumbled, only half conscious. The rebels piled into the transport and slammed the door. The men supporting Rune lowered him onto the seats and strapped him in. Then they rushed about to get away from Zenith as fast as they could.

As the ship detached from Zenith and sped away, Rune slowly remembered what had happened.

They were trying to get his siblings.

Orlan had confronted them, along two dozen other sarsh.

Then it was black, a hole in his memory.

Rune couldn’t recall what had happened after that. It was as if he had been asleep. He remembered snapping out of a daze as if just waking. Nothing else.

Now Rune felt exhausted. His head ached and confusion clouded his mind. Slowly, he slipped into slumber.

He woke to someone touching his shoulder. Rune eyes snapped open, he was momentarily disoriented, but quickly remembered. At least, most of it.

Above him, there was the slightly blurry of face of Colden, the sniper. And beyond that, half a dozen other men, all staring at him. They were still inside the transport, but no longer moving. They must have arrived back at Artemis’s base.

Colden smiled faintly. “I heard you zoned out back there, what happened?” He asked. Rune sat up, rubbing his aching head.

“I remembered something very important too late. I need to speak with Artemis immediately.”

Colden nodded, watching Rune carefully as he stood up. “Just don’t do it again. You wrenched Norman’s shoulder and bruised his back.”

“I don’t remember what I did, give my apologies to anyone I injured.”

“Of course.”

“Now take me to Artemis, please.”

Colden led Rune out of the transport. The sarsh was correct; they were back in the Underwater covert. Must have been asleep the whole journey, Rune thought, flushing slightly. Awkward. He shook the thought off. It didn’t matter; he had bigger problems to attend to.

Artemis was back in the glass control room, it seemed his favorite place to be. He turned at their arrival. He smiled. “How did it go?”

Rune shook his head angrily, disappointment clear on his face. “Horribly. I remembered something too late. We had to abort.”

Artemis frowned. “Let us go to my office. We can talk there. Colden, dismissed.”

The sniper nodded. “see you later, Rune.” he called over his shoulder as he left.

“... you are correct, we are going to have to do something about that. I have several brilliant technicians that can remove the chips. Do you want to try?”

Rune stood before Artemis. The rebel leader sat at his desk, hands folded in the classic leader pose. They were discussing the microchips placed inside Rune’s cybernetic limbs. The sarsh nodded in response to Artemis’s question. “It has to be done whether I want it or not.” Artemis nodded. “let’s go talk to them.”

“We can probably do it in five days, is that agreeable?”

Rune and Artemis stood before the three technicians, Rune towered over all of them. Two of the technicians were women, both with fiery red hair and sparkling eyes. They must be sisters. The other, the man had sandy hair that gleamed in the white lights overhead. They were discussing Rune’s problem of mind control.

“That will work.” Artemis said in response to the male technician’s question. “Do you want to get some rest and something to eat before they begin, Rune?”

The sarsh nodded and the two of them left.

But Rune did not eat, his mind was still muggy and his heart disappointed. He needed his siblings; he wished for peace, and he needed sleep. He got none of these.

After he finished eating, he attempted to rest, but none came and he gave up. He and Artemis made their way back to where the technicians waited for them in a tech-filled room.

“we’ll have to sedate you, you’ll be mostly awake, but you won’t be able to move, okay?” One of the male technicians.

Rune frowned. “Do you have any experience in sedating and working on living people? Not quite the same as a machine.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve done things like this before, it’ll be fine. You’ll be out for a day or so while we work, we’ll snap you out of it so you can rest for real and eat. Is that agreeable?”

Rune nodded. The technician looked him up and down for a minute and then nodded. “your clothing will work fine, though we might have to get a bigger table!”

The sarsh glanced down at his sleeveless, sarsh prison uniform and said nothing in response to the man’s joke, only stared at him with hard, purple eyes. The technician’s smile fell and his eyes slid away from Rune’s hard gaze. “Let’s begin.”

Rune was seated on a padded, waist-height table. There was a crease between his blue eyebrows, he set his mouth into a thin line. The female technician, Thaila, handed him a small cup of thick liquid. Rune downed it one gulp. He instantly felt dizzy. His muscles loosened and relaxed, he sank to one side onto the table. I hate this. He thought, already unable to move his lips.

Lloyd and Lane, the male technicians, rearranged Rune’s limp limbs onto the table. They smiled identical smiles down at him. Rune sighed inwardly. He hated being sedated period, but when he was mostly awake, just couldn’t move, anger boiled inside him. If he wasn’t going to move, he might as well be asleep. But he wasn’t. And now he had to endure the frustration of sleeping without rest. Anything to get his oh-so-loving leaders out of his head. Then, finally, the two men got to work.

It was several hours before Rune actually fell asleep. He woke the next morning with a twinge of pain in his lower back.

Thaila was studying a computer screen off to the side, Lloyd was fiddling with something on Rune’s cybernetic leg that made him want to jerk it away. He couldn’t though. Like when one first wakes from a long sleep, he felt weak. He could shift his fingers and head, but otherwise, nothing obeyed. Lloyd grinned at him when his eyes flickered open.

“I like your eye color.” he said randomly. Rune blinked at him, unable to respond. Lane leaned into his line of vision. “You should be able to move soon, we’ll take you to the bunkrooms to rest.”

Rune shook his head. “I’m not tired, keep going. How much longer is this going to take?”

Lane frowned, thinking. “It is actually going smoother than we thought it was going to, so we’ll probably be finished in another day or two.”

Rune shifted his head and wished he could move. The muscles in his back had tightened and ached. His left leg throbbed, he had forgotten the shallow wound on it in the past day’s confusion. He let out a long breath, drawing Lloyd’s attention to him.

“Are you you alright?” he asked.

“not really.”

“why? did we do something wrong, are you in pain?”

Rune shook his head. “sometimes I just wish I could have real peace.” he whispered.

Thaila heard him and smiled sadly. “I often wish the same, I’ve only found peace in the Lord.”

Rune turned his head to her. “what did you say? What lord?”

Thaila shook her head. “sorry, I forgot sarsh don’t believe in the Creator. Forget I said anything.”

The sarsh sagged and sighed. His head was fuzzy, he had no idea what Thaila was talking about.

He fell asleep again.

March 26, 2021 20:54

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3 comments

TJ Squared
15:53 Nov 07, 2021

Ooooo yes! Bring God into this!!! Yayayayayay! Still awesome as ever ;)))) the character development is just a m a z I n g no joke

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Creed .
01:49 Nov 08, 2021

OH, yes. I plan to include God lots and lots as the story goes on, and in the next book.

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TJ Squared
03:09 Nov 08, 2021

Yayayayayay :D

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