Onidus 2
I left Moonshine, the new Aegeris wolf pack’s mothership, after a short visit to check on their growing fleet.
Two years have passed since they left their homeworld of Mindor to the Luna Shifters and began building their own pack among the stars in our older ships, ones we had planned to retire anyway.
But my reprieve was all too brief. Now I’m deep in another battle on the Roscazkan homeworld, trying to save their last colony from annihilation.
War is all I think about, all I do, all I feel. For a moment, watching Zorin, Azrim, and Tessi build a family, a new pack with their followers, and play with their young pups, I had a glimpse of what my life could’ve been like. But now it’s gone again in flashes of fire and blood.
Lumen Command couldn’t pull many of us for the mission, but Thorians got the call and sent the squads they could.
The Aegeris pack wanted to join, but they’re still too new to the federation and in the middle of upgrades to their ships to be considered battle-ready. Nevertheless, Ignus has come with me.
But this is his homeworld, the one he fled as a child. Aegeris loyalists raised him. And he seems to prefer taking the wolf Shifter form.
Every world I’m sent to carries the same story. Nebulous soldiers arrive, pillage food and medicine stores, abduct females and gifted individuals, then leave the world in smoking ruin. Roscazka is the same.
I am a tool, like my fellow Isonian soldiers, which Lumen Command and the Federation wield against the empire. I’ve lost myself somewhere along the way. I cannot define myself apart from the others except by scars and skills and stories of war.
Smolders often experience a personal disconnect.
I promised myself I wouldn’t. But I did.
I Mask it well with a simple fa?ade that I conjure at the front of my mind, hiding the hollow soul I am underneath my smirk.
Only those with skills of Aural Discernment can see what I hide, and none of them dare challenge me for the reason why.
Devrus, our Roscazkan contact who asked for help, charges across the ash-covered ground as a wolf shifter.
I run alongside him with Ramage, a great big blue Thorian with a voice like an avalanche and an equally stout sword he wields like it’s a feather.
Ignus bounds along to my left on all fours like Devrus.
Ramage and I fire upon the Vulturous faction of the Nebulous Empire, a nightmarish mishmash of augmented Mindoran-Nebulous half-breeds. Their ship engines thunder in the distant forest with the promise of taking off.
Myndrous return fire as they scramble onto their loaded prisoner hovercarts with the last of the Roscazkan, who shift in a variety of hues as they strain to get free of the shielded walls. Their begging eyes and the way they pound in the shielded bars eat at me.
I know. I’m running as fast as I can. My Vibrance glides my steps into fast and broad bounds to match Ramage’s pace. The Myndrous spool up their hoverpads with whistling hums and race away from the walls of the last colony on the torched planet.
We are all weary from combat. Five Nebulous cruisers burn behind us with twelve of our federation ships. Hundreds of Myndrous and Nebs have died, along with many of our own. And I’m left wondering if the sacrifices are worth it.
Ignus charges up beside me, muscle jostling like the Mindoran shifters he calls family now.
The transports have to be stopped, or the Roscazkan will end up like Lazariots and Lathlions, or worse, extinct like the Larisiens. Ignus is telepathic in his shifter form, but also in every other. Only Smoldren and up in Isonian forces have such capability.
Any maneuver we make must be effective the first time. We cannot afford more casualties, I reply.
The Nebs won’t stop. They multiply at alarming rates because they steal females of every species and claim them as their own.
I target a transport ahead of us. The others in our makeshift squadron do the same. Ignus charges behind a hovercraft that glides around a smoking hut. Devrus takes another to my right. Ramage sprints past Devrus and leaps toward another loaded hovercart.
Up and down our line, I see my brother Isonians, Thorians, and the few Roscazkans healthy enough to fight, chasing the Vulturous.
To jump like the larger Thorians and leap onto the hovercarts like the Roscazkans, I have to draw on the universe’s energy to assist me.
I am so empty inside when I open my hands that I am like the void, siphoning more power than most of my kind—a dangerous amount.
I envision what I want it to do, and it listens.
Throwing my hands down, I channel the power.
It manifests in orbs of raging gold light and fire that launch me upward, through the scalding air of the burning world and over the capture cell on the back of the hovercart.
As I fall toward the control deck, I close my fists, snuff out the blaze, then grab the knife from my belt.
Drawing my gun would be too slow, and it isn’t as useful in close combat like this.
I land hard on the captain’s platform behind two Myndrous.
They turn toward me as I thrust my blade into the closest, twist it, and shove him off the platform.
As the Neb-sized beast with Mindoran fur slips off of my knife, the second takes a swing at me with a pulsing blade that makes my scarred face twitch.
He’s taller than me, so I duck and thrust my knife upward and into his chest.
He staggers. I lift my other hand and focus on the radiant security chip in the sternum of his carapace. I think about tearing it free from his uniform. It rips out and plants in my palm. I shove him back with a boot, tear my gun out, and shoot him before his body hits the ground.
I don’t want them to die at all, but they deserve their end.
And I hate that this is what must happen for Myndrous to stop abducting, torturing, and killing anyone not their kind.
They didn’t ask to be born into a nightmare and pumped full of mutational nanos and plated with prosthetics.
They simply don’t know any other way because their empire corrupted their minds.
A string of bullets tears by my head. I’m not fast enough to summon my suit’s shield and have to drop behind the shelter of the dash controls. But I can’t stay here forever. I also don’t want to waste my shield power until it’s necessary because it’s a finite system, like my gun.
The universe’s energy is infinite. I am only limited by my Vibrance and how much I can take. But we have already been in battle for hours. I’m fatigued. We all are. But now is not the time to get sloppy. And the reminder I am is a harsh one.
I peek out, find the Myndrous soldier, the Nebs’ version of working dogs, and return fire, taking out one of the pilots of the hovercart that Ignus climbs over. He leaps forward and tears through the Myndrous before clawing apart the dash and shutting down the hovercart.
Ramage smashes a fist into the controls of his hovercart, and he fades behind me too. Beyond him, I see Iryssius and Ulian from my team in a blaze of gold light, trying desperately to gain control of the carts they’ve claimed.
We fought like hell through the Myndrous raid to get to the Roscazkans.
I called in for support, but our kind is spread out across the galaxy.
No one will get here in time. Roscazkans don’t have any ships left.
Thorian vessels are cumbersome and too heavy for abrupt maneuvers to capture survivors.
Ground forces are all we have that we can risk.
The few ships we have must be saved, or we will have no way off of this world when the war is done.
I hover the chip over the controls, shut the cart down, and unlock the prison shield. Roscazkans scramble over each other to get off the platform. They run back the way we’ve come.
As my hope runs out and I fear them being picked off by Nebs without someone to stay behind and guard them, my earcom crackles.
“Onidus, Azrim. Come in.”
I look up and step off of the platform, wondering why it sounds like my friend is on a carrier ship instead of his mothership with his pregnant mate. “I read. What are you doing here?”
“Wasn’t going to leave Ignus’ kind without our support when he nearly gave everything to save ours.
” A modified Isonian carrier with a howling wolf painted on the hull thunders in behind us, shields blazing in the heat of enemy fire.
It spits golden fighters from the sides that storm across the sky, confronting the Neb fleet.
“We’ll pick them up. Just cut them free! ”
I adjust my earcom frequency to our ground forces. “Aegeris has come to carry civilians away. Just break them loose!”
Fighters zoom in with radiant salvage nets.
Ignus, who has taken another hovercart down range, looks back, sees his pack Alpha’s ship, and rips out the throat of the last Myndrous. He smashes the monster’s suit to the dash and gets access. Then, he shuts the hovercart down.
Ignus and I leave the carts we’ve stopped and run for the next closest ones, still headed for the Nebulous transports.
They’ve set down far from the colony, hidden beyond a smoking forest. The dark gray Nebulous and Myndrous soldiers torched the ground until it was only charcoal and ash, then snuck in under the steaming cover of natural camouflage.
Devrus takes down a cart in his natural pale-gray upright form, shifts into a wolf, and jumps into a run. Ignus, Devrus, and I group together as Ramage races up with an empty hovercart.
“Get on my little friends!” the Thorian roars in triumph.
Devrus curls his lip as we hop onto the platform. “I am not little!”
Ramage powers up the thrusters and chases the remaining carts. “You are small to me. But we still fight as friends in battle! Smash that regulator, would you?”
I look down at the protruding box and crush it under a heel. The cart surges faster until the wind tugs at our armor and hair.