War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past (34 page)

Nimesha was sitting outside of Anlon's house
when a car zoomed past her. A humanoid and the female that was
always with Anlon had rushed inside his house and hadn't come out
in over thirty minutes. Usually this wouldn't bother her, but the
urgency the two had shown upon arrival nagged at her. It was too
soon to do anything, and if she decided to, she'd have to take all
three of them out, which she really didn't want to do. A pair of
binoculars were in her bag and she pulled them out to see what the
three of them were doing in the house.

They seemed to be packing and a cruiser was
out front that hadn't been there the day before, making her wonder
if they had found she was following them. Letting them escape now
would be a fatal mistake, so she hopped on her glider and sped
towards the house. The glider came to a stop behind a car and she
pulled out a laser pistol, loading a power pack.

She would strike when they left the house. It
would be in broad daylight in the open, but she would get the job
done and make sure that there were no survivors. Kirill said he
didn't care how it was done, so this was how she was going to do
it.

Adira opened her comlink to send a message to
the Council, teasing the traitor with information. Instead of
calling a meeting right away about her daughter's whereabouts, she
would drag it out and make them wait a full day. The traitor would
surely tell Kirill and the wait would gnaw away at him.

She started recording her message:

I'm sending you all a very urgent message.
I'm afraid I can't convene the Council right now because I'm on
urgent business, but I will keep you updated on all recent
events.

My daughter has been found! I'm afraid she
wasn't found before an attempt to capture her. The Deimos
Brotherhood has struck again. The traitor among us revealed my
daughter's name through carefully placed bugs in my chambers. My
contact was able to thwart the attack and kill the kidnapper,
fortunately for Orion.

As of right now, my daughter is in
protective custody, once again. She will be safe from any further
attempts from the enemy. I couldn't risk bringing her here after
they found out her name, they would've surely intercepted her and
taken her from me. I will call a meeting tomorrow to go over recent
events in deeper detail.

Sincerely,

Queen Adira.

Adira grinned to herself. She really
shouldn't have sent that message out, but she couldn't help but
take shots at Kirill. Ever since she had found out he was the
leader of the Deimos Brotherhood, she knew he would stop at nothing
to take over Orion. This message would show him that it wouldn't be
as easy as he first planned and that she was still ultimately in
control. Going down easily wasn't in her nature, as she knew it
wasn't in his, but she was confident she could outlast him just
long enough to ensure Orion's safety.

Anlon had shown Kanti and Camillus the stash
of weapons kept in his dad's office. He also told them about the
shed, but insisted that there was no time to go there to gather any
weapons. The cache in the office would be more than enough for
their mission, and nothing was stopping them from coming back
later. Right now, they had to get off of Gaea quickly and going to
the shed would only slow them down. After they had everything
packed that they needed for the long journey, Anlon led them to the
cruiser parked out front.

"Where'd you get this?" Kanti asked, eying
the cruiser. "I definitely haven't seen this out here before."

He threw their bags in the back and put some
weapons up front. "It was one of the many things hidden underneath
the shed."

Camillus rubbed his hand down the side. "A
Centaur 454. One of the Queen's special cruisers for her special
ops teams."

"That's cool," Anlon hopped in. "I'm sure we
can go over the specs later when we aren't being hunted down by
assassins."

Anlon waited for Camillus and Kanti to get in
and fired up the engine. The cruiser hummed to life and he lifted
it off of the ground, making sure not to take it too high because
he didn't want to stand out. Before he was able to reach the end of
the street, he turned to another humming noise emanating from
behind him.

"Just some lady on a glider bike," Kanti told
him.

Camillus turned around to take a look and
then nudged at Anlon. "You need to move faster."

"Why?" Anlon asked. "I don't want to attract
attention."

"It's too late!" Camillus warned. "The lady
on the glider bike behind us is Nimesha. She's a one of the
deadliest, if not the deadliest, assassin in the Deimos
Brotherhood. We've been located. Speed up the cruiser now!"

"How do you know that?" Anlon started
speeding up the cruiser. "You just looked at her."

"Facial recognition is one of the many things
I can do. Just listen to what I tell you if you want to..."

Before Camillus finished the sentence, the
cruiser was taking heavy laser fire from Nimesha. Small turrets had
come out from the sides of her glider and they were firing nonstop.
Anlon kept the cruiser low to the ground swerving back and forth,
trying to evade her without firing any return shots. Unfortunately,
the glider was too quick and nimble, quickly gaining ground on
them.

He looked to Camillus. "Grab the wheel!"

"What are you doing, Anlon?" Camillus grabbed
it immediately. "We just need to evade her."

"I'm shooting back," he answered, picking up
his laser pistol. "If I don't do anything, she'll kill us all!"

"What about attracting attention? There will
be cops on us in minutes!" Kanti shouted.

"Too late for that. We have a cat woman
trying to kill us!"

He aimed his pistol at her and shot. Nimesha
easily shifted the bike to dodge the shot and got right back on
track. Anlon continued firing, but every shot was evaded with ease
while their own cruiser was still taking heavy fire.

"She's still coming!" Anlon shouted over his
shoulder to Camillus, who was focusing on driving. "I'm going to
try something else."

Anlon reached under the seat and pulled out a
cannon launcher. He rummaged around on the floor until he found the
ammo that he wanted to use: electrostatic shock. He pressed the
button for the cartridge to open and loaded the ammo inside as
Camillus jerked the cruiser back and forth to avoid oncoming
fire.

"What happened to stopping Nimesha?" Camillus
shouted over his shoulder. "You plan on doing it anytime soon?"

"Yeah, I'm working on it!" Anlon put the
cannon launcher on his shoulder.

"That's going to attract a ton of attention!"
Kanti protested. "We can't just start blowing things up in the
middle of the street!"

"It's a little late to worry about attracting
attention, and besides, I'm only going to blow her up not the
entire street."

He aimed it at Nimesha and saw the grin
almost immediately leave her face. The ammo left the launcher and
headed straight towards her, enveloping the bike and a blue mist of
electricity before exploding in a cloud of black smoke.

"She's gone," Anlon slouched back in the
seat, dropping the cannon launcher.

"You just blew her up!" Kanti yelled. "Of
course she's gone!"

"That was the point," Anlon replied. "This is
what life is going to be like now. Kirill is going to send more
assassins after us and we have to kill them, otherwise we'll be the
ones who are killed."

She put her face in her hands. "I know, but I
just didn't think we'd actually be
killing
races. It feels
so wrong taking lives."

Anlon kept his hand on her, trying to make
her feel better. There was no question that there would be a next
time. The Deimos Brotherhood would never give up and everyone on
the cruiser knew that. Camillus lifted the cruiser half a mile in
the air and applied full throttle, sending their backs into the
seats.

When the apartment came into view, Camillus
lowered the cruiser to the ground and started grabbing equipment
out of the cruiser. Anlon looked at Kanti and gave her a reassuring
look that everything was going to be okay as they both got out of
the cruiser to get the rest of the supplies.

"Quite a show you put on out there," Moran
said unimpressed. "Did you think about being quiet?"

"You know?" Kanti asked, still wiping tears
from her eyes.

Moran nodded and motioned them towards the
elevator. "Already on the news. You're lucky they haven't found you
guys yet. The streets are littered with District police trying to
find who caused all of that. It won't be long until they track that
cruiser to my place."

"Even more reason to leave Gaea," Camillus
said.

"We didn't plan on it," Anlon stepped on to
the elevator. "A Deimos Brotherhood assassin came out of nowhere
and started shooting. The cannon launcher was the only way to take
her out without her killing one of us first."

Moran pressed the roof button on the pad.
"Oh, I believe you, trust me. Kirill would only send his best after
you now that the Princess is with you. I'm sure that the cannon
launcher was the only way to get the job done with no prior
experience," Moran patted him on the shoulder. "You'll get better
at using your rifles and pistols with more practice."

When they reached the roof, the doors slid
open revealing a small landing pad with a ship.

"Who's the humanoid by the way?" Moran nudged
Anlon. "Is that Camillus?"

"Yeah. He's apparently worked for the Queen
for a long time."

"Just never seen one of those things in
person before. I've heard of some of the things they can do. Very
smart and very dangerous. You're lucky he's on our side and not the
other side."

"He identified Nimesha just by looking at
her," Anlon revealed.

"You'll definitely need him along with you.
He'll be able to help you out a lot more on this mission than
anyone I could send with you."

They stopped at the small stealth craft that
was long and slender, obviously not built for long travel with more
than two people.

"That's what we're flying in?" Kanti
asked.

"Yeah," Moran looked to her. "You got a
problem with it?"
"How are we all going to fit in that? There's barely any room for
the two that it's designed to fit."

Moran grabbed their supplies from them and
stuffed it in storage compartment underneath. "We're all going to
squeeze in. That's how we're all going to fit."

Kanti turned to Anlon. "Don't look at me,"
Anlon chuckled. "I didn't know what we'd be flying in."

"There is enough room for four," Camillus
calculated. "It will be a tight fit, but we'll manage for the short
trip."

"Thank you," Moran said. "We're only
traveling to Hermes anyway, it's not that long of a trip,
relatively speaking anyway."

"You still could've got something bigger,"
She lifted herself in the ship. "It's not going to be fun squished
in this ship."

Moran got in the pilot seat. "I'm sorry, your
majesty, but last time I checked, time was of the essence. I didn't
have time to get a fancy ship for you."

Anlon laughed. "Shut up. It's not funny,
Anlon," Kanti shot a glare at him that silenced him
immediately.

Anlon sat next to Kanti and Camillus squeezed
in on the other side of her, completely sandwiching her between the
two of the and she let out a frustrated sigh.

"Everyone comfortable?" Moran turned around.
"Excellent," he answered before Kanti could say anything. "Next
stop, Hermes!"

He lifted the small ship off of the roof and
darted towards the sky. It was a rough ride, but soon they were off
of Gaea and on their way to Hermes.