Prologue

Beta Fringe

15 Years Ago

0601 hours (GST)

A shrill whistle pierced Merkan’s dreams and sent him leaping from his bed. He had heard that sound before, but only in training exercises. It was the unmistakable sound of incoming.

The shell exploded close, no more than two or three houses from his. He was nearly deafened by rocks and rubble pounding the outside wall of his bedroom. Not bothering to don a shirt he sprinted to the front door, grabbing his father’s pistol from the hall table on his way out.

Once in the street the heavy pistol kept his small hand pinned by his hip, but he dared not let go. To his left he saw another house hit hard by a shell as bits of concrete wall and furniture were tossed into the packed dirt at his feet. Taking a step back, he shielded his eyes from possible debris. Suddenly his mother reached out from behind him and dragged him back inside his house.

“Merkan! What do you plan on doing out there? You’re not even dressed!” She seemed more interested in what he wasn’t wearing than the destruction all around them. She said something else as she bent down to dust the dirt off his shoulders, but his attention was drawn to the sky by the sound of engines streaking overhead. Tri-foils, maybe they can stop the shelling.

His father came out of his parents’ room buckling the last few straps of his armor. It was the standard but proud maroon armor of his clan; he wore it well.

Walking up to Merkan, his father wordlessly set one hand on his shoulder as he knelt down and looked him meaningfully in the eyes. Reaching out, he retrieved his sidearm from his son. Holstering it he stood and marched out the door without looking back. Merkan wanted to say something to his father, to call out to him, but it didn’t feel right.

He looked to his mother to decide what to do and found her staring after his father proudly. Once he was gone her attention shifted back to Merkan and she gestured for him to follow. He noticed now that she toyed with her pendant before tucking it into the breastplate of her own armor. She always had that deep red crystal on her. It was her trophy from her first battle, and she said that fiddling with it reminded her that she could make it through just about any situation. Judging by how fast her fingers were moving around it before she hid it away, this situation must be bad.

She guided him down into the basement, bracing him against the continual shudder of close impacts. Once they reached the bomb shelter that his father had built not two months prior his mother finally spoke again. “Merkan, stay here until either your father or I come to get you. No matter what, Merkan.”

With that she closed the door. He could hear her run back up the stairs as he locked himself in. The only thing to keep him company from that point on was the tidal sounds of battle as they ebbed and flowed around him.

It wasn’t long before the shelling and its deafening roar once again enveloped his neighborhood. One sound stuck out. It was an odd sound, slightly different from the others but somehow louder. Instead of a shrill whistle it was more like the wind rushing by his ears while riding a horse, except far more intense.

For a brief second the sound stopped. Then came a flash nearly as bright as a tiny sun. A force unlike anything he had ever felt hit his entire body at once, throwing him across the shelter. He more heard than felt his head strike the duracrete wall, and his vision quickly faded to black.

When he came to he was buried in small bits of concrete and a pile of dust. The door to the shelter was bent from the top corner down, just enough for him to climb out. It definitely wasn’t safe to stay here any longer. Besides that, he was tired of hiding. He had made it through an entire year of combat training already and was eager to join the fight. If his parents could go out and beat back these intruders, then he would too.

Climbing out of the ruins that used to be his home, he steeled himself before entering the street. He didn’t know how long it had been since he last stood in this spot, but he no longer recognized his surroundings. The smell was the first thing he noticed in the smoke filled street. It was a mix of red powder, concrete dust and burnt flesh; it was a smell he would never forget.

Buildings sat burning or destroyed, bodies lay scattered about; some he recognized, many he didn’t. Some were even from alien races he couldn’t hazard a guess at, even after his extensive xenology classes.

Fighting back tears of pain or anger, he wasn’t sure which, he grabbed a rifle off of one of the fallen, performed a quick functions check, and began limping down the street. A shooting pain manifested in his ankle, causing him to limp more with each step. To top it off the rifle was unwieldy, being most of his height in length, and staggered his step even more.

As he knelt down to inspect his injury he heard a clicking sound from up ahead. It sounded like metal tapping lightly on battle gear. He knew that sound. His instructors had trained him specifically to avoid making that sound on the battlefield. They said it was a sign of an undisciplined soldier who was too lazy to secure their gear from banging around and giving away their position.

Through the smoke he watched, frozen, as soldiers took position in the ruins in front of him, aiming their weapons at him and shouting. All he could think of was that they were in his friend Terek’s living room. His thoughts wandered to where Terek was. He couldn’t remember if their family had a bomb shelter or not.

“Hold your fire.” A commanding female voice nearly silenced the roar of battle in the background. He looked for its source. Stepping out into the street was a sight that nearly made him forget all the weapons being pointed at him.

A feminine feline figure stood before him, clothed entirely in a formfitting black suit of armor that seemed to shimmer in the center of the breastplate. Her hands hung near her hips, each loosely clasping a sai. Her tail swung back and forth behind her almost nonchalantly. The fur that he could see was a dark orange with a black, stripe-like pattern. She was so lithe, so vibrant, so lethal, so … perfect. But her eyes were what stood out the most. Bright emeralds that seemed to bore into him, learning mysteries about himself that even he didn’t know. He stared in awe, motionless, speechless.

“This one is harmless — for now. He has potential though.” She sheathed both her sai as she walked up to him and slowly took away his rifle. “Continue on mission, I will take this child back to the Abbot General.”

She looked down at him with a predatory smile. “This is the beginning of your story, little krii, not the end.”

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