Marie Sanders: Planet Falta, third cycle, the planetary year 10438
Field medics carried her into the Ferlan's army medical tent. It was made of fabric dyed in teal and crimson that made for a good camouflage in the valley of Bright. She could not feel her left arm, but her right leg was the source of hellish pain. Pain impulses raced up her nerves and contested for the title of who would cause the most suffering after arriving at her brain.
Ferlan surgeon slid into her view with a dreadful look on his face. Although all Ferlans looked alike, she remembered this one from the war council. Stegalar was a personal doctor of the Ferlan court. She was honored and worried.
“Have no worries, Miss Sanders. We will do our best to return you to your natural appearance. “ Stegalar spoke with his mellow flute-like voice, trying to employ most of his knowledge of human speech.
“My Elemental…I can’t feel him. What happened?” she spoke, and her dry throat made her every word raspy.
“Anti-magilium explosion, your magilium abilities are expected to be impaired, and your elemental spells as well. Your magilium is similar to Ferlan, with no mag-force transferring particles, no magilium. Anti-magilium bomb gathers and compresses mag-particles, and when mag-particles try to expand back, boom! Heat pushes atmosphere around it and breaks bones, organs, a terrible device.“ Stegalar responded with a lecture. He was a professor, after all.
“We will give something for pain, yes. Ferlan do not feel pain, so I was astounded to learn of such a thing from you, Miss Sanders, but hyrea root tincture would help. There is no doubt. It has never been tested, true, but my mixtures never fail, so rest assured. “ he said while making her drink the sticky bitter black liquid.
“Oh, sweet forefathers, this stuff kicks like a mule Steg. “ she said as she passed out. She could swear she heard Stegalar laugh.
****
She was rarely dreaming, especially not about her past. Most of her memories before she became Exonerated were wiped clean. It was a requirement of her contract. She did know about herself, her likes and dislikes, what kind of person she was, some parts about her family, a few childhood memories, mostly about her life in her family house, but nothing about her outdoor activities. She wondered what was so problematic about her knowledge of her home planet that it had to be taken away from her.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Her dream started strangely. She felt anxious and scared, and then the whole world was slowly built around her. Everything played in slow motion, her stepping on the spring-activated magilium device, the characteristic ping as it sprung up from the ground, and something akin to the electric whine as it sucked all mag-particles around her. She knew it would cost her when she saw a fancy Ferlan landmine slowly spinning in front of her left arm that she raised to shield her face. The bright flash temporarily burned her corneas, and a rapidly expanding hot compressed air did the rest. She lay motionless, blinded, deafened, and with her pain receptors fighting for attention, just to all meld in one single symphony of suffering.
She was sent to Falta by Adjusters to quell the civil war, but that proved to be undoable. Especially when her Elemental went dormant for reasons unknown to her. She missed the times when her Elemental was awake. She did not need to breathe, eat, or sleep. She was incomparably more productive, and she felt less fragile. Humanity crept back into her life and made her uncomfortable, vulnerable, and naked in a world where humans would not survive for long. She missed seeing Elemental’s memories and hearing it hum in her head. Its melodic humming was akin to the Airstriker cockpit air recyclers. Wait, what is the Airstriker?
Her dreamscape changed. She was now in some flying machine. Raindrops were sliding down her cockpit dome combining into little water streaks. They looked alive, like a thousand little rivers living their secret life. In front of her eyes, the HUD was overcrowded with data written in a language she could not read. The letters were so beautiful, so artistic, so familiar.
“ Darnak? Sernam, Irn ams sezul.” said someone with a familiar voice. It sounded young and afraid.
Letters on the HUD gave place to something that looked like a tactical map. Aircraft banked left, and the city below came into view. It was a beautiful city shrouded in darkness and wet from the rain. It was illuminated only by fires consuming multiple buildings. She could not see people on the streets, terrified, dying, wondering why was this evil happening. That thought hit her harder than she expected. She watched the city disappear from view as aircraft leveled with the ground after finishing the course change. The pilot was angry. Marie felt that anger like it was her own. Anger and despair. She then heard a loud gasp. Aircraft sensors tracked the enemy missile moving impossibly fast. It was just an instant red blip on the screen. The aircraft banked sharply to the right to protect the pilot from the blast, probably a programmed automatic defense response.
It did not help. She was too close to the blast. Machine, and a human, fighting together to stay alive, now trying to elude the bloodthirsty predator death was. The blast wave sent the aircraft spinning and blew most of the electronics. The pilot tried altering the course manually, but the aircraft did not respond the damage was probably too great. The pilot then extended her arm and pressed the eject button. Nothing happened. Gravity sensors probably survived the blast, and the aircraft denied ejecting the pilot while the aircraft was wildly spinning in the air. The pilot tried a few more times and then started hitting the eject button like a savage animal while screaming
“Helvara darah wara amskan!Nyen!Helvara!” that was her voice. Those were her words.
Please do not let me die!No! Please! she understood it as the airstriker shuddered and launched her out in the air. The ground came into view again. She could see her airstriker slowly falling, becoming smaller by the second, and there was no city below, just a giant explosion crater. Raindrops were now sliding down her helmet. That made them feel more personal. She cut her arm on something, but shock dulled the pain. There was no natural mechanism to dull her emotional distress. She screamed into her helmet, and no one heard her. Nobody saw her tears. She allowed herself to look indecent, to look broken. The city of Darnak was gone. Thesnia was the last one standing.
Slow parachute descent gave her enough time to burn the image of this horrific devastation in her mind, the image of sin so grave that only deranged people were capable of committing it. This vile destruction was the handiwork of an antimatter projectile deployed from space, an orbital assault, banned by the Rules of warfare, unforgivable crime, and a goodnight to reason.