Blood Ties - a Guarder Factor Short Story

By Shawn P. Madison

A cacophony of noise assaulted his ears as he stepped out of the near silence of the small connecting tube and into the bustling Eastern Arm of the Cornelius Express Starport. His mission on Corpura had been a major success. Upon filing his report with HQ, the U.E.N. Judiciary Board would be happy to learn that yet another black-market arms Mega-Dealer was now permanently out of business. That made six successful scratches this week and only four more to go on his current schedule.

The starport was overcrowded for an off-day but he found one of the few empty pillars and settled his broad back against it. A large black duffel bag was nestled firmly between his feet and he allowed his eyes to drift along the wide corridor. There were dozens of small shops lining the long stretch of this arm of the starport, most of those offering food of one type or another. The various odors wafted past his nose, reminding him of just how hungry he really was. Merchants lined the corridor ahead, loudly peddling their wares. People of all kinds walked briskly past his position, barely lifting their eyes to notice him as they hustled by. Their clothes came in an astonishing array of colors, more colors than he thought there could be, and in many different shades as well. Religious garb, recreational wear, business attire and the flowing regalia of political station abounded as people by the hundreds made their way about the starport.

He watched them, all of them, dissecting their threat potential. Assigning risk factors at an amazing rate. While his mind absorbed all of these details, he slowly stretched out his stiff muscles. The shuttle ride from Corpura had been a short one but, on this latest mission, he had been forced to lie prone for too many hours than his body was accustomed to. Now, as he allowed his body to relax while his mind raced, he began to mentally prepare himself for the next stop on his schedule.

Suddenly something alerted him, he turned his head to try and focus his attention on what it could be. A word...just a word, reaching his ears as if on a breeze, but from where it had come he didn't know.

Then his eye found the source and his mind blocked out all else. A news report, one of many that had been showing on the starport's revolving public monitoring system, had mentioned the planet Beacon. There was something going on there, a riot of some sort? No, not a riot, an uprising, more like it. People by the hundreds had recently been attacked by gangs of violent youths. The dead were countless, the injured too numerous for firm numbers just yet. All of this spewed forth from the moving mouth of the reporter while horrific scenes caught by several different viewpoints filled the monitoring system in the background.

"Dammit," he rasped as he grabbed up the duffel bag and raced back into the same connecting tube he had just come out of. "Just hang on a little while longer, Mom, I'll be there soon," he muttered under his breath as the small shuttle came into view at the end of the tube, the flight crew just now departing for a much needed break. Time to commandeer a shuttle...he thought as he fumbled in a tight mesh pocket of his black clothing for his ID.

As he flashed his badge to the shocked flight crew and settled into the pilot's seat his sequencer began to sound an incoming message from Aegis. He didn't have the time to answer the call just then as he quickly went through the shuttle's pre-flight warm-up routine. Besides, he already knew what the message would entail. It would be about the violence on Beacon, an alert for him in case he hadn't yet heard. He smiled at that briefly as the shuttle's engines ignited and the small craft began to vibrate in its cradle. As he cleared himself with the Cornelius Express Starport Flight Command Center, using official U.E.N. military coding, he plotted a course toward Beacon. The small world had been chosen by his mother for residence several e-years earlier due to its close proximity to the religious center of the Known-Grids. Hoping against hope that his mother hadn't yet been harmed in the recent attacks, he disengaged the shuttle and quickly cycled the engines up for maximum power. Luckily, from this location, the trip to Beacon wouldn't take more than just a few hours, Aegis Standard.

# # #

On Aegis, the fastest small ship that could be readied for flight quickly took off from one of the massive surface-based military starbases just one hour after the first reports of the civil unrest on Beacon had hit the nets. The ship carried three large men, an array of military weaponry and little else. While the largest of the three busied himself at the controls of the modified Sleekster, the other two were busy sending messages via sequencer to several other men scattered throughout the Known-Grids, men whose particular skills would be useful once they assembled on the small planet.

# # #

There was chaos on Beacon, and Montalvo Clirque liked it that way. This place had been easy for the taking and his boys were already very much in control of Central City, Beacon's only major metropolitan area. There wasn't anything of interest in the outlying areas so they had been left alone...for now.

The recruiting had been so very easy, the training had been minimal but the stealthy assemblage of so many warriors had been the toughest part by far. They had come to Beacon in threes and twos, sometimes four to a group, but nothing larger. Nothing large enough to turn any heads, to send up any warning signals, to indicate to anyone that something unusual was going on.

No, it had all gone smoothly and now, after only a day or so, Beacon was under their control. The coup was just about over, the mopping-up process had now begun and his boys were still terrorizing the local citizenry in the dark recesses of night, laying down their supreme law on this little planet for all to remember.

Once their control had been firmed up, he would send for the others. There were tens of thousands of them spread out amongst the Known-Grids, in all four Corporate Grid-Sectors. They had all worked independently for the most part, in small groups, never any larger than ten, building their wealth, assembling their munitions, strengthening their numbers. And now, the timing was right to unite and take control of their very own world.

Beacon had been chosen by Clirque for its manageable size and for the timidity of its people. Mostly religious types, several different Christian sects for the most part, lived on the small planet that was part of the Jehova System. Of course, Vatican was the most famous planet in this sector of space, and what a point he and his men were making to the masses of the Grids in taking over a planet so close to what most U.E.N. Citizens thought of as the holiest place in the universe.

This blatant attack against democracy and religious freedom was a major risk, to be sure. But the U.E.N. Military wouldn't dare mount a retaliatory strike against the new government that his group would soon install on Beacon. He doubted seriously that the InterGridactic Government would condone such a major military action so close to the planet Vatican, let alone anywhere within the Jehova System. There were still too many religious nuts spread throughout the vastness of space, too many voices to sing out against military reprisals, too many votes that could be cast against the current administration in the next elections.

Montalvo Clirque watched from his dark place atop the tower of Beacon's Transit Complex in Central City and laughed at what he saw in the shadows of the night. Everywhere fires burned, weapons blasted and people screamed. It would all be over soon, he was sure. Those citizens who survived the initial phase of his attack would become loyal servants to his whim or be eradicated. There would be no other option, no middle ground, just simple blind loyalty and subservience.

And when the dust settled, he would be the King of Beacon. King of his young army of fearless mercenaries. King of this planet and free to reign without any fear of a possible military response by the U.E.N. Clirque reveled in these thoughts of utter domination, thoughts of the sheer power that would soon be in his hands. Being the undisputed King of Beacon would be very nice indeed and perhaps, if he dared to dream of the not too distant future, when the timing was right, he might also become King of much, much more.

# # #

Shouts in the darkness, a woman, and the cries of a baby. They were coming from right up ahead, in an alley, just out of sight. As quickly as his legs could carry him, he hurried around the corner and stumbled into a terrible scene. There were four of them, young brutes, holding the middle-aged woman by each of her appendages. A fifth was busy having his way with her, his pants around his knees and her skirt pushed up to her waist. A baby lay in a heap of garbage on the dirty ground of the alley, crying for his mama and for her shrieking to stop. He had apparently been thrown there carelessly when this group had come upon the young mother and child, thrown there to be forgotten while they carried out their vicious act.

One of the men held a knife unsteadily at the woman's throat, the rusty blade had made several shallow cuts in her neck as the rape continued in earnest. Her undergarments had been ripped away and hung by a tattered waistband from the woman's body. Her shirt had been ripped open and there were grimy handprints on her chest. One of the boys had a firm grip on one breast in his free hand and was taking great pains to twist the nipple cruelly.

They hadn't noticed him yet and he stepped from the shadows, a figure of disheveled frailty. An old man dressed in rags and stumbling about as if drunk. One of them motioned to the man who was taking his turn with the woman and the dark-haired youth turned to face him.

"Get the hell outta here, old man!" the young kid snarled and spat at the ground. "Can't you see I'm having some fun?"

"You boys better leave that lady alone," he said in a shaky voice and took one more stumbling step closer. "Just leave that lady alone!"

"For Chris'sakes," the rapist muttered and pulled himself away from the woman. "I'm going to spill your useless guts in this alley and then I'm going to finish my business," he said while pulling up his pants and fastening them at the waist.

The desperate woman kept yelling for help, hoping beyond hope that her savior had just entered the alley, while her baby still cried mere steps away.

The apparent leader of the group reached into his jacket for a weapon and a wicked smile formed on the ugly thug's face.

"I've seen enough," the old man said in a much stronger voice and activated the spring-loaded blades that lay concealed under his clothing. A long gleaming shaft of sharp metal appeared from each of his sleeves, the sound of the springs locking into place echoing off the walls of the alley.

The woman dropped to the ground as each man tried in vain to pull weapons from their hiding places. As he swept like a wraith into their midst the two serrated knives quickly dulled with blood. In seconds, it was over.

Standing over the crying woman, he set the knives back to their original position and knelt down to pick up the baby.

"This child belongs to you," he said and stuck out a hand to help her up from the grime of the alley floor. With a shocked expression and fear in her eyes, she accepted his outstretched hand and tried to mumble some words of thanks.

"It's ok," he said and pulled her up as she grabbed the baby from his arms. He quickly pulled the dirty cloak from around his shoulders and covered her as best he could. "Let's get you home."

Slowly, she stumbled from the alley, taking care to step over the grisly remains of her five former tormentors. With one glance back at the man who had most likely saved her life, she found her strength and quickened her pace, keeping close to the shadows and thanking the Lord above for this wonderful gift of a second chance...

# # #

As the six young men laughed while driving frenzied kicks into the bodies of two men lying prone on the sidewalk, a fourth man suddenly appeared and knocked one of them into the street with a vicious punch.

Standing there, facing the other five, the figure stood tall and silent. His face showed no emotion but there was fire in his eyes.

"What the hell's wrong with you, asshole?" one of his opponents spat and he struck lightning quick with a fist that ruptured the speaker's nose. Blood spattered against the wall of a nearby building and the dirty sidewalk as low moans of pain emanated from the now hunched over figure.

"Let's roll," he said to the four remaining men and strode toward them. What followed would later be retold by the survivors of the Attempted Coup Of Beacon many times and in many different variations—all of which ended up with all six men dead and not a scratch on their attacker.

# # #

Blood flew as he strode into the middle of the gang of filthy youths, two short swords swinging and the sound of metal slicing through bone singing in the air. The large man made his way swiftly toward the center of their formation and then began to spiral outwards once again as the remaining gang members tried to rush him.

Eighteen, nineteen down...twenty, as the swords did their job. His breathing was smooth and rhythmic, his heart rate nearly normal, almost as if he were at rest. The blades danced, reflecting light from the nearby street lamps, as he found target after target. There were heads on the ground, arms, legs...all belonging to different people but mingling together on the ground as if from a single source. The death count was at thirty now, thirty one, and still rising.

Boys screamed, men cried and most died. Those few who managed to escape the small square with their lives intact were changed that night. They had lost the will to inflict pain on others, to watch others die at their hand. Instead, they found themselves hollow, as if in search of their very own souls. What they had witnessed in that square left them empty, devoid of even the slightest humanity. Making them less than they already were...making them close to nothing.

Later, those few who survived the night's slaughter on Beacon would tell incredible tales to the U.E.N. Soldiers who came in to mop up the mess. Tales of a tall shadow with blades for arms, who moved like the wind and had eyes that burned brighter than the fires, eyes that burned of pure hatred...

# # #

Pedro watched as an enormous man, bald head shining in the dim light of the street lamp above, drove a long wicked looking blade into Mickey's chest and began carving like a being possessed.

The body of the old woman still lay twitching on the grass where he and Mick and several others had finally left her after beating her to death. Out of nowhere, this monster had struck their group, his slender knife slicing through Cando's throat, spilling David's guts into the dark night, taking Lloyd's right arm off at the bicep. All of this had taken mere seconds and Pedro had been riveted to the spot where he stood as if nailed in place.

One huge hand reached into his friend's chest and wrenched the still beating heart free from Mickey's body. Letting the dead boy fall to the grass, the seven foot tall beast of a man reared back and threw Mickey's heart at Pedro's feet.

The organ bounced wetly on the soft grass and looked jet-black in the semi-darkness cast by the street lamps. Pedro let loose his bladder and felt a warm sticky wetness flow down his left leg. His jaw hung open as the tall thing approached, he was powerless to move, tears ran freely down both of his cheeks.

"Please, please, don't kill me..." he muttered and the big man laughed, stopping to tower over him less than a foot away.

"Why not?" the giant growled in a voice that seemed to come from nowhere, his great head cast in darkness from the soft light of the street lamp behind. "Tell me, why should you be allowed to live, scum?"

Pedro felt the coarse skin of large fingers grab him around the neck as he willed his legs to move but found no success. "For you," the great darkness said to him as it lifted Pedro off the ground. "I'll not dirty my knife."

As Pedro looked into the dead eyes of the old lady on the grass, he felt his life draining away and, in those final moments, found his long-lost religion and yearned for one more confession.

# # #

Montalvo Clirque had seen enough of the carnage. The tide of this battle had turned much too quickly. All over, his men were dying. Men in black were running at incredible speed, bringing death and destruction to all of his people. Seemingly on every street, at every corner, in every square, in every park...the black clad men were there. They used nothing but knives or long blades, killing efficiently, reducing the numbers of his invading force by the dozen with each strike. And the night was now filled with the death screams of his men, their dying breaths let loose to echo throughout the darkness.

"It's time to move," he said to the warrior standing next to him and they both turned to leave the roof of the Transit Complex.

Clirque stopped in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat. Before them, between their position and the only doorway that led off of the roof, stood one of the devils. His clothes were black, his hair was black and, in the night, his eyes looked black as well.

He was massive, well over six feet tall and his long dark hair was being swirled by the rooftop breeze. He had made no sound on his approach. They had heard no warning from the dozen or so others who had been stationed in the stairway and adjacent hallway below.

The blood dripping from the long blade in the man's right hand was proof to Montalvo that those dozen or so of his men breathed no more this night.

This stranger had uttered no sound, didn't even seem to be breathing, but an intensity flowed from the black pits of his eyes. This specter sent tremors of fear along the length of Clirque's body. He felt rooted to the spot, unable to figure out which way to go, how to escape.

The warrior next to him made the mistake of charging the creature before them and Montalvo watched as the man in black subtly sidestepped the clumsy move and carved his attacker in two at the waist. Both halves of his former rooftop companion hit the surface with a wet slap and lay still.

With the blade swaying back and forth, in an almost mesmerizing pattern, the figure approached. Montalvo could see nothing but the blood drenched metal of the sword as it moved in rhythm to the mysterious man's stride.

"What is this?" Montalvo managed. "What do you want here?"

"For you to die, maggot," the man said and stopped about one meter away.

"We'll leave here, we'll go somewhere else, far away from here," Montalvo swore. "We'll never return, do you hear me? This is my promise!"

"Keep your promises, you'll need them where you're going," the man whispered and brought the blade up slowly to touch Montalvo's chest.

"Please, no, not this way," Montalvo pleaded. "I am unarmed..."

"Doubtful," the man said.

"I am, I swear, let me prove it," Montalvo said and tried to unholster his weapon in a last ditch effort at survival.

In one endless moment of time, Montalvo Clirque cleared his small blaster from leather, brought it around and actually began to pull the trigger...all the while thinking that he was going to make it out of this hellhole in one piece.

There was a blur of motion and there wasn't any pain, at least not at first, yet Montalvo's blaster and the hand that was holding it hit the rooftop with a dull thud.

Silence ruled Montalvo for several seconds after that as the man with the blade seemed to move in slow motion, making graceful swipes with the gleaming metal shaft, each of them slicing into the gang leader's abdomen.

Clirque sank to his knees and managed to look down at the steaming entrails that had fallen from the deep gashes in his body. He felt the thundering pace of his heart begin to slow as great gouts of blood poured from his wounds on to the rooftop.

Then sound returned to him in the form of the words of his killer. "You deserve worse than this, you piece of shit, consider yourself lucky..."

Montalvo Clirque didn't feel the swipe that separated his head from his neck.

# # #

The hall outside the hospital room where his mother lay in bandages was bathed in the soft pre-dawn light that was creeping in from several large windows. The tight space was crowded with big men dressed in black and covered in blood. The hilts of their weapons lay leaning against the wall, small red pools collecting on the floor tiles below their sharp points.

He nodded at most of them but was too eager to catch a glimpse of his mother to do more than that. They had managed to root out the invading gang of boys and young men in a single night. Just ten of them but that had been enough.

Roughly a thousand or so of the vicious young thugs were killed in the darkness, many hundreds more wounded and left to writhe in pain in the streets where they lay. He and his fellow soldiers had killed in massive quantities, in just a few hours, and only using their blades. Although they'd all been carrying blasters, there'd been a general consensus among the group that energy weapons would be too good for the bastards. Besides, they had all needed the extra hand-to-hand combat training. There simply wasn't much of that going on out there in the Grids these days.

Bobby Thunder reached the door and entered, catching a glimpse of his mother for the first time since arriving on Beacon the night before. She lay motionless on the bed, bandages covering most of her head and part of one arm. Tubes stuck out of her body in too many places but her vital signs seemed normal on the equipment surrounding the bed. Upon landing his commandeered shuttle on Beacon in the early evening, he had learned that his Mom had been injured badly, beaten in the parking lot of a shopping center while picking up the week's groceries.

The vicious attackers had left her for dead but some upstanding citizens of Beacon's Central City had scooped her up and brought her to the nearest hospital. She was one of the lucky ones, he'd later learn. Not many of the people attacked by the violent youth gang had survived their encounters that night.

"She's gonna be ok, Bobby," Frank Buzzer said from his shoulder and he turned to look his friend in the eye.

"Somehow I knew that you'd show up, Frank," Thunder said and turned around to stare up into the face of Sergeant Harrison Jekel. "Thanks for coming, too, Sarge."

"No need to thank me, Thunder," Jekel answered. "Your family is our family and when one of us is threatened, we Guarders answer the call."

"Damn straight," Tony Mestizo said from his position in the doorway.

An older man stepped forward and placed his hand on top of one of those of the woman in the bed. Thunder noticed the blood that stained this man's clothing too. "A strong woman, just like her son," Vincent Buzzito said and turned to face Thunder.

"Thank you, sir..." Thunder began but the older man waved him off.

"There's no need to thank me, Thunder," the older man said and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Any time a friend of Frank's is in trouble, I'm more than happy to help out. Just glad that I was close enough to Beacon to get here as quickly as I did."

Thunder nodded, turned to look at his mother once more and saw that she was sleeping peacefully. "The doc said that she's sleeping off the medication but should be good as new in no time at all."

"That's good news, Thunder, some very good news" Jekel said and turned to face the oldest man in the room. Frank Buzzer's father turned his head up to meet the gaze of the tall Guarder Squadron Commander. "It's been a pleasure serving with you, Vinnie, you haven't lost a step," Jekel said. "It's more than obvious where Frank gets his amazing talent from."

"Thank you, Harrison," Vincent Buzzito nodded and accepted Jekel's firm handshake. "But your superior training skills had a bit more to do with that than simple genetics, I'd say."

"Perhaps, but not much," Jekel countered. "Speaking of training, I think a reprieve from your retirement would suit you well. I could always use a qualified instructor back on Aegis."

"I appreciate the offer," the elder Buzzito said and took a long look around at the strong faces crowding the room. "But it seems to me that these young men are beyond their training stage. They are Guarders through and through. You've built yourself a fine Squadron."

"Just following your example, sir," Jekel said and headed for the door, motioning for the rest of the Guarders to do the same.

"Sarge," Thunder called and Jekel turned at the doorway. "So, is this an official mission or are you all on vacation right now?"

Jekel smiled at that and leaned against the doorjamb at the front of the small room. "Officially, we're all on unscheduled leave, enjoying the uplifting spirit and utter peacefulness of the planet Beacon. I do suggest, however, that we all return to duty by tomorrow. All except for you, of course, Bobby."

"Thank you, Sergeant Jekel, sir," Thunder said and stood at attention to salute his Commanding Officer. Although he'd been a member of the Guarder Squadron for just a few short e-years, these people were his brothers, his family...no doubt.

Jekel returned the salute crisply and left the room. As the door closed slowly on well-lubricated hinges, Thunder faintly heard the words, "Take all the time you need to, Thunder. Take care of that fine woman, make sure she's alright and join us when you're ready. And don't you worry, those black-market gunrunners will still be there when you get back..."