Hunters of the Cloud III
Hunters Training
Spaceman with ray-gun (South America)
The ancient malevolence predicted by native shaman and prophets is here.
Gifted individuals that can detect the Cloud’s energy and its dark presence are Hunters. Using ancient weapons, these benevolent ones set out to stop the horrific entity and its beasts.
Follow Kima Rei as she begins Training, and confronts the gruesome nightmares.
The abominations swarmed. Standing erect, they swiveled insect-like heads to regard their prey with cruel intent. Sinuous arms lashed out, and their razor sharp talons severed limbs and necks of the unfortunate. Shrieks of terror pierced the air, and the pile of corpses grew.
Limbs stuck out from macabre mounds like cordwood, while other dismembered bodies lay where they’d fallen in the by-ways. The streets filled with crimson gore that mixed with rainwater, and went flowing into the gutters.
And everywhere, there was the sound of loud chirping, and teeth grating into bone....
Vanguard
“This is Commander Bryce, Tol Expeditionary Unit Opus-One, requesting immediate assistance. We are under Phoenix attack!” He repeated the ominous message.
At twenty-one years old, Kima Rei had seen more carnage than most Tol would experience in a hundred. Her morning had started out with a routine training mission when it was interrupted by a chilling call for help.
Rei twisted the flight controls, and slid her transport from orbit to the planet. Skipping over the rocky terrain, and through the canyons, she put the craft down on a plateau near the fleeing Tol team. She grabbed her bow and pack.
There were sixty people in the expeditionary group, and ferocious saurians stampeded their direction. Rei leapt from the ship, and spotted the Tol officer covering the retreat of the fleeing masses. “Commander Bryce! I’m Kima Rei - I brought the transport, Vanguard. Let’s get everyone aboard!” Rei pulled an energy weapon from her surface pack.
Bryce raised an eyebrow when he recognized the tan surface armor and collar trim of a Trainee. He barked directions to his team, and with Rei’s help, laid cover fire as the company evacuated.
The pink Cloud of matter and energy gathered like a thunderhead. It rolled in the air and gathered up the freed essences of dead Beasts. The Phoenix Cloud was not a weather anomaly, but a live entity. It clustered over the reptilians’ ship.
The massive Cloud turned from pale-pink, to angry crimson. White bolts of neural energy lit its mass. A streamer of mist trickled from the Cloud, and touched down next to one of the creatures. The particles solidified into another reptile. The new, replicated Beast stepped away – and another one was created, and another. When the proteins and energy of the Cloud were depleted, the army of Beasts charged across Opus, their minds filled with the murderous intent of the Phoenix.
Rei fired, and the hideous saurians scattered, snapping their jaws in frustration.
“Rei – That way!” Bryce pointed, helping her to catch more in a death trap of crossfire. The annihilated Beasts released their energy in death, and the air grew thick with unseen static. Weapons fizzled, and Rei scurried to the commander’s position.
“The Phoenix energies are increasing,” Rei shouted, as Bryce’s weapon failed. She pulled the bow and arrows from her pack, and maneuvered back towards the transport. Ducking behind a boulder, Rei frowned in suspicion. The Beasts had disappeared. She listened for movement, and heard the Vanguard’s engines starting. One of Bryce’s unit members was preparing the ship ready for a quick departure.
Keeping an eye out for Beasts, Rei watched the last two unit members make a break for the Vanguard. “Your turn, Commander Bry....”
Creatures ambushed. Rei shot one as Bryce was tackled. Galloping over boulders, Rei aimed for the one attacking the commander. Landing just behind its head, she heard the monster’s neck snap.
“Run!” she shouted at Bryce, and then realized he’d been hurt. She zipped off two more arrows, and looked around for help. Two unit officers double-timed back to assist.
“Get him to the ship!” Rei directed, and took off in a wicked pattern to divert the unreal creations from the retreating team.
In distant space, a large, dart-shaped Tol Interceptor closed in on Opus. Framed by authority, an angelic voice hailed, “Vanguard Transport, this is Senator Sabina Pahl, on Interceptor Four, do...”
The pilot on Rei’s ship interrupted, “Interceptor Four, we have all sixty members of our expedition aboard, but there’s a Trainee on the surface, under attack!”
Before he could say more, the Interceptor phased the entire Vanguard with the rescued unit members into its docking bay. Bryce was transferred to Medical. The pilot went to the bridge to give Senator Pahl his report.
Having a flagship so close to a training mission was an indication of High Command’s regard for Kima Rei’s protection. Just a child by Tol reckoning, Rei had already eliminated several Clouds. The elegant Senator Pahl ordered the Interceptor closer to the surface of Opus, and scanned for Rei’s energy signature.
The Tol have traveled space for many millennia. When not aboard ship, the handsome beings wear a lightweight protective surface armor that resembles the soft buckskins of Earth’s primitive Native Americans. The Tol’s selective use of bows and arrows to eliminate Phoenix Beasts launched imitations of the weaponry throughout the galaxy.
The humane stewards save luckless space travelers, help the defenseless, and intervene in hostile planetary invasions. If a world suffers a catastrophic event, the Tol offer assistance. The Orb of High Command shelters billions of beings, and their infinite libraries and academies are always available to solve cosmic challenges.
When the plagues of the Phoenix Cloud escalated, more worlds turned to the Tol for deliverance. The Cloud was elusive, traveling the ships of space, in the cargo holds of merchants. The innocent victims breathed its infective particles, and spread the ghastly entity farther.
To combat the malevolence, enormous Hunter ships were designed. These flying Tol cities would carry thousands of beings, “planting” underground or underwater, away from Beasts and chaotic energy.
The gifted individuals that track the Clouds are Hunters, and the captains of such ships. Kima Rei was training to be a Hunter.
The rolling Cloud of reddish vapors crackled and lit the sky of Opus with energy. It swirled towards the Kaleran’s ship. The annihilated Beasts disintegrated to a pink sludge. Their energy was released into the atmosphere, to be recollected by the Phoenix. The Beasts re-formed through the artificial means of teleportation-replication.
One saurian waited on the platform. Energy and matter from the Cloud were contributed, as a second Beast stepped off the other platform. The Cloud used live templates to create despicable armies, embedding each one with its vile thoughts.
Rei circled back to the Beast’s ship, and in a brazen display, she crept aboard. Laying a handful of explosive arrow points near the fuel cells, she raced out and headed for cover. Ka-Boom! Boom-boom! The series of small blasts touched off a huge detonation that destroyed the teleporter, and the Kaleran ship. The exploited reptiles could no longer be replicated to serve the Phoenix.
Dodging a fragment of debris, Rei sprinted. A mob of the surviving monsters growled, and chased after her. “Did I wear out my welcome?”
Leaping over bushes and skirting trees, Rei went tumbling down a rocky gorge. Her surface pack and lightweight armor saved her from the rugged terrain as she bounced and rolled down the ravine. Splashing into the icy river, she was swept along in its rapid currents. The frustrated Beasts roared. They ran along the overlook, and hurled stones at their escaping quarry.
One of the rocks hit their target in the head. The cold and turbulent waters kept Rei from losing consciousness, but she was bobbing along in a daze. Her head hurt. She forgot why she was in the water, and wondered how she’d gotten there. Swimming with the current, she worked her way to a rocky embankment. Choking and sputtering, she crawled out of the frigid river, and sprawled on the bank.
After catching her breath, Rei’s instinct was to hide until she could get her bearings. She staggered to the honeycombed canyon wall, and took shelter in one of its small alcoves. Dark creatures squeaked from their high roosts, and flapped away. “Sorry,” she apologized.
Her head was whirling, and her vision blurred. She shrugged off her pack, and lay against it for a moment. Stumbling outside, she threw up.
The fireball on Opus rose, and several more eruptions lit the sky. The crew aboard the Interceptor tracked the pandemonium. “What was that?” Senator Pahl asked.
“The Beast’s ship on the surface exploded,” the Ops officer reported.
“Get closer to those coordinates,” ordered Pahl. “That could be Trainee Rei – she would’ve put the teleporter out of commission. Do we have anything on her life signs?”
“No, Senator – and in that blaze, we lost her heat signature.” Pahl called up a Hunter ship for support, and contacted High Command Headquarters. She fired off more directions to quarantine Opus, and requested resources to help find Kima Rei.
Half a sector away, Captain Jon Marrak of the Hunter ship Jezzadan, received Pahl’s message. The huge ship knifed through space towards Opus. Marrak’s adopted daughter was in trouble.
Tol officers on Interceptor Four were scanning the fiery section around the destroyed Beast ship. Heat scans near the inferno were useless. They looked for life and motion signatures, but the metals in the canyon walls, and erratic energy from the Cloud hampered their efforts. Senator Pahl studied the smoking debris on Opus as it displayed on her viewscreen.
“Senator?” The Communications officer announced, “Message incoming from High Command – it’s Consul Jarmon.”
Of the eight consuls in Tol High Command, Brad Jarmon was the most senior, and very familiar with Kima Rei’s unique talents. Almost four centuries old, his hair was more silver than black. Cloaked in the magnificent red and gold of Command, Jarmon’s distinguished form filled the viewscreen.
“Senator Pahl, what is our situation?”
Sabi let out a breath, “Kima blew up the Beast’s teleporter, and disappeared on scans. I’m going on surface recon.”
Jarmon folded his arms. “Senator Koda is on his way, and I’ll be there in the next few hours. Keep me informed.” The Consul terminated the link.
Pahl smiled, noticing Jarmon’s missing argument. The Consul didn’t like putting his Senators into dangerous situations, but she and Darron Koda were exceptions. They retrieved Rei on occasions where no one else could. And just like the young Tol – it would be difficult to stop them from going. Sabi’s emerald eyes flashed as she picked up her surface pack, and phased from the Interceptor.
A dozen years ago, Pahl had been the first to discover the young Tol’s power. It had happened by accident. When Kima was nine years old, her older brother was being tested for Hunter aptitude. Kima toyed with the test equipment. Her memorization of star charts was brought to Pahl’s attention, because it involved the neural scrambler. Minor energy was applied to the brain while Kima viewed charts, and she was able to point out the specific coordinates defined just by the neural, or brain, energy. She scored a rare hundred percent.
Kima Rei was a powerful Cloud Hunter - someone who could sense the neural energy, thought transmissions, of the dreaded Phoenix Cloud, and the Beasts that it produced. Not all Hunters could interpret the energy of the Cloud. Sometimes they felt headaches, dizziness, or other nervous system indicators. Rei received images in vivid detail, sometimes with other senses, like taste and smell.
A year or so after the discovery of her talent, Kima’s entire expeditionary unit was wiped out, and her family was slaughtered by Beasts. The small orphan was alone on a remote planet, fighting off the malignant terrors that would haunt her for life.
