Yra

Note: Setting up the characters, their circumstances, and motivations, took longer than planned, so this first part has only a single stolen kiss.

Jack's grip on the joystick was tense as a projectile from a pursuing enemy's railgun struck his starboard engine a second time. He'd hoped to make it into dragen space, but he quickly figured out that his pursuers, a species called losch, would catch up to him long before he reached his destination. Knowing that, he altered course to a habitable planet in a nearby star system that his sensors detected. He also knew that the losch were firing their railguns at low power so they could destroy his engines and capture him.

Despite travelling at warp 10.174.85 (his ship was of losch design, and their reptilian brains were very different from a human's), his evasive maneuvers slowed him down.

"Why didn't they design this thing to shoot backwards?" he cursed.

After another tense twenty minutes, one shot to the left engine, and one shot that skid off the hull, he dropped out of warp and plotted a descent course into the planet's atmosphere. After taking a sigh of relief, Jack's hopes were dashed as his ship took another shot that finally caused his engines to fail, leaving only the emergency antigravity generator to slow and direct his fall to the ground. Taking in his forested surroundings as he went down, he noted several ruins that were overgrown with vegetation as he passed by.

He then braced for impact as the treetops scraped under the ship until his right pylon struck an unusually tall tree, causing him to sharply spin clockwise. Colliding with several trees at his left rear caused him to nearly fly out of his seat as the ship stopped moving.

"Fuck..." he cursed as his left arm exuded pain from when he used it to stop his face from hitting the bulkhead.

Just as he went to stand, one of the trees holding up his ship buckled, and the starboard side dropped straight down. Jack was in freefall for only a moment before the side of the ship crashed into the ground, causing him to slam into the wall. Dazed, he struggled to get back up. The losch weren't going to give up on capturing or killing him, so he forced himself to move through the pain. Examining his combat belt, he was grateful none of his plasma grenades had ruptured but was annoyed that his pistol had left its holster. The pistol, like all losch hand weapons, used a series of coils around the barrel to electromagnetically accelerate projectiles to supersonic speeds, rather than the chemically propelled bullets of human firearms.

Looking around, he found it lying in between the floor and flight consol. Then, searching for his rifle, he saw it resting on top of the starboard hatch. After slinging it over his shoulder, he looked above him for the port door release button and, after standing on his toes, pressed it. Thankfully, the door slid open without problems. Grabbing a survival bag from the storage space in the rear, he slung it onto his back and then jumped up, grabbing the edge of the door and pulling himself up.

Dropping down the fifteen feet or so to the ground, Jack rolled onto his side to distribute the impact of fall. Removing his scanner, he scanned for the energy signatures of the losch ships, finding them a few kilometers away where they probably landed in a clearing. Getting his bearings, he began heading in the direction he came from to find the alien ruins and devise a plan to lure his pursuers and ambush them there.

Drohn had looked into the mirror after he awoke only to find lonely, green eyes staring back at him, the brightness of the lavatory's lights making his pupils into thin, vertical slits. His thick black mane on his head and down his neck was a mess from sleep and the mere thought of which caused him to yawn and his wolfish ears to fold back against his head. After stretching his nude muscular body once more, from his legs up to the retractable claws in his fingertips, he entered the shower and began washing his smooth, dark-bronze skin.

He moved leisurely every morning, given that he was an early riser. He had acquired that habit as well as several others in order to be where he was at in life. Most warriors hunted their enemies in packs, but social outcasts such as himself had to hunt alone. He adhered to his cultural norms and expectations as much as anyone else in dragen society, despite the one thing about himself he couldn't change that made him an outcast in the first place. And that was one of the main reasons he had reached the rank of lieutenant in the Dominion marines. If he hadn't been an outcast, he'd probably be a commander by then.

After dressing in his uniform and reporting for duty, his commander, an equally skilled and often aggravating warrior named Wrill, informed him of some interesting sensor readings just outside Dominion territory.

"Three losch ships were in pursuit of a fourth and there were energy pulses consistent with homopolar weapon discharges." Wrill explained. "We're short on ships so I'm sending

you

out there to investigate."

Drohn instantly became annoyed and his ears showed it when they directed themselves to his commander. Yes, because he was an outcast, he was forced to be a lone warrior, but it was improper to send him on a mission outside Dominion territory without reinforcements nearby. Commander Wrill always felt threatened by Drohn because they both graduated at the top of their respective classes at the academy, only Drohn had higher scores in marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat. Everyone knew Drohn's public class record because it was an unwritten custom to compare one's self to social outcasts.

"You're sending me on a mission into enemy territory, to investigate what might only be an escaped prisoner,

without

backup on standby, sir?" Drohn calmly asked, holding his tongue.

"That's correct. Your ship is ready in Hanger Eight; dismissed." Wrill replied before walking away.

Drohn's upper lip curled slightly into a snarl as he softly growled. After staring at the back of his commander's head for a moment longer, he turned around and exited Special Operations Command. Entering the nearest elevator, he angrily said, "Hanger Eight."

The losch were a bipedal, reptilian species with grey-green skin and a row of short horns that started just above the bridge of their nose and continued up and over their heads, and down their spines. Unlike insects, their compound eyes consisted of several smaller, black pupils, each surrounded by its own iris and able to see a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum, making stealth and evasion difficult even in the dark. They were a very pernicious enemy, especially to a lone warrior such as himself, not that he was worried.

If he couldn't take his anger out on his commander, he'd take it out on the reptiles.

After about an hour, Jack finally reached the ruins, passing by what looked like large clumps of rock that had been tossed aside while in a semi-liquid state. He remembered seeing pictures of such things on earth and hearing that ancient people used a compound from some tree roots to essentially melt the rock into a mold; the same compound that the roots used to burrow through solid bedrock.

How he missed the days where he could live comfortably and just learn random tidbits without his life being threatened. He doubted he'd ever see them again.

Scanning for the small electrical fields indicative of hand scanners like his, he found none and continued into the ruins. The largest structure was a pyramid similar to what he saw in pictures from Mexico: Myan pyramids. The base level was the widest and every level after it became smaller and smaller, with rectangular holes that looked like they might be windows along the outer walls. The side of the pyramid facing what once must have been an open courtyard before nature retook the abandoned area, had stairs that went all the way to the top level.

"Let's give these alien gods a few more sacrifices..." he remarked to himself as he headed toward it.

Upon reaching the structure, he climbed through one of the first level's windows and turned on his rifle's light. The ceiling was a little short for humans, but he could still stand up straight; he'd just have to avoid jumping straight up. The interior walls had many intricate carvings and detailed, colorful paintings, all telling one story or another of the humanoid people who built it. He also saw several unlit torches lining the walls until he reached the middle of the of the pyramid where sunlight was shining through from above.

In the center of that interior courtyard, there was an overgrown garden whose leaves were all facing straight up for the little bit of direct sunlight they received each day. Looking up, Jack saw that the pyramid's design had an atrium about thirty- or forty-foot square that ran up the center. Each level had what looked like a three foot tall stone wall that acted like a railing to prevent people from falling. After thinking about what the place must have been like in its prime, Jack suddenly wondered how these people fueled their torches and began searching rooms in the hopes of finding out.

Using his scanner, he couldn't scan beyond the stone walls, so he had to physically walk from room-to-room and, during his search, he detected some trace elements of a few unusual liquids inside several large pots with lids sealing them. He doubted they were still flammable after who-knows-how-long, but he removed the lid of one and spilled some of the fluid the losch scanner called 'flourizenth' on the floor. Removing a hand-held torch from his survival bag, he activated the flame and put it to the small puddle with no reaction. He then tried the same thing with the other liquid called 'dizenture' and got the same results.

He decided to try one last time, but with the two liquids mixed together. There was a chemical reaction in the form of bubbles and before he could ignite the torch, the puddle burst into flames, surprising him at first, but then bringing a smile to his face.

"This will work perfectly..." he said to himself.

Drohn reached the planet and scanned the surface, finding one losch ship that crashed in the forest near one of a few stone pyramids to the south and three others that landed in a large clearing several kilometers away to the north-east. He then scanned for small-scale electrical fields and found thirty-six in packs of six moving toward the crash site. Thinking that, if he was the one who had been shot down, he'd leave the area to find cover and devise a way to ambush his pursuers, Drohn decided that the best place to find the losch's prey was to head to the pyramid nearest the wreckage. Activating his cloak, he launched a satellite into a geosynchronous orbit and then took his ship into the atmosphere.

In an open, grassy field about ten kilometers west-north of the ruins, he set down. Deactivating every system except for the cloak, Drohn then began preparing for combat. His uniform was only a few layers of fabric thick, but it was made of a material that was normally as flexible as any other fabric yet became as solid as two-centimeter-thick armor plating during a sudden impact, essentially making it impenetrable to small arms fire as well as shrapnel and the concussive blast of anti-personnel explosives. With additional armor unnecessary, he donned a simple load-bearing vest with an attached duty belt.

The belt had a pistol in a lowered hip holster, two spare pistol magazines loaded with non-lethal electric stun rounds, a spare rifle magazine loaded with traditional tungsten-tipped, high velocity aluminum-nickel projectiles, and a pair of handcuffs. His vest had two additional pistol and rifle magazines, each also loaded with traditional projectiles, two plasma grenades, a multi-tool, and a nearly thirty centimeter long knife at his left shoulder. Once he linked his scanner that was strapped to his left wrist to the satellite he left in orbit, he exited the ship and began his trek to find the losch's prey, assuming he or she was still alive.

Having used the pots to set four traps on the ground floor of the pyramid, Jack climbed the stairs inside until he reached the top floor, which was a small, open room on the side with the external stairway. The room led out to a balcony area at the top of those stairs with an alter big enough to lay down a ten-year old for a sacrifice. Standing behind it, he glanced at the red-stained rock and looked out over what would have been an open courtyard before it was taken over by the growth of dozens of trees.

After thinking about what it would have been like to be there for a moment, before nature took over, he opened his scanner and searched for small energy signatures. Finding thirty-six less than a kilometer away, he activated the internal radio. "I want to talk to your captain." he broadcasted.

After a few moments, a voice replied,

"This is Lieutenant Grellik; I'm the ranking officer. To whom am I speaking with?"

"You invaded my planet, killed billions of my people, and hunted me down to this planet...after all that, you really want to get-to-know me?" Jack replied.

"Your name would be important for my report about how we captured or killed you. Only two other humans managed to leave your system, but none have gone this far."

Jack remembered when one guy decided to go AWOL and desert humanity, but he hadn't known about it happening a second time. "And what happened to them?" he asked a blank tone.

"We captured one and put him into a re-education center; the other died running away as a coward. What happens to you is entirely your choice, but the more difficult you make it for me, the more likely it is you will die too."

Grellik threatened.

"I don't suppose it's too much to ask that you report I died in the crash?" Jack asked with a hint of defeat in his voice.

"Inferior species can ask their slave-masters for anything, but in this case, the answer is no, human."

Grellik mockingly replied.

Closing the channel, Jack reviewed the short conversation in his mind and thought his verbal display of vulnerability was convincing enough, so he went back inside the pyramid and headed down to the first level to wait. His scanner couldn't penetrate through the stone walls for some reason, so he felt like he was at an advantage given that the reptiles trained with such technology, but he hadn't.

Once he saw the lights of one of the losch teams about half an hour later, he prepared for the inevitable sound of soft splashes of footsteps in a shallow puddle from around the corner. Upon hearing it, he aimed at the pot on the floor from behind the corner and fired twice, shattering it. The lizards were only startled for a moment, but when they directed their aim toward him, he was already back in cover and the two liquids mixed long enough to burst into flames and consume them.

Leaving the sounds of their screams, Jack headed toward one of his other traps, feeling along the wall with his light off to not give away his position. Several lights suddenly came into view down the corridor from an adjacent hallway, swinging side to side as they ran to find their dying comrades. The human grabbed one of the grenades from his belt, flipped up the safety cap on the side, and pressed the arming button underneath. Two seconds later, he threw it toward the lights just as the losch reached the hallway intersection and then took cover inside a room with his fingers in his ears.

A bright orange explosion went off in the middle of the group and the air became as dry and hot as Arizona in July as the blast echoed throughout the stone pyramid. Leaving cover, Jack turned on his rifle's light and fired once into each of their heads. Finding several grenades on their pistol belts, he replaced the one he used and grabbed another, keeping it in his left hand as he continued.

Finding six losch dead in the middle of a hallway of fire after having heard an explosion and six, aimed shots shortly afterwards, Gerllik was less than amused with this human. The heat in the air was comforting, but his greenish-grey scaled skin felt cold at having lost so many under his command in such a short period of time.

Mineral analysis of the stones making up the structure showed high concentrations of black tourmaline, which made scanners useless and communications impossible, but he decided that thirty-six of his troops against one cowardly human was worth the risk. And now his platoon was paying the price for his overconfidence. How he wanted to repeatedly smash the short horns protruding from his forehead into this human's face and sink his venom-delivering teeth into his neck so he could watch his body necrotize from the cytotoxic venom.

He led his team away from the endlessly-burning flames as he wondered what it was that was burning and why it wasn't creating smoke in the air. He'd heard that ancient peoples of many species had a knowledge of chemistry that wouldn't be rediscovered for millennia, such as the recipe for concrete that strengthened with time and in the presence of salt water, but never a smokeless-burning liquid. Putting the curious part of his brain on hold, he focused on finding the human so he could burn

him

alive.

Upon reaching a corner, Grellik slowly side-stepped with his rifle aiming just beyond it, seeing more and more of the adjacent hallway as he went until he saw that it was clear. Moving down that corridor, he stopped before reaching two openings to rooms, one on each side, and directed two teams of two to clear them with two, simple motions of his support hand. Once those two rooms were clear, he continued leading his team and, a moment later, heard the echo of another plasma grenade explosion. Pausing to hear the sound of electromagnetically accelerated projectiles, Grellik hissed as he heard another six controlled shots.

That meant eighteen losch had died so far under his command during this 'simple' pursue and capture mission. Whoever this human was, he had training and was probably a high-value target.

Jack turned off his light again and felt his way through another hallway before stepping into a puddle. Turning his light back on for a few seconds, he found the pot with the other liquid on the floor and then turned the light back off. He could have sworn he needed to make another right before reaching another trap, but then again, he hadn't had much time to memorize the maze of corridors and rooms. He turned to leave, but a faint reflection of moving light caught his attention.

Stepping away from the puddle, he went through the motions of tripping and dropping his rifle in the hopes it would draw the losch to him. "Fuck!" he swore in an angry whisper.

Standing back up, Jack saw the reflections of light become brighter and then took a position behind a corner to wait. Hearing the soft footfalls, he prepared to pop out and shoot the pot. A light suddenly shone from behind him and before he could react, one of the losch yelled, "Contact!" and open fired.

Several projectiles painfully struck his back before he could take cover on the other side of the corner. As he turned on his weapon light, a grenade bounced off the wall in front of him and, pointing his light at the floor, he found where it landed and then kicked it down the hall toward the pot on the floor as the other team rounded the corner and began shooting. A projectile then grazed the side of his face as he dove into a room. The grenade exploded before he could fully cover his ears and the blast destroyed the pot, causing the liquids to mix in vaporized form in the air. The result was an immediate flash of fiery wind that rushed down all corridors within a fifteen yard radius and only partially entered nearby rooms, including his.