Roshma Book 1: The First Steps

I almost couldn’t believe my eyes, three Tyberian assassins. The Tyberian’s came from a planet on the far corner of the inner realm called Tybus. They were a race of beings that were very short in stature, averaging only about 4.5 decs tall. They had grayish scaly skin and widespread hips with short legs. They possessed red eyes, and prided themselves on being a fearsome race of warriors. As a result they always seemed to be at war. Luckily for the rest of the inner realm it was usually with themselves.

Two of the Tyberians were bald and their heads came to a point. The Tyberian in the middle, their leader I suppose, had a small tuft of black hair. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Mr. I-give-long-speeches trying to sneak off the battlefield. Probably to deactivate the shields.

I told the others, “Let’s split into two groups, one group will go with me to the shield room and one group will stay here fighting these goons.” It turned out that Westcon, Shodon and Jon came with me.

We walked out of the arena, and one of the Tyberians called us cowards. I guess they could speak the universal language, at least a couple of words. We left the arena walked down the hallway until we got a door that said, “No access beyond this point.” With no regards for rules or signs for that matter, we kicked it open and another alarm went off.

I confronted the map of the dam before saying, “I think that is our room, just ahead. It is labeled refraction chamber on the map. It is just across the hall from the employee break room. When we got to the room we could definitely tell this was he room we were looking for. It had a metal door, much like Polanski‘s office. There was a keypad and a finger print scan that had to be passed to get.

Then Westcon spoke up, “I hate to be that guy, but I think I’m just going to set this one out. My shoulder is really bummed.” He went into the break room and flipped on the light. To his surprise, there was another man already there. He looked terrified when he saw Westcon, and he threatened to shoot him.

However, it was soon clear to Westcon that this man was friend and not foe. Apparently, the man was an engineer here and had somehow managed to escape the enemy soldiers and was hiding out. We also, found out he could do something to ensure our success. If we escorted him to the mainframe computer, this brave engineer could put the dam on high alert lockdown. Essentially meaning that even if the enemy cracked the keypad code they would still be locked out at least for a day.

Jon ended up taking that duty. So now, all we had to do keep the caped man from entering the refraction chamber until this place was on high alert lockdown. We heard a door opening and then whistling coming down the hallway. We cautiously peaked our heads out the door and saw it was the caped man. Luckily he hadn’t noticed us yet. He was in his own world.

What happened next was quite humorous. The man starting talking to himself, “It a beautiful day, when your taking over a dam.” Despite our circumstance I almost couldn’t help but chuckle, this was probably the stupidest song I had ever heard. Then he looked up and saw our heads peeking out of the break room. We sucked at stealth.

The look on his face was priceless. His eyes were wide as he shouted, “Why are you here? You’re supposed to be occupied by the Tyberian assassins.” Jon smirked, “Well there are only three of them and seven of us. You do the math. That hardly seems like a fair fight.”

Mr. I-give-Long-Speeches spoke, “Well I hope you know that your friends are all going to die, and I too share your abilities.” He shot a projectile of energy at me. I blocked it, but the force of the attack knocked me to the ground. However, I got up and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. The talkative man muttered, “It’s too late, reinforcements have already been called.” For some reason, this resulted in Shodon retreating back into the break room.

I followed Shodon into the room, and I found him crying with blood dripping out his left ear, “I don’t want this. Look at my ear, yeah this is all I got today but what if we bite off more than we can chew? What if next time I lose a hand, or my life? Giaka, I didn’t ask for this. We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die…”

I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m not going to tell you it’s okay, because it’s not. Not while we are at war, but someone has to do it. Think about it, if we didn’t come here today, everyone in the city would have died. It may not be what you want to do, but it’s what you have to do. Compare it to paying government dues, visiting annoying family members or listening to most of the stories Westcon’s tales.”

He managed to get out some words despite being still shaken up, “But we haven’t won yet. They called in backups. Even if the city isn’t destroyed, we might be destroyed.”

I sighed, “Yeah that is true, but if we don’t die doesn’t a nice hot meal sound nice about now?” He looked at me like I was an idiot, but his curiosity was peeked.

Shodon retorted, “What does that have to do with anything at a time like this?”

I said, “Well if we survive this today, I’ll take you out to eat wherever you want?”

He perked up this and said, “I know, how about Miranda’s café? It’s supposed to have really good food and the cutest waitresses in town.” Sounded like an advertisement he could have been a spokesperson for them with that pitch.

We had been talking this whole time, but forgot that Westocn was also in the room. He had heard the whole conversation. This was bad, Westcon had a big mouth he’d tell everyone about Shodon’s breakdown. Plus, I said his stories were painful to listen to.

Almost as if he had read my mind Westcon said, “Don’t worry it Shodon. I won’t tell any of the rest of the team about your breakdown. In fact, I want to go to Miranda’s Café’ too. That sounds really good about now.”

Soon after, another familiar face walked in the room. It was Mott and he said, “He heard voices and thought to check it out.” He had a broken nose, it was crocked, and some blood was on his shirt. He continued to speak, “Man we may have underestimated those Tyberian assassins. I beat him her or whatever it was but it made me hurt.” His shirt was also pretty torn up.

I had to ask, “What about the others? How are Jin and A.J. doing?” Mott replied, “Well Jin’s got his guy against the ropes I think he got the weakest Tyberian out of the three. The assassin he was fighting was kind of a baby. However, the other one is crazy strong. I told A.J. I would take the one with the hair but he insisted, ‘“he had it under control. Find the other and plan our escape.”’ Can’t say I like the idea, but what can you do, I respect his wishes.”

We set there for a while, trying to plan our escape. During this time, Jin walked in all beat up. Jon and the engineer came back in with good news, “This place is locked down, we’ve officially won”, said the engineer.

I hated to burst his bubble but I had to, “Not quite yet, they are calling in backup. I heard the rest of the unit that could be 60-100 men. That’s too much even for us.” A plan was forming in my mind, and this is how it went. They weren’t simply going to let us walk out the front door so I said we should retreat into the caves. This place used to be a metallic ore mine before it was converted into a dam. Then, if the reinforcements come in to attack us, we can bottleneck them in the cave. I would also try to call in reinforcements, in case we got overwhelmed.

I told the team about my plan and Mott said, “I guess we’ll go with it. No one else seems to have a better idea.” Thanks for that boost of confidence Mott.

I called in headquarters and got Polanski again I shouted, “We are being overran, we need backup now.”

“Boom”, our scheming was interrupted by a giant explosion that rattled the walls. We rushed out into the main area to see what had happened. We saw A.J. standing in the middle of the floor except everything around him was kind of destroyed. There was a big crater in the floor and the pillars were all cracked. In the bottom of the crater, lay the Tyberian assassin. He was dead, and smoke was billowing up from his corpse.

A.J. was crying out in pain and rolling around on the ground. We ran over to him, he was holding his stomach and blood was dripping from his hand. He screamed in agony, “He got me with that blade of his. Just a nick, but it was enough. I had to use my best technique to finish him off before he stabbed me again. I‘m going to bleed out, I‘m going to die!”

Westcon asked our injured comrade, “So you caused that explosion?” He wheezed out these words, “Yeah, but leave me behind now I’ll just slow you down. We did it, we saved the city. That’s good enough.”

A.J. was slowly working himself into a panicked frenzy. Mott slapped him, “Don’t talk like that. We may have saved the day, but we can’t let you die until the end of the war. Imagine if one of those Tyberians comes back. If you aren’t here, we won’t have anybody to blow them up. We need you. I will carry you out of this cave myself if I have to.”

That exactly what he did. Mott carried A.J. for a little bit. He was struggling to carry our rather large friend, so we all ended up pitching in. He was more than our friend, he was our brother. Collectively, we limped down another hallway towards the caves. We would never be able to make it out of the entrance before reinforcements arrived. So we headed for the caves.

It was a really cool cave, and any other day I would have taken the time to enjoy all of the stalactites and stalagmites, but today I had a dying friend and we were being pursued by a small army.

At that moment we heard a loud voice which sounded like it was coming from the intercom. It was the voice of the man than never shut up, and he proclaimed, “We have you surrounded, there is no point in resisting.” Shouldn’t have spared him.

However, we didn’t listen, just put one foot in front of the other and kept walking, deeper and deeper into the caves interior. There was a point when we could walk no farther because we were in the back of the cave. At this moment there was another loud sound. This one was different from the explosion before, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. However, I didn’t pay too much attention to it there were more important things on my mind now like getting out of here alive.

Westcon tried to lighten the mood by saying, “Man I’m really hungry. Once we make it out of here we should all go eat at that new restaurant Miranda’s Café.” He winked at Shodon and I.

Then Jin chimed in, “I saw a commercial for that place upon arriving in Mako City. It said, ‘“Miranda’s café, we have really good food and the cutest waitresses in town.”’

A.J. somehow managed to say, “If I don’t die, I could really go for some hot Saprop.” I felt like I was the only person who earth who hadn’t seen the Miranda’s Café commercial, it must not come in the late night hours when my insomnia kicks in.

Our food fantasies were soon interrupted by a voice over the intercom. It was MR. Long Speeches again and he said, “That sound you just heard was the closing of the cave entrance. You are now trapped inside the cave. Wait, it gets better, the cave will also fill with water and you will drown. You ask, why would there be a need to flood a cave?” No, frankly we didn’t care.

He continued, “Well, many years ago the miners worked these caves many came down with lung cancer from inhaling all the ore dust. To solve this problem, the caves would be washed out every month or so. However, this safety precaution will now become your death.”

I started to panic. All the positive momentum we were building was now dashed. Things really did look bad. The water was up to my ankles, we were all frantically thinking now. A.J. was still alive, but if we didn’t figure this one out A.J. would bleed out and we all would drown.

Jon got a smile on his face, “Can I see the map on your com-link?” He examined at it for a moment, “Hm hmm yes I see. I got it, we are going to blast our way out of here.”

Westcon expressed his opinion in my plan, “That plan sucks. Are you crazy the walls of the dam are too thick we’ll never be able to blast a hole in it.” To be fair we did blast our way into this place.

Jon’s countered by saying, “We’re not blasting through the walls of the dam. We are on the right side of the building. The dam’s wall is on the opposite the entrance. We are blasting through this cave wall. We will then jump out the cave into the Melong River. It is only about 20 feet below us. Plus, the walls here are made of limacine, one of the weakest rocks. We would probably never be able to blast through the dam anyway.” He was right I had learned about limacine in Environmental Science class. I guess that class was more useful than I thought it would be.

By now, the water was up to our stomachs. Mott said, “That’s pretty good idea, but how do we get back to our ships once we get out? The bank of the river looked too steep to climb, especially in the condition we are in.”

Then an idea floated across my thought-scape, but first I needed to make a phone call. I shouted, “Hey Jon give me back that com-link, I need to make another call.”

Westcon said, “You’ll never get reception in a cave that would take a miracle.”

To my amazement, the com-link buzzed it was a weak sounding buzz but we had connection, “Hey Matt, I know you are probably busy but can you bring a small transport ship to the banks river by the Jinsei dam...” Then my phone cut out. I called back frantically, “It is a matter of life or death.” Westcon just set there in shock I said, “What were you saying again Westcon.”

He mumbled something under his breath about how that was lucky just like Katotta’s shot.”

The water was now up to my chest and I was started to seriously freak out. Hyperventilation almost set in, but I got my breathing under control. In my humble opinion, drowning was the worst way to die. We all blasted at the wall. It exploded open and the forces of the rushing water pushed us into the river below. I felt like celebrating, we had done it, saved the day and escaped to tell the tale. There was still concern about A.J.’s injuries as well as our own injuries. However, my earlier anxieties were replaced by a sense of calmness as well as accomplishment.

Everyone dies someday, but today was not our day. We had other missions to do. Today, the enemy wasn’t prepared, but they now knew of our power. Maybe next mission we would have to fight demons, horrid beast or a whole army. If we didn’t get significantly stronger we could possibly die. Still, I say we did pretty well for our first mission.

I pondered these things and much more as we swam over to the sides of the river where it was swallow enough for us to stand. We waited and as we waited, we looked up at the sky. There was a large airship battle going on, the reinforcements had arrived. Soon after a small transport ship descended upon the water, it was my cousin Matt.

Matt was a strange man born into the wrong time. He dressed like an old farm-hand with big leather boots a bandana around his neck and a hat too large for his head that cast a shadow over his face. He was really tall, even taller than myself. He was kind of built like me too except he had really long black hair that poked out from under his hat.

The banks of the river were extremely narrow and his ship couldn’t really fit on the banks. He ended up idling the ship, letting it hover right above the water. The side doors flew open and we all climbed in. He said, “Howdy folks it’s going to be a tight squeeze but everybody get comfortable. So where do I have the pleasure of taking ya’ll today?”

I answered him,” Well we got a couple of us that need to go to the Mako City Medical Center , but you can take the rest of us back to our ship we parked it in the nature preserve. When we arrived at our ship everyone got off except A.J. and Westcon. A.J. happily complied as he was about to slip out of consciousness from blood loss. However, Westcon changed his mind and said, “I ain’t going to a medical center until I get some food from Miranda’s café.” Against his best judgment he hobbled off Matt’s rescue ship onto the Crappy Cruiser. We could have tried to talk him out of it, but his head was thick as the dam’s walls.

We flew back to the city in silence, soaking in the events of the day. We still couldn’t believe it and we survived it! Eventually we reached Miranda’s café. To our dismay, there wasn’t enough room in the parking area for a ship. However, we had just saved a city, so we parked at some place down the street where there was room. We didn’t have the proper permit either so we’d probably get a ticket. It was along walk to get to this restaurant but we eventually made it.

The walk was well worth it. The inside of the establishment was amazing. It was a very colorful place with hologram projectors everywhere and bright colors. Everyone was chatting happily and enjoying their meals. This didn’t last too long. The tone started to change as soon as we arrived. Slowly, everyone turned and looked at us. The looks on their faces were looks of shock. I imagine, we were a sight to behold in our current state. Our clothes were ripped and tattered, and some of us were still bleeding. Plus, there was the fact that we were soaked in river water.

A waitress said, “Please wait to be seated. She frantically stumbled over her words, “Never mind, seat yourself wherever you want.” She ran off into the back room. I could tell she was scared. We seated ourselves. Then a really, cute girl with long brown hair in a ponytail came out of the backroom. I thought for sure she was going to kick us out. Anyone in their right mind would kick us out right now.

Instead, she said, “Who you are guys? You are the most ragtag crew I’ve ever seen.” We proceeded to introduce ourselves leaving out the part about being on a secret government task force.

Then she said, “Well nice to meet you, I’m Miranda the owner of this place.” She pulled out her com-link and asked, “Can I get a picture of you all? Otherwise, no one is going to believe me when I tell them a bunch of strange men in tattered clothing came in. How did you all get so beat up?”

I tried to play it cool, “We got in a fight with some bullies they were trying to harm a lot of innocent people, but we won.” It really wasn’t that far from the truth.

She put a smile on her face and said, “Okay, well next time you come back look a little more presentable, or I’ll have to refuse you service.

” I don’t know if it was just because we had a near-death experience or we hadn‘t eaten in a while, but the food was really good and they did have some of the cutest waitresses in town. We all needed medical attention and needed to get the ship back to headquarters. Heck we needed to find out where headquarters even was but I wasn’t too worried about that not right now at least. End of Mission 1