Roshma Book 1: The First Steps

We arrived at our destination, but there was a problem, no place to land; we were in the middle of a crowded city. Then we heard a voice over the ships speaker, “I’m putting her down in this parking lot; there’s just a couple of speeders there.”

Maybe the rest of the team was right about Jin. I mean that’s not suspicious at all, a giant ship parked at an abandoned diner. Anyway, the ship landed and we got out, but I was still uneasy. We had no plan and no idea what waited for us on the other side of the diner door.

A.J. echoed my concerns, “What’s the attack plan? I’ve never done this before.”

To which Westcon smirked, “The plan is to attack head on, a full-frontal assault.”

For some reason we listened to Westcon, which is never a good idea. I happened to be towards the front of the group. How did I get myself into this mess? As soon as we opened the door, there were about 13 guns pointed at us. The people pointing the guns were a ragtag crew. There were Zatts, mixed in with a bunch of other alien races and standing behind the counter was Vaughn. He just said, “Kill them.” What a warm welcome.

Luckily for us, they were all laser rifles so I shielded up. The green orb of energy surrounded my body. A barrage of laser came towards me but were absorbed into my shield. The laser kept coming until the whole room was filled with smoke. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold my shield. Luckily for me, the firing stopped. Mr. Vaughn looked a little surprised, he scratched his head before saying, “What are you waiting for? If lasers don’t work, beat them down with your fist.” Ironically Vaughn snuck off into the kitchen. He was nothing more than a coward. The real battle now began.

I got stuck fighting this weird looking alien guy with four eyes and he was about seven decs tall ( for reference AJ was 6.4 decs). He kicked me, and I went flying into a table. The table shattered under my weight. So he wanted to dance? I grabbed a napkin holder and threw it at his face. While he was holding his face, I rushed in and started punching him it the torso. He tried to shoot me with his laser rifle, but he missed. Suddenly, the alien fell to the ground.

He had been shot from behind, the shooter was Jon; I didn‘t think he knew how to shoot a gun. Glad he had my back. Another enemy took the opportunity to attack while I was distracted, but Jon caught him in midair with his telekinetic powers and threw him up against the wall. I proceeded to blast him.

The three remaining men ran out the door. We let them get away, there were bigger fish to fry. I looked around at all the destruction we had just caused. The diner was a wreck, but everyone was accounted except Westcon. Then we heard a gunshot. It came from inside the kitchen. Next thing I know, we were all running into the kitchen.

AJ pushed open the swinging doors and, I saw Westcon crawling on the floor. He had been shot in the right shoulder with a steel loader. I poked my head up for a second, and another shot came towards me barely missing. Mott Addressed Westcon, “Oh come on it’s just a scratch. I’ll show you how it’s done.” He picked a large steel pot and dashed out into the open. Then Mr. Vaughn went to shoot, but Mott used the pot to block the bullet and threw it at the terrorist. Then Mott grabbed him by his shirt, “Start speaking what’s the plan?”

By this time we had all surrounded him, and there was nowhere for him to go.

His voice was shaky as he dodged Mott’s questions, “The plan, hmm. I’m afraid you have the wrong guy. You see this was just a distraction. I don’t even know the real plan.”

Mott proceeded to punch him in the face a couple of times. Mott shouted, “What is the plan?” Vaughn spit out some blood but then he smiled, not saying a word. Mott was enraged, “Giaka, what do I have to do? I know, I’ll break your fingers one by one.”

Vaughn said, “At a time I would have told you but I’m not a Zatt anymore. I’m running with a new group of people who actually respect me.” I hated to break it to him but he was simply being used to fulfill a role, there was no respect.

Mott paced around for a second before changing his approach, “I knew your son, Michael Rogers. When I lived on the streets, we were in the same gang.” Suddenly, the man’s face changed. “I liked Michael a lot, but if whatever plot you guys have cooked up destroys this city, it could kill your son.”

The terrorist slowly but surely broke down into tears. For the first time I got a good look at him; he was a defeated man. He looked as if he hadn’t bathed in a while, he had a long scraggly beard and long hair to match. There was now blood dripping from his face too. It was a pathetic site.

He stammered, “I was never a good father to my boy. We were always poor. I wanted to provide a good life for my family, but I was always screwing up. One day I decided to sell some drugs to get some extra cash, nothing hard just some uranthal. I already used the stuff myself, why not sell it?

My wife knew about my drug problem but when she found out I was selling, she left me and took the kid. Without my family, things got worse for me. I robbed banks and then eventually got mixed up with these guys. I wish there was something that could be done to help break the cycle.”

Mott pleaded with the desperate man, “You can still save your son; tell us their plans and we will stop them.”

Between sobs he said, “Okay I’ll cooperate. Do you guys ever see the giant towers throughout the city? Those are shield towers. They generate the dome shield that is always surrounding the city. It actually generates a many layered shield, so even if bombs are dropped in the shield, they will detonate in the first layer way above the city.

Most people don’t know this, but Jinsei Dam also provides energy to all of these towers. This energy is powered by laser refraction off of special diamonds. A beam is shot at a series of diamonds which refract the beam and magnify its power exponentially. This energy powers the shields. However, the dam is currently under the Raikai’s control.

At the middle of the day, enemy ships will bombard the city with bombs. Most everyone will die, and the war will pretty much be over. The shield however, will not be turned off until a few minute before the attacks. By the time, Zatt airships come to shoot down the enemy forces, it will already be too late. One other thing, can you hand me my gun?”

Mott was wary but gave him the gun. Something I wouldn’t have chosen to do. He took the gun and put the barrel in his mouth. I saw what was about to happen in slow motion but I couldn’t stop it. I screamed out, “No you don’t have to do it, we won’t even turn you in. It’s not too late you can still make amends. You can live the rest of your life a new man.”

He delivered his last words, “If you ever see my son, tell him daddy is sorry.” The world went silent and there was a loud ringing sound that hung around in the air for a couple minutes after the shot had been fired. The kitchen wall was splattered red as he lay motionless. The blood and brain matter had splattered in such a way as to form a crimson butterfly whose wings stretched out from the back of his skull. That butterfly was an image I couldn’t get out of my head. It would go on to haunt my dreams.

I stood in the wake of current events not wanting to believe what I had just witnessed. I knew death was a part of war, but I wasn’t prepared for this; a man so defeated and broken as to take his own life. My sadness must have been visible because A.J. went up and put his hand around my shoulder and said, “He’s in a better place now.”

I didn’t listen, but instead chose to yell at Mott, “How can you let him do that take his own life like that? Doesn’t it bother you? Were supposed to the good guys, but so far, we’ve destroyed a restaurant and let a man kill himself.”

Mott didn’t have much to say. When he finally did speak he said, “I know man, this kind of sucks so far.” Everyone was looking at me like I was crazed. I pulled it together, collected myself and swallowed it all down. We left and I swore to never go back to the diner; even if the city restores it to its old glory makes it nice again.

I couldn’t help but notice Westcon as he limped out of the diner back to our ship.

A.J. asked Westcon, “Are you ok man? We can drop you off back at headquarters before we go to the dam.”

Westcon scoffed at mere idea of it, “Let me tell you something, I’ve worked hard for this moment. I’m not the most powerful guy on this crew. In fact, the only reason I was allowed into Cashay’s is because my dad’s an influential lawyer, practically had to beg them to let me in this program. Now after coming all this way I ain’t planning on giving up. No bullet can stop my dream of becoming a hero. I’ll dig the bullet out with a knife and pour some antiseptic on it.” As we boarded the ship, we had to toss all of our fears aside, it was do or die. The fate of the city rested in the hands of seven men.

I got on my com-link and called Katotta, “Are you in Mako City right now?”

She replied, “Yes, why do you ask?”

I frantically said, “I don’t have time to explain, but if we fail this mission, this city is going to get leveled.”

There was a long pause and then. “Okay, I’m leaving right away just promise me you guys won’t get yourselves killed.” I promised, but it was an empty promise. Now there was headquarters, I needed to warn them of the plan. Even if we failed, we need our airships up in the sky to shoot those enemy airships down before they did too much damage to the city. I called Polanski with the information and ask if he could send us a map of the dams’ interior. Everything was going well, no negative remarks until I asked if we could have a land squad unit for backup?

Polanski screamed, “What are you guys good for if you can’t handle a couple of soldiers? We’ll take the skies you guys got the ground.” Hey, at least that was a lot more pleasant than our last encounter. We were making progress. While I was talking to Polanski, someone was screaming in the ship. The scream sounded like it was coming from inside the spare room. Turns out, it was Westcon. I guess he was really going through with it after all, digging out the bullet. It was official, he was crazy.

I decided to report to Mott since he was the leader, “Mott, all parameters have been covered.”

He gave me a strange look, “Parameters, what are you talking about?”

I was stunned, “You know like I’ve taken care of everything that needs to be taken care of.”

He smirked, “Why didn’t you say that then. Don’t come at me with your fancy parameters. Also, don‘t be so uptight, I’m your friend, not your boss.”

Suddenly, my com-link beeped, “Yo Mott, I got the maps to the inside of the dam, so we won’t get lost.”

He flashed a sly grin before saying, “That’s more like it, you were sounding like one of those people from headquarters for a moment and we’re too young for that it’s our first day in the field.”

There was only one thing I had to do, before our date with destiny. I started a routine today that I would continue on all my future missions, I prayed. This was beyond me. In fact, this was beyond anyone, “Dear Elohim please watch over me even though I throw myself in the line of danger. I pray that your guardian spirit blankets me so I can live to see another day.”

We were approaching the landing site which was a nature preserve about half a half a mile away from the dam. This was so they won’t see us coming. Normally, we would just fly up to the front door and say hello, but stealth was the name of the game. The seven of us exited the ship and snuck the nature preserve. It was a beautiful environment despite seeing very little of it, but I was a little too nervous to take it all in. This was my first mission and as far as I knew the next moment could be my last.

When we arrived at the entrance of the dam, and to everyone’s surprise, didn’t see any security guards. This was strange, I was expecting an army. Maybe, they just thought their plan was too good to fail. We crossed a large steel bridge. About 40 feet below us was the Melong River. On the other side of the toll bridge, was the ticket office, but it was completely empty.

There were two statues of crawldors A serpent like creature with two legs, webbed toes, two fins for swimming and two more coming out from behind its head. The statue was different from the real version because the statues were wearing smiles and had big friendly eyes. Obviously not based off the real crawldors, those things looked terrifying.

Shodon went up a shook the one of the crawldors fins. To our surprise, a voice came out of it, “Hey kids, its Carl the Crawldor. The dam is a great place to visit. Adventure, fun, and knowledge are waiting inside for you.” Now, we were all looking at Shodon. He muttered, “Sorry, I didn‘t know anything would happen.” Shodon my friend, this isn’t a good time for curiosity.

There may not have been an army guarding the entrance but entering wouldn’t be as easy as walking through the front door. This being due to the fact that metal bars sealing off the entrance. One step forward, two steps back. We still had so much to learn. There was a hologram above the entrance that we hadn’t noticed when we first arrived, “No dam tours today.”

Jin said, “Well did we bring any explosives?”

Jon got mad, “Remember the part where I said this was a stealth mission? We can’t just blow down the front door.”

Mott laughed, “We don’t need explosions we can make our own. We’re freaks.” He reared back and blasted the door. Boom, there was an explosion. The door was damaged, but not open yet. Now the others had joined in blasting the gate. Westcon with his left arm, the right shoulder was all bandaged up.

While they proceeded to make quite the racket, A.J. and I looked for an alternative way in on a map Polanski had sent to my com-link. A.J. pointed out a crucial detail on the dam map “Oh look, there is a roof hatch on the top of this building.” I had to commend his efforts, but it was too late. We had kissed any notions of stealth goodbye.

The crawldors eyes were now red and the security alarms were blaring. A really delayed response if you ask me they had been blasting on the doors for quite a while now. We climbed through the hole we had just made in the security gate. I’m sure the dam was a great place, but under these circumstances it was not exactly a tourist attraction.

We snuck through the halls as quietly as we could almost holding our breath scared that even the slightest of movements would give away our position to the enemy. Jon caught a glimpse of three guards, they were armed with A-42 laser riffles. The A-42 was more powerful than the Sk-53 riffles our enemies at the diner had. Our shields may be able to hold up against this caliber of rifle since it still shot lasers, but I personally don’t like to gamble with my life.

We scurried behind some marble pillars to take cover. However, we weren’t sneaky enough. I heard laser fire, they had spotted us. At the moment we were safe, but I didn‘t know how long that would last. I heard the sizzling sound of lasers melting through the stone and I didn’t know how much longer it would hold up.

Westcon and Jin pulled out some laser rifles that they had stolen off the goons at the diner. It was a small skirmish. They made short work of the enemy. One of the guards pulled out his com-link and with his last breathe, “Security breech send in all units.”

I think I was the only one who noticed the security guards dying request. Mott and many of the others were reveling in the glory of our “victory”. He proclaimed “My boy Westcon is an ace with the gun, in fact he is the best marksman I know.

I hated to burst his bubble but I knew one marksmen who was better. In fact, she was a markswomen. I told him, “You’re the second best shot I know.” I wanted to see he reaction.

Intrigued Westcon asked, “Yeah well who’s the best shot you know? I got to hear this.”

I got a mischievous grin, he wasn’t going to like this, “The first is actually Katotta. She made a shot from half a mile out once.”

As I predicted this struck a nerve with Westcon. Angrily he retorted, “That’s straight up fiction, not even possible. Even if she somehow pulled that off, is was by dumb luck not skill.” He may not believe me, but I was actually there when it happened. She shot a desert snag beast. Anyway, we had larger problem to worry about then who’s who.

We had now arrived in the main room. It was a circular chamber surrounded by pillars. It was quite a beautiful room, but it was a bit crowded for my taste. All the enemy forces were gathered here and all eyes were on us. They slowly moved in on us. There was no escape now and a fight was inevitable. At the center of it all was a man in a cape, standing on the top floor in front of the dam’s finest restaurant, “River Grub”.

He looked down upon us with condescending eyes and boasted, “We knew the Zatt army would send in its special forces sooner or later but we’ve prepared. He then went on to give a long speech. Every antagonist does this; it is a major character flaw in the villain archetype. That’s why I suspected that Vaughn wasn’t really a terrorist and merely a puppet. As soon as we walked in the diner, all he said was,” die”, no long speech.

Our Attackers were comprised of mostly Zatts. This bothered me; why would a Zatt betray their own planet? The rest of the enemy forces were made up from an assortment of alien races. They charged at us, and the battle had begun. However, this was my second fight of the day and I had found my rhythm.

This fight was basically a repeat of the diner fight. There were more enemies, but the outcome was about the same. I dodged, blasted, shielded, punched and kicked. I was bleeding a little bit, but it was nothing, I had been in worse fights before. I once fought an assassin who had more power in his hand than these guys had in their whole body. That’s actually how one of my friends met his demise in the desert. I barely made it out of the fight alive but he wasn’t as fortunate.

My mind drifted off as I thought about my past life in the desert. These enemies were so weak it took very little concentration to defeat them. When I awoke form this trance, the battle was over, and we stood victorious. I looked around and we were all a little bloodied, but we were all still alive. Westcon was really struggling, as he had been fighting with one arm the whole time.

It was too early to make judgements our first day on the job, but the work we did made me uneasy. I know it was for the good of the Zatt war effort, but far too many dead bodies littered the ground. On one hand I was happy that we won, but a little sick to my stomach at the same time. We had killed them all, with our bare hands. No wonder the people at headquarters didn’t like us, they probably feared us. We were monsters and freaks.

I was also troubled on a moral level. My beliefs tell me, “Do not take the life of your fellow man.”, but what was I to do let them kill me? Let them level our city? I knew the necessary actions had been taken, but still wished there was another way.

I wondered if anyone else even cared, or were they just desensitized to the horrors of war. Well I didn’t have too much time to slip back into a thought trance because out of the shadows of “River Grub” came three more figures. The one in the middle hissed, “Naucth Can Zigh” Author’s translation: “Finally fighters worthy of our time.”