Roshma Book 1: The First Steps

My mind couldn’t stop thinking about Katotta. I had to call and see if she was okay. We promised her she’d be out of danger, so much for that. She didn’t answer so I left her a message, and “I might not make it back. If we aren’t back by the morning take the ship and get out of here. Go back home, and notify headquarters with the truth.” I prayed we wouldn’t die, that would suck.

It seemed like it took us hours to get to the factory but in all actuality it was minutes. A funny thing time can be. Upon arrival, at the factory I was still shaking. It was a really nice place, everything looked state of the ark. It stretched on for miles and miles. There were also many large towers around the factory, these served as light beacons so that low flying sky cruisers wouldn’t crash into the factory.

I turned my gaze skyward to the tower facing the entrance to the factory and I saw the clone Katotta holding her sniper rifle by her side. She wasn’t trying to shoot us down; I guess this was all part of their plan. We walked into the lobby and it really was like looking into a mirror. No wonder the cameras were tricked.

We just stared at each other for a while. It was a really awkward situation. What we say to ourselves? Finally, imposter Mott spoke, “The rules are all fights are one-on-one. There are plenty rooms to do battle. No one leaves the factory. You know our sniper Katotta, if anyone is caught leaving the building she will shoot you dead. In the morning, the masked assassin comes, and the local law-enforcement won’t stand a chance.

Mott threw down the gauntlet, “Nothing as good as the original, you’re about to find this out the hard way.” The expression on his face didn’t change as he addressed the clone. He was cool-hands mcgroovy. I wish I possessed Mott’s cool. Everything always sounded so cool in my head and so dumb when it came out my mouth.

We all followed our clones to different parts of the factory. It was weird walking with yourself, I thought this may be the perfect time to attack while the clone wasn’t looking, but I knew the clone would be ready. There were many things I wondered. For example, did the clones have all my memories? Could those be cloned?”

I asked, “Hey Tyerow, do you remember the time where James took us to the abandoned city in the valley beneath his home?”

He replied, “I don’t recall that.” So they had our fighting skills, but not our memories or maybe their memories were modified. Another possibility is all their memories and skills were from somewhere else. Maybe they were just choosing to take forms that resembled us. I would never know. These questions became futile as we approached and door it said, “Primer, Paint and E-coat.” The door was locked but my clone blasted it open. I took off my backpack and laid it by the door. So it had begun.

We stared at each other for a while; I knew his energy was a little depleted because he had just shot a blast. I charged towards him and blasted him. He dived out of the way. The rogue energy hit a clear tank with hoses coming out of it labeled E-coat. The clear liquid now covered the floor. We both tried to strike each other but we slipped. I got back up and punched the faker in the face.

Despite being locked in mortal combat, I couldn’t help but notice my surroundings. What an interesting room this was. There were a plethora of tanks of paint and an assembly line with speeder frames on them. The frames would go down the assembly line and the robotic arms would spray them with E-coat, primer, and then paint.

We continued our duel, he hit me with a back-hand and then kicked me in the stomach. It really hurt. Most the battle, we just clashed unable to hit each other because we were on the same wavelength. Once we locked hands trying to overpower each other, but it was no use because our physical strength was exactly the same. The battle went on this way for a while.

Enter Katotta

I’d been hiding out in a corner of the ship for hours. Luckily, there was extra food here. Mott was right, for some reason they didn’t come for me. I was safe, but sometimes helplessness is worse than danger. I had no idea what to do, I was worried about my team. If they died and I walked out without a scratch, how would I be able walk with my head held high, knowing that I did nothing to save them? What about Chancellor Martin? He was such a good man, and a symbol of hope to millions I couldn’t let him die either. What was a girl to do?

I was overcome by a whirlwind of emotions and my eyes felt as if they were about to leak. The com-link went off, but I didn’t want to answer it. What if it was a message of bad news? I set there for a while in my sorrow until curiosity overcame me. I unlocked the device and there it was a message from Tyerow Hawkins: “I might not make it back if we aren’t back by morning take the ship and get out of there. Go back to Mako City and let them know the truth.”

At that moment, something clicked in me, a blaze began to burn. I had come to the consensus that I was tired of death. No one was going to die. Not Mott, not Tyerow, not A.J. Not even Westcon. Whatever, they throw at me can’t be as bad as the Emerald Protocol. It’s time to stop being a scared child, get my panties, and take a gamble, even with my own life. Strikeout or homerun, it was time to swing the bat.

I was shaking as I tied up my hair and grabbed my riffles once again. Sadly, no synthetic cells remained in my ammo pouch, but a trip to the ships armory fixed that. Incendiary shells those sounded dangerous. That should do the trick.

The microchips implanted inside of us were for tracking purposes. I had discovered we could track each other’s locations on our com-links of the microchips implanted under our skin; they were at a hovercraft factory.

Maldeves was now a ghost town. A stark contrast from the bustling city we’d arrived in a couple days ago I was in need of a faster way to get around town. Since no one was watching I hotwired a speeder. My hands shock as I gripped the steering bars. I can’t believe I am actually going through with this.

My journey led me to a dark factory spewing ominous smoke into the sky. Surrounded by a gate and many large towers, this place looked more military than Indratrial. The gate of the factory was left open like someone was expecting us. My eyes immediately went up to the large tower I front of the factory and I saw the back of someone’s head. This someone was a women and she sporting a purple ponytail just like me. If I had to bet I would say that she was a sniper too.

Originally, I had planned to walk into the front door, but that didn’t seem to be a safe option anymore. Instead, I sidled alongside the perimeter fence for as long holding my breath praying she didn’t see me. My sights were set on a small building right by the entrance. This would be the perfect position to take out the sniper in the tower. I got on the ground and slowly crawled toward a small building. My heart beat faster and faster I could be shot at any moment. No amount of training could truly prepare you for the real thing.

A steady stream of sweat ran down my face. If I crawled too fast I may be spotted. On top of that, my outfit was ill-suited for this situation. My shorts were too short to cover my knees, and crawling across the ground of a mostly abandoned parking lot and the hard ground was tearing up my knees. So much for staying out of danger.

I was safe for time being and took a couple moments to collect myself outside of the range of the snipers sight. Going inside the building would have given me the perfect shot, but it was probably booby trapped with trip mines. That’s what I would have done to make it as hard on counter- snipers as possible. I crawled over to the side of the building and set up my tripod and took aim. My scope was on night vision mode which was my least favorite mode to shoot on, but it would have to do.

I prayed to Elohim for one of the only times in my life. “Please help this sniper not to see me. I’m just trying to save my friends, but some divine guidance would be nice.” I needed all the help I could get right now, my friends needed me more than ever before.

When I finally got to see her face head-on I was shocked to say the least, she looked exactly like me. Those were some good disguises. She had to be wearing a fake face or have had facial reconstructive surgery; it was hard to shoot someone who looked so much like me.

Despite this, I held my breath and clinched the trigger. Boom the shoot had been fired she exploded in a burst of flames. These shells were brutal. I proceeded to enter the factory. My hands were still shaking, but I felt a wave of adrenaline flow through my body that kept me going. I knew what must be done. It was up to me to save the others. I proceeded into the belly of the beast.

Enter Westcon

“Giaka, you just don’t know when to quit.” The clone replied,

I retorted “I learned from the best.” How could I argue with such a handsome fellow?

We had picked a boiler room for our fight. In hindsight, it was a terrible idea. There were tons of little mini boilers that kept obstructing our fight.” He aggressively charged at me throwing a barrage of punches. I didn’t realize I fought that recklessly. He came towards me and popped me in the chin. While on the ground I delivered a kick that sent him flying back into one of the boilers.

The clone put his hand on a boiler to steady himself and screamed out in pain, but something else happened; something unexpected. His hand bubbled and momentarily turned into a blue gel.

This guy wasn’t a true clone, he wasn’t even a Zatt. Whatever he was, he didn’t handle high temperatures very well. I hated scalding hot temperatures as much as the next guy but my skin didn’t turn blue when burned that was unnatural. This begs the question, “why did he choose to go to a boiler room?” New battle plan, it didn’t matter how much damage I took as long as I could bust open one of those boilers on him, he’d be done.

We went on fighting for a while. He was now aware of his weakness too making this no easy task. I took a lot of hits, but he would slip up eventually. I charged in for a haymaker, but my technique was even sloppier than usual. He caught my arm and twisted it behind my back. He laughed, “You really are sloppy. Such a foolish man. As your punishment, I’m going to have to break the arm.”

I was on my knees with my arm twisted behind my back. However, a boiler was just a couple of feet behind me. I concentrated all my energy into my free hand and shot a focused blast of energy behind me.

The clone laughed when I missed him, but I didn‘t really miss. The boiler exploded, spewing out steam and molten liquid. The majority of this hit the clone. He screamed in agony as his flesh burned away. He quickly let go of me. Right before my eyes I watch the imposter melt into a puddle of blue liquid.

An alarm started to go off but what gives I was alive. Death would have to be more cunning than that if it wanted to take me. It wasn’t pretty, but that was the Westcon way get it done no matter what it takes. I got out my com-link and sent a message to everyone, “They are weak against fire.”

Enter Tyerow

Our battle had now moved over to the assembly line. The other Tyerow charged me but I jumped up and grabbed one of the robotic arms above the conveyer belt, and kicked the imposter in the face. We were equal in every way. At one instance in our battle, we both shot blast at one another at the same time. They collided and created an explosion but our projectiles collided in midair creating an explosion. The shockwave brought us both to the ground.

I had a theory of how to beat this clone. I couldn’t simply beat him in combat that would be too hard, it could go either way. What I was cooking up was way out in left field, but sometimes those are the best ideas.

It was pseudoscience but I’d been doing research into spiritual energy; it was more potent than the latent energy I usually channeled for an energy blast. I had been spending a lot of time in meditation trying to tap into my spiritual energy, but it was no easy task. I had been able to muster up a small amount of spiritual energy it glowed white. However, it was such a small amount and I wasn’t sure if it was actually spiritual energy as this was unexplored territory for me or anyone I knew.

One thing was certain, I needed to accumulate a lot of energy to pull this off and that meant a lot of time. However, the difficultly of this task was compounded by the fact that the imposter wouldn’t get out of my face. Jijitsu translated to lightning strike. I kept trying to block all attacks with just one hand, while the other hand charged up.

The clone taunted me, “Come on use both hands. What’s the matter? Are you getting tired?” I closed my eyes and let myself slip away, it was do or die, double or nothing. I released the energy. A spear of white light came out of my right hand. The clone shielded himself for impact. If this didn’t work I’d probably be the dead man.

One in every hundred times a crazy idea like this works. Well this was my lucky day. The spear of energy penetrated the clones shield and went through his heart. There was now a hole in the clone and blue gel dripped down his chest then he turned into a puddle of amoebic goo. I did it, victory! My body was drained, but my arm throbbed with pain every muscle hurt. This was too much for my body to handle, my arm was out of commission for the rest of the day. Hopefully, that was the last fight for a while because that was my ace, my one off.

I limped over to my backpack by the door and pulled out my com-link. It was at this moment a blinking light caught my eye. Westcon’s message, “They are weak to fire.” Looked like all I really needed were some matches. I checked my com to see where he was, and Katotta was on the map. No this was all wrong. It was way too dangerous for a rookie like her.

Enter Katotta

My com-link went off; it scared me half to death. The message was from Westcon and read, “They are weak against fire.” Maybe that’s why the strange girl in the tower burst into flames. Who sent them? What was their motive? The whole situation left a lot to be desired, but the answer to these questions would have to wait. First priority, locate all my friends.

I looked at the map, Mott was in a large area which looked to be the production floor. He was closest so Mott would be my first stop. I felt a sharp pain in my leg and looked down as stream of blood flowed form my knees. They were worse off than I thought, this better not leave too bad of scars, or its goodbye shorts forever. Hopefully not but it would probably be a good idea to pack long pants for my next mission.

Out of nowhere, someone tapped me on the shoulder. My and went straight for my pistol. With weapon in hand, I spun around to see who it was; luckily it was only Westcon.

He said. “I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but you don’t have to kill me.” My pistol found its way back to my hip and my arms found themselves wrapped around Westcon.

He smiled, “ Go easy on me I think some of my ribs are broken. After a short reunion, we were both running towards the production floor. He was surprisingly fast. I barely managed to keep up with him.

Upon arrival at the production floor I was gasping for breath. Well part of the blame falls on my riffle it was weighing me down. I looked down over the railing and saw Mott and his doppelganger. I still couldn’t get over the fact they looked exactly the same. Luckily, they were wearing different clothes or I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. Real Mott was wearing a tank top and the clone was wearing this weird one piece body suit.

While I was trying to pick out my target, Westcon ran down onto the floor to join the fight. With three men moving around on the ground it was there was a greater chance of friendly fire. I felt the pounding a pulse in my temple as I tried to slow down the world around me make it move at my pace. If they would stand still for a moment this would be exponentially easier

A chance to take the shot finally presented itself. The real Westcon and Blixer were restraining the clone they shouted at me, “Shoot him now.” I pulled the trigger, direct hit. There was a dull ache in my shoulder from the recoil. The imposter fared much worse. He had melted into some weird blue goo.

Tyerow, ran up to me with a concerned look on his face, “What did I miss?” I gave him a huge hug, I was so happy he was alive. Sure he was covered in blood and his clothes were tattered, but Tyerow was alive. However, he was way worse off than myself. None of that seemed to matter to him right now. He saw that I was limping, and came over and put his arm around my shoulder and we walked almost as if he was my crutch. The others were in front of us. Tyerow struggled to pick up my slack.

Tyerow was different from his fellow teammates, he had an eye for detail. Everyone had taken their fair share of licks. He noticed I was struggling to keep up with my scraped up legs, and he made sure I didn’t fall too far behind. Tyerow had grown up since those fateful days in the desert; the boy I met was now a grown man, but part of him had stayed exactly the same. Luckily it was the best part of him.

Tyerow wasn’t without fault: he could be awkward, never 100% fit in with any group, followed the beat of a different drummer, but his heart was pure and it was in the right place. I wanted to thank him but he would just shrug it off say it was nothing. So, instead of apology I held on tighter, fully putting my trust in him that he would protect me. This was comfort and safety even if only momentary.

The rest of my story went something like this, Hawkins, Westcon, Blixer killed the rest of the clones while I sat down and took a well-deserved rest. Shodon, Jon, and Jin shortly joined our ranks. Jon looked undamaged, he said something about his clone being defective. The cloning process was not able to copy Jon’s telekinetic abilities. More proof that he was a weirdo.

It would be easy to celebrate at this point, but celebration would be premature. There was still Martins safety to worry about. Law enforcement set up a perimeter around the mansion, but those sent to kill Martin may be too powerful. The poor Chancellor may already be dead. However, as we exited the factory day had broken and now a new problem emerged, it was daybreak and it had been a long time since I had slept. There was a new struggle fighting the ever increasing heaviness of my eyelids.

Enter Tyerow

We rode home on our stolen speeders in an heir of victory. The enemy had underestimated us as we had proved our innocence and disposed of the clones in a matter of hours. In other news, I was gaining mobility back in my arm, but there were bigger concerns at the moment. I still wrestled with the question of how they had cloned us. They must have acquired our blood somehow. In that case I think I had found the culprit. It had to be the chemist that implanted us with the nanobots. He had recently had access to our blood via the Emerald Protocol. It wasn’t hard evidence, but I would still tell Polanski about it. Even if I was correct what did it matter now? We had cheated death again and that was an incredible feeling.

We arrived at the governor’s mansion to find it on high alert. There were snipers on the roof and a garrison of law-enforcement officers as well as many military vehicles. The enemies plan was to divide up the law enforcement. If things had gone as plans, they’d be trying to kill us, thinking we were the one’s trying to kill Martin and then they would make their move. Luckily, that wouldn’t happen now.

We parked our stolen speeders and joined them in fortifying the building. I was running on about 5% battery at this point and don’t remember everything that happened. I do remember everyone apologizing for trying to kill us. I told them, “It was okay; someone was always trying to kill us.” We waited for a long while but nothing happened. At this point, the alpha star was high in the sky, day had broken. Maybe we were wasting our time.

Turned out our defenses were not in vain. A man in a dark overcoat approached the building. He was like no man I had ever seen before. He dressed almost entirely in black and wore gauntlets. He carried a knife in each hand and had two plasma pistols strapped to his hip. A mask covered his face that looked like it was made of stone with golden colored sheet metal attached to it. His hair hung slightly out of the back.

Fear spread through the crowd as one of the law enforcement officers said, “That’s the masked assassin.” I looked straight at him. I couldn’t explain it, but something about him made me uneasy. The cold eyes of his mask were peering into the depths of my soul. He inched his way closer and closer towards the palace until someone with a megaphone said, “Take one more step and we will kill you.”

The assassin laughed. He must have had a voice distorter because his voice sounded inhuman.

He replied, “I see you have me outclassed. There is no way I could fight those seven and live. In the original plan they were supposed to be out of the way.” Then he pointed right at Katotta and addressed her, “You aren’t supposed to be here either. You make be an excellent markswomen, but beautiful flower like yourself shouldn’t have to fight a war. Give up this soldier’s game, this war will taint you; its fire’s will cause your petals to wilt.”

Katotta pulled a pistol from her hip and addressed him, “We’re at war assassin. I don’t have the luxury of being flower, you and your people took that away from me. My petals may be wilted by the heat, but what gives? Worse has happened.”

She fired some shots at him. There were only lasers, it turned out the assassin was like us. He shielded them. The rest of the soldiers started firing. He used some kind of device to create a field of smoke which he disappeared into.

It was eerie to say the least, but he was gone now. I heard some of the law enforcement men say, “What are we waiting for, we’re not letting this creep get away.”

I had to warn them, “No, let him go. You all wouldn’t stand a chance against him.” They didn’t take to kindly too this but it is best to avoid psychos like the man in the mask.

We entered the palace heroes, but all I longed for at the moment was sleep. They made us go see a nurse who disinfected our wounds and bandaged us all up. We looked like the mummy exhibit walking down the hall. Upon arrival at our sleeping quarters we immediately prepared for sleep, all of us except for one. Katotta was carrying a towel and a change of clothes in her right hand and a bottle of soap in her left hand. She stopped as she approached the door and looked back at us to lecture, “How can you guys go to bed all sweaty like that? I don’t understand men in the slightest, they can be disgusting sometimes.”

Westcon said, “Well, we’re all going to take a team shower tomorrow morning if you want to join?” This comment was so up surd, yet I failed to contain my laughter.

She blushed a little bit, “No way am I getting into a shower with six dudes. I got my pride, my decency. Guys are weird like that, but girls don’t do the whole group shower thing.”

Westcon shot back, “We’re all adults here, and we’re on the same team.”

Katotta was getting a bit angry at this point, “Do you want me to kick you a Westcon?”

I wasn’t big on group showers either, but this moment was pure gold. I tried to conceal my laughter, but it was too hard of a task. Katotta gave me this look that said, “Even you Tyerow.” She rolled her eyes and then left.

Once she was out of earshot, Westcon imitated Katotta in his high pitched girl’s voice that sounded nothing like Katotta, “Girls always shower alone blah blah blah, yeah right.” With that we went to sleep with smiles on our faces.

We were woken up hours later by some of the law-enforcement officers. They told us that, “We need to get up, get clean and look our best because the Chancellor wanted us to be the guest of honor at his speech.” Well we had made it to the big-times because they provided us with suits. Not just any suits but designer Marrius suits. Our seats were top-notch as well. They were padded and from where sat, we were looking out over a crowd of thousands.

I don’t remember much of the speech but it really got me fired up. Chancellor Martin was a true politician. I do remember one part he said, “I understand the importance of safety especially during a war, but as soon as this war is over, the Big brother camera system taken down so we can get back to liberty.” Preach it Martin.

At the end of the speech he did something really cool or really stupid we’d have to wait and see. He said, “Let me introduce you to the real heroes. He had each of us come up to the podium individually and introduce ourselves. I looked out on the crowd of thousands and words almost didn’t come to my mouth. I thought we were supposed to be secret agents. This defiantly was the opposite of secret. I guess we still sucked at stealth. It was such a rush and it was too late to turn back now, might as well enjoy the moment.

A blonde newswoman came up to us and ask a bunch of questions I didn’t care to answer. The 15 minutes of fame was cool, but I was kind of ready for it to pass. It was two hours before we finally got made it back to our ship.

Once we had stabilized I went to the observation deck. From such great heights Maldeves was so small it looked more like a toy model than a city. I would say I missed Maldeves, but it would be a lie. Despite this, today was a good day. My arm was feeling 200% better and I was happy to be returning to privacy and sleep in my own semi-comfortable bed.

There I go again getting lost in my own world. How were the others? I entered the main area of the ship and took a seat. Jon was reading a book, Westcon wasn’t doing anything. Shodon was playing a game on his com-link and Katotta was changing out to gauze on her knees. My eyes stopped scanning the room at Katotta, and a warm feeling emanated throughout my body, she was the most beautiful girl that would ever exist.

I did feel a tiny bit of regret at the sight of Katotta all bandaged up Katotta all bandaged up. I don’t know who the masked creep was, but he seemed as if he knew Katotta but where would he meet her? Maybe he had seen her in a magazine as she did some modeling in her younger years. Possibly he was simply a creep/ I would never know, but he was partially right about one thing. Katotta was a beautiful flower, but she wasn’t near as delicate as he thought.

I did feel somewhat guiltily for putting her into this situation, though without her we may have died. With this in mind I prepared my apology. This consisted of me awkwardly walking up to her and saying “So much for staying in the ship. We were foolish to think you could just set in the ship and not do anything. No one would blame you if this was your last mission.”

Katotta let out a laugh, “You worry about me too much. It wasn’t that bad. I got a little scrapped up but it will heal, maybe not as fast as you guys will heal, but it’s not permanent.

I had to ask, “So that means you’re coming back?”

She gave a cute little smile, “I don’t know about that. Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves. A sniper is a pretty important part of the team, but they’re not that hard to find.”

I’d bet money she’d be back. There is something about completing a mission. Sure it’s dangerous, but it’s addicting. There was a feeling when save a Chancellor or kill evil alien clones. You get this high I can’t describe. You’re on top of a mountain, and for just a moment everything is all right.

End of Mission 2