Jon Messenger: Purge of Prometheus

Decker’s yell pulled her from her thoughts. As they broke through the trees, Keryn found Adam removing his shirt while balanced at the lip of a small outcropping of rock. Beyond him, sparkling in the warm sun, a river bubbled past from a waterfall a few hundred meters upstream.

“Well I’ll be damned,” she muttered, happy to think that she might finally wash away some grime. If nothing else, it would give them the chance to blend into the city, as opposed to looking and smelling like they had just flown halfway across the universe.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud splash, as though flesh struck water at an uncomfortable angle. Keryn’s eyes glistened as she heard the sound and a smile crept across her face.

Paddling giddily near the center of the lagoon, Adam laughed to himself while vigorously rubbing a bruise spreading across his side.

She didn’t wait for an invitation before stripping off her jacket, kicking off her boots, and dropping her pistol absently on top of the growing pile of clothes. With little thought to prying eyes, Keryn pulled her shirt free and unbuttoned her pants, adding both articles of clothing to the pile. Standing naked on top of the rocks that lined the shore of the river, the swollen yellow sun glistened off her wildly attractive form, her red and purple tattoos tracing the curves of her body.

As Keryn braced herself for her jump into the cool waters, Adam sat in the water and admired the firmness of her athletic and curvy body, his bruises already forgotten. He watched longingly as she started her sprint toward the edge of the rocks, intent on throwing herself into the stream. Moments before her feet left the rock outcropping but much too late to stop her momentum, Adam snapped out of his fantasizing, suddenly scared.

“Stop!” he yelled as her feet left the rock.

She tucked her legs under her, pulling her knees to her chest in anticipation of hitting the water. She struck the surface of the water, hitting her backside first and knocking the wind from her. Her body unfolded as she struck the solid surface of the water, its surface bowing but not giving way to her weight. Skipping like a stone, Keryn could feel the welt already forming on her bottom. Slowly, her momentum petered out until she came to a rest. When finally stopped, she broke through the surface of the stream and was dumped, unceremoniously, into the cold water.

Spitting river water from her mouth and brushing her silver hair out of her face, Keryn clutched her bruised backside and gasped for breath.

“What the hell was that?” she screamed after finally taking in a lung full of air.

“I tried to warn you,” Adam replied, swimming over to her. “Apparently the surface tension on this planet is significantly higher than anywhere else we’ve been. I found out the hard way too,” he finished, showing the spreading bruise on his ribs.

“You could have warned me just a little sooner instead of just…,” she paused, “staring. Now you owe me one.”

Adam covered the rest of the distance between them in a couple powerful strokes of his arms. “However can I make it up to you,” he replied in mock penitence. He stared deeply into her eyes, his blue reflecting in her deep violet eyes.

A coarse laugh caused them both to turn. Penchant stood on the embankment laughing. Though capable of changing forms at will, the Lithids could do nothing to change their voices, which remained rough and gravelly.

Keryn narrowed her eyes and stared at the bearded persona Penchant had adopted. “Don’t start laughing now, Lithid. This isn’t just a social stop along our way. You may not have sweat glands that excrete body odor, but the rest of us smell terrible and are going to scrub thoroughly before getting dressed. I’m not spending a few days in close confines with us smelling that bad.” She turned to Adam, who had inched closer through the dense water. “That means you, lover boy.”

Dejected, Adam swam away and began scrubbing some of the grime that had collected over their months of travel. Penchant moved around the edge of the water, keeping watch over the two as they washed.

As Penchant stood on the far shore, staring at the encroaching wilderness, Keryn finished her diligent washing and walked onto dry land. She stood, letting the hot sun dry the beads of water that rolled down her naked back, down her strong legs, and pooled on the ground at her feet. Tilting her head, Keryn began ringing the water from her hair.

Glancing over her shoulder, she called to Penchant. “Gather our clothes and come across. Give us a quick recon of the area ahead, while we get dressed.”

Penchant turned and disappeared down the far shoreline just as Adam emerged from the water, shaking himself dry like a dog.

“Are we sure we’re up for this?” he asked, the flirtatious humor now replaced with deadly focus.

“Unfortunately, no,” she replied, frustrated. “We know Cardax won’t be alone within the city, so we’ll have to be careful. On Pteraxis, he didn’t know what we looked like and it still ended badly for us.” Penchant approached them from out of the jungle. He dropped their gathered belongings at their feet and both Keryn and Adam began dressing.

“Aside from his crew, we have to assume that Cardax came here because he knew he was being followed and could find sanctuary. That means we are definitely walking into a trap. What we don’t know is how many men he’ll have waiting.”

“So we go in, guns blazing?” Adam asked, excitement reflecting in his blue eyes.

“No,” Keryn said, firmly. “We aren’t carrying enough firepower to bring down an entire city and, for all we know, Cardax has the entire city supporting him. No, this mission is going to take a level of stealth.” She glanced over at the Lithid. “Penchant is our ace in the hole. He’s the one face Cardax will never recognize, no matter how many times he sees him.”

“Stealth,” Adam grimly echoed. While an exceptional fighter with both firearms and hand-to-hand combat, Adam had never excelled at stealth. His towering frame and Terran features made him easily recognizable in Interstellar Alliance space.

Keryn sympathized with Adam’s frustration. She would have preferred to enter the city with guns drawn, firing round after round into anyone stupid enough to ally themselves with Cardax. She still reveled in the memory of destroying one of Cardax’s two escaping ships at Pteraxis. But, even as skilled as they were, they simply didn’t have the firepower to win an extended war with Cardax and his cohorts. The enemy had the option to win the war simply through attrition.

Buttoning her pants and pulling her shirt over her head, Keryn turned toward her two patriots. “Knowing Cardax, he’ll be near the spaceport, so we’ll start our search there. My worry is that even though we’ve looked at the map so many times my eyes feel like they’re going to bleed, we don’t know the city. Cardax does. We don’t know how many enemies we will face. Cardax does. We don’t even know where he’s hiding inside the city, even though we know where to start. What I do know is that the course of the war with the Terran Empire hangs in the balance. If we succeed, we can defeat the Terrans once and for all. If we fail, it will be more than just our lives lost. If that isn’t enough to motivate you, than ask yourself one important question.”

She paused, smiling wickedly. “If you’re dead, how are you going to be able to take your revenge on Cardax, one broken bone at a time?”

Adam and Penchant both laughed maliciously, knowing what she was referring to. Both had gone through the same special operations training that Keryn had, to include interrogation techniques. Clipped to the belts of all three of them was a small pouch, which contained a small rock hammer and a pair of serrated scalpels. When it came time to gather information from Cardax, it would not be a pleasant experience for the Oterian smuggler.