Cold Fury

By Andrew Swearingen

The blast doors gave way, pummeled into slag metal by relentless energy blasts.

Cody lowered his hands and marched into the centrifuge. The surviving Takton sentries retreated, their clawed toes clacking on the icy floors. Frostbitten wind whipped Cody’s hair and tugged at his tattered wool coat. Fists clenched and teeth gritted, he confronted the monolithic object in the center of the chamber.

The crystal spire nearly reached the cavern’s domed ceiling, higher than a house back on Earth. This giga-jem—and the thousands like it—were the reason the Takton were enslaving humans by the thousands. To mine these powerful jems that powered their cities. Their warships. Their experiments.

This particular jem powered their entire hypergate network.

A pair of Takton engineers cowered behind their workstations, shaking in the protective radiation suits that covered their squat, furry bodies from head to claw.

Lightning erupted from Cody’s bare chest, cascading down his arm and firing across the room. The explosion knocked the two hapless Takton backward several meters, leaving their equipment a pile of charred debris.

As if in response, a giant arc of energy shot from the giga-jem and enveloped Cody’s body. He fell to one knee, the pain of a thousand cold daggers stabbing him all at once.

He slammed his fist into the floor. Stupid! He knew the jems were attracted to his energy blasts. A jolt like that would have killed a normal human.

The two engineers fled the room. Cody wanted to finish them off, but relented. Let the hairy scum run in fear for once.

He turned to the conduits that connected the giga-jem to the larger power grid outside. He’d planned this for months. Destroying the conduits would cripple the Taktons’ hypergate network and knock out power to half the colony, throwing humanity’s oppressors into chaos.

“I wouldn’t do that, son.”

Cody whirled, raising his hands, ready to fire another arc. A stranger had entered behind him. A human man with dark skin, a thick gray beard, and dreadlocks that cascaded down his heavy wool cloak.

“Who—What do you want?”

“Name’s Benson. I just wanna talk.”

Cody shook his head. “No time.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Cody.”

He paused at the use of his name but didn’t take the bait. “I knock out this jem and it takes down their hypergates. Which means they can’t reach Earth.”

“They’ll rebuild it. And they’ll kill you if they catch you.”

“Better than living under their leash.” Cody balled his hands into fists. “I’ve already killed Takkies. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ll do whatever it takes to stop them.”

“I’m telling you, it’s in your best interest—and every single human on this accursed ball of ice—that you don’t go through with this.”

“You don’t get it!” Cody shook his fist. “They stuck me in one of their labs! Experimented on me.” Small tendrils of energy sparked and crackled out of Cody’s chest. “Made me some kind of freak.”

Benson’s eyes softened.

“But now… I’ll make them pay!” Cody spat. The tendrils crept downward, tracing a web of patterns up and down his arm.

The giga-jem crackled again. He braced himself as another arc peeled off of its surface.

It should have hit him. But it crashed against an invisible wall, rebounding upward, blasting a gaping hole in the ceiling. Chunks of melting ice crashed to the floor. A column of moonlight illuminated the chamber.

“You’re…”

“Yes, Cody. I’m like you. But not for the reasons you think.” Benson waved his hand and the sphere evaporated. “Those experiments didn’t give you powers. They were trying to figure out what did.”

Cody lowered his hands.

“It’s the jems.” The older man held out his hand. The giga-jem sparked again, and a gentle tendril of energy weaved across the room into Benson’s hand. “About one in every thousand humans has the genetic marker that allows them to manipulate the energy. Among the first ships of humans the Takton enslaved, there were only a dozen of us. Over the years, our number has grown to several hundred.”

Cody stared at the energy tendril dancing in Benson’s palm. “Several hundred? But with that many you could—”

Benson shook his head. “Not yet. We have enough to hurt them, but not overthrow them. We need more people like you and me. More jem-sensitives.”

“More… You want to let them bring more humans here?”

Benson released the tendril, sending it back to the giga-jem. “Earth doesn’t have the technology to fight the Takton. But with each ship full of humans they bring here, we gain more advantage for the future conflict. So we wait. While they enslave more humans. While we dig up more jems. The Takton will think they’ve won, all while they unwittingly build the army that will one day topple their empire.”

The white light from above cast new shadows. Shadows that danced in the undulating blue light from the giga-jem.

Cody’s hatred for the Takton burned deeper with every surge of his power. He longed to unleash it on them. Throw their world into darkness. Give himself over to the hatred at any cost.

But now he was part of something else. Something more complicated.

More people would be enslaved and tortured, but it meant that all humanity could be saved from the same fate.

“Can you teach me to use my powers like you?”

The wrinkled corners of Benson’s mouth turned up, and lightning flashed in his eyes.

“Perhaps.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Swearingen is an aspiring Sci-fi writer, living in the hidden kingdom that is Southern Illinois. He spends his spare time playing board games with his wife, wrestling with his dog, and has on numerous occasions saved the city from invasion by mutant koalas. (One of those isn’t completely true, but we’ll let you guess which one.)

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