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Army Brats of the Universe Chapter One |
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Copyrighted to Heart Slayer Industries
Chapter One
Was it so difficult to believe that a ‘mere’ high school dropout could save the world? Apparently, it is a very difficult thing. It wasn’t like she’d wanted to drop her classes and move around the world every two months just for her father’s military career. But underage, with no choice, and her mother still married to the old coot, Araiya had no way to escape the fate of an Army Brat.
On the plus side, as an Army brat she had been able to get the training most of her friends eschewed, feeling that the violence of the Army’s training might be a bit redundant. The Army was now simply a peace-keeping corps on Earth. A policing unit. But the Army never forgot what it was created for in the beginning, never forgot its’ duty to the country and the people it was sworn to protect,
So, Araiya learned the trade of her father, the trade of her mother and made it her own. At eighteen, the Army Brat Corps of Badasses, ABCB, the unofficial club of all Army brats not enlisted, named her most lethal and most likely to be Commanding Officer. She graduated from the ABCB with high honors, and a full military endorsement. But instead of going into the Army as originally planned, she chose to join the Ahduchka Marines.
The following battle that followed after her little announcement would go into the history books.
“Like hell you will!” a tall man roared after a lean lanky girl who calmly remained with her back turned to him.
Her steady, calm reply startled the corporal assigned to be the Colonel’s body guard, “Like hell I will. Very eloquent, Colonel. That one is going down in the history books for most redundant phrase in the history of the Army Brats!”
The girl continued to pack the guns into the suitcase on her left, knives in the center, and clothing and any other things she might need went into the large ‘black hole’ trunk on the floor. So far all the clothes were packed, the only things left were the posters and other paraphernalia on her walls and the multitudes of books on her floor, bed, bookcase, bedside tables… you get the picture.
“This is an order, you are NOT going, soldier. You are needed here, and that is final!” , the Colonel shouted at Araiya. He strode over to where she stood packing and snatched one of her wrists, stopping it from completing the transfer of an antique revolver, given to her on her sixteenth birthday, in to the sidearm holster laying next to the suitcase.
“Oh really?”, Araiya wrenched her wrist free of her father’s vise-like grip, and slammed an elbow into his iron gut. “Cut the bullshit, Colonel” ,she continued with a snarl as she kicked at his left knee with a steel-clad boot. He dodged and landed a solid punch to her diaphragm. She doubled over and gasped for breath. “I…can…still beat the hell outta ya…Colonel.” She straightened, stretched, and the Colonel could hear the bones in her back, neck, and arms pop.
Without much warning, she gave a battle cry and made the Colonel and his corporal body guard jump. The two second distraction gave Araiya enough time to take out the bodyguard and put the Colonel in an elbow lock. Colonel Taki Meori yelped and went down, pulling the twenty year old woman with him. After fifteen minutes of sparring in this vein, and the poor corporal coming to, the room, already in disarray before the spat, was now even worse off.
Araiya had the Colonel in a chokehold, and now spoke directly in his ear, “You lost the right to tell me what I could and could not do a long time ago, Colonel. That was lost the second I became an Army Brat, and you know it.”
Araiya released the Colonel and stood, surveying the damaged room. She shrugged at it, and began repacking her knives and guns which had been thrust from their respective cases during the argument. She motioned for the terrified corporal to help pick her superior officer up from the bedroom floor. She sighed wearily, and resigned to explain her actions to her father.
“Daddy, you can’t stop me even if you had a hundred men to do it”, came the tired, battle-hardened voice from the slim twenty year-old girl.
She finished with the gun cases and the knife case, then turned her attention to the scattered piles of clothing and books around her, returning them to the trunk miraculously still upright on the ground.
She continued, “If you lock me in my room, I can call it kidnapping, and you can’t build anything that can hold me for longer than three hours, and you know it. The Marines were what I wanted before I turned thirteen, and they still are what I want now. I have a full military scholarship into the Academy on Ga’ruk and I’m taking it. I don’t want to be a policeman on this over-populated, over-polluted hunk of rock.”
At this she finished packing the books and her clothing in the trunk and slammed the top down. She whirled on the colonel and put her hands on her hips, a stubborn look on her face. Her father regarded her impassively, taking in her flaming pale blue eyes and braided brunette hair. Her features were nothing remarkable, and the only thing memorable about her were her eyes, which didn’t look like they belonged on anyone human. She wore the military issue black tank top easily, her body a perfectly and finely honed weapon, just as her mind. The blue jeans were worn but the steel-toed boots she wore were new. Silver and blue dogtags, the colors of the imperial crest, hung lightly between small, underdeveloped breasts.
With a sigh, her father, slumped in defeat and the bruises developing around his throat, nodded at his tall daughter. “I know I can’t stop you, but the Marines have the highest casualty rate in the entire Empire. Marissa and I don’t want you to die. We don’t want you to go to some unknown place fifty-six light-years away from us. Besides, it was always thought that you’d follow in our footsteps in the Army” ,here he paused and took another steadying breath, “You are the only child we will ever have and you know it. Who is going to carry the family name, my name?”
Airya rolled her eyes at her father and picked up a backpack and slung it onto her shoulder, ”Colonel Taki Meori, my advice is to adopt a kid or start having sex with Captain Marissa Nouris again. God knows the both of you need to have a good lay.”
She stepped past her father and motioned to the cluster of privates outside of the room. The motley group of fresh-faced newbies clustered into the room, carrying out the trunks and weapon cases out to the shuttle waiting at the bottom floor. She closed the door and said, ”You trained me to go with my instincts, and you trained me to be unstoppable. Karma sucks a** don’t it, Colonel?” She grinned at her father and snatched up the backpack sitting next to the door to the now empty room. “I’m gonna miss it here, daddy. I’m gonna miss you, but I hate this planet, I have since I went to Zenith with you and Mom when I was twelve.”
She turned around and left through the door, not looking back to see if he would follow her. Her father sighed and turned abruptly to follow his dark haired daughter. He watched her, as he often did, with a covert glare. Let it never be known that the Old Man would never let his daughter get away that easy.
But still, he took pride in the effortless grace with which she moved. He loved her, but the predatorily perfect precision that marked his daughter did not come from either parent. Meori had to learn how to move the way his daughter did, the same with her mother. It was not that she’d been born that way, but somehow she’d developed it before any of her training, both official and unofficial, began.
He laughed inside with pride at the way she handled the skeptic at the shuttle, who’d looked at her like a piece of meat, though he wished she had simply allowed him to be the a*****e down. But, hey, a father could dream, couldn’t he?
“Hey, sugar, you goin’ to Academy to see your boyfriend or sumthin’? ‘Cause if ya are, I can guarantee I’m much betta bargain” , the man driving the shuttle commented.
His daughter smiled sweetly and said, ”Sorry, but I don’t do anything with half a brain and less than four inches“, Araiya turned to him, and smiled even more sweetly, though there was an edge of malicious glee to it.
Tykes snorted, but then looked at the Colonel who stood behind her, “Colonel Meori, sir!” he barked out, sweating slightly, hoping that his superior had not heard the exchange. He saluted crisply and stood at attention until the Colonel acknowledged him.
“Sergeant”, the Colonel nodded,” At ease.”
Sergeant Tykes’ relaxed minimally. He glanced over at Araiya then back at the Colonel, looking at their eyes. Tykes’ own eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he finally began realize why everyone had warned him away from the girl.
Colonel Meori smiled like a cat that had just found a prize little birdie to bring home to the mate. “Sergeant Tykes, if you choose to harass my little girl again, or any female for that matter who says no and you continue, I will look the other way when they kill you. Particularly if it is my daughter. Do you understand me Sergeant?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Tykes stammered out and saluted. Airya smiled with a hunter’s glee. She turned gave her father a briskly perfect salute than wrapped her arms around him.
“Love ya, Daddy. I’ll be ok, I promise”,she whispered softly, so only he could hear, “Give my best to Momma.”
Meori squeezed his daughter one last time and kissed her on the top of her head. “Be safe, don’t let the damn Munchiers get you.”
Airya laughed lightly and boarded the shuttle with ease. The door shut and she waved to her father one last time and then she was gone.
End Chapter One
 crypticxguide · Fri Feb 22, 2008 @ 04:45pm · 0 Comments |
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