Blade of the Lucan: A Memory of Anstractor by Greg Dragon Read Free Book Online

illegal weapons.
    Marian helped, and thought to herself how Anstractor could use the technology of the moving capsule. It was so convenient: it could take items that would require a transport to move from one place to the next and fold it all into the size of a small, weightless box.
    They packed five cubes and then Blu touched a panel on the wall. A portion of the rock slid to the side and a narrow passage was revealed.
    “Nemesis. Shah, G’toh!” he shouted at the cat and she bounded to the passageway, looked back at Blu and then slowly began walking into it. Blu then fanned impatiently at his server android, and she perked up, ran over to them, and then followed the cat into the passageway.
    “Are we forgetting anyone else?” Marian asked with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, and Blu smiled at her—if one could tell a Deijen’s smile from their otherwise stoic expression—and then walked behind them into the darkness.
    When Marian heard machines working at clearing the cave’s entrance, she imagined it was the Felitian Troopers, determined to find out who was inside. This meant that they were tipped off and a sinking feeling washed over her stomach. She took one look behind, then quickly followed Blu into the darkness.
    Once they had walked for several yards, Blu triggered another explosion, and a wave of heat blew past Marian.
    “What was that, Blu?” she asked.
    “That was my home of several years, being destroyed to cause a cave-in to kill the intruders that would see me in chains. This is the life of a freedom fighter, Lady Raf. We keep our homes rigged in explosives. You never know when they will come for you, and when they do you must be prepared to die, or give up everything for the resistance.”
    “Where will you stay now, Blu?” Marian asked as they pushed on through the blackness.
    “I will visit Orion Zee, in the jungle. He has a hideout there that the Fels have yet to discover. Nemesis will love it there, since he has other cats living with him that she can be around. What about you, Lady Raf? What do you intend on doing until the rebels are ready?”
    “I will be doing a bit of spying on my old neighborhood, and plotting an area where I can get at Palus to kill him,” she said.
    “You are very confident,” he said after some time.
    “I’m a Phaser,” Marian replied and didn’t bother to explain what that meant to him.
    ~ * ~
    Marika Tsuno was a Casanian assassin. On Anstractor this gave her an edge because Casanians were considered to be the docile, artisan race of the galaxy. This was how she managed to become a famous gun-for-hire during the time when Vestalians were too occupied with the Geralos to care.
    She’d had so many contracts to fill throughout her career that there was scarcely a time she was on location for leisure. A tragic childhood that became a short lifetime as a gangster had gotten her into the assassin’s guild. It suited her, the love and care for life being null and void in her dark mind, until her guild was wiped out by Rafian VCA and his Phasers.
    In Rafian she saw a similarity that she hadn’t seen in many others, and it was due to their shared outlook on life. She tried to fight him on their first meeting, but he had been a step ahead of her in every way. He was supposed to kill her —she was a part of a unit that slaughtered humans and Geralos alike— but he spared her, and she bent the knee and handed him her knife.
    While she loved Marian, she belonged to him. If there was anything she kept in terms of her Casanian blood, it was the honoring of a life debt.
    Sneaking off and escaping to Luca had been Marian’s idea. It was a rash and dangerous move that would have gotten her killed and her records wiped from the cloner had she been anyone else. But, she was wife to the supreme leader, and unbeknownst to her, he had tasked the assassin to stick by her side and keep her safe.
    Marika had agreed, but only if she could do it on her own terms. Rafian didn’t