Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 5 - Lights and Laserburns

“We migrated for millions of cycles, through unknown space and time, to the far side of the universe - and there we found we were not alone.” - Cyrux, AI console 

Alphanas was the first colony to be settled upon a superplanet after the Migration, and was certainly one of the crown jewels of the empire. Twin suns crawled across the sky; one natural, the other dragged from another solar system, who’s remaining planets were brought along as orbital moons around Alphanas; Holy Armada military installments on each of them.

Blue was wary of non-Empire races, though, the people who had lived here before the great human migration, and many of them were hostile and waged open war with what they referred to as the humanoid scourge, the humans themselves and evolutionary byproducts of the Migration. 

Some of the non-Empire people were friendly though, such as the Trowads, colloquially known as Lightmen; they were a people that deployed a special type of bioluminescence in their arms to disorient their opponents, for Ligthmen were masters of close-quarters combat and master swordsmen, able to weave dizzying streams of light while slicing their enemy to slivers.

Blue’s assistant Nami was a Lightman Bladelord, one of the penultimate masters of Trowad Swordsmanship; with quick twitch muscles akin to lightning strikes, a bladelord could deflect projectiles with the flick of an agile wrist.

There was a saying to never bring a gun to a knife-fight when a Lightman was involved.

Blue flew through his building door and scampered up the stairwell like a madman, nearly plowing through the door that lead to his apartment’s floor. He could smell smoke and blood, and his inset scans showed large levels of residual plasma discharge.

On top of that he could see that his nanometal door had been utterly imploded; someone had used a very dangerous type of explosive to get through that and his heart leapt into his throat as he saw someone emerging from the smoke, then falling heavily to the ground, obviously dead.

Sprinting forwards, he looked down to see a slightly augmented man, an arm missing, dozens of slash marks across his face, neck, and clothing (even the armor) in bloody tatters. Still scanning, Blue verified that his blood was not poisoned and not leaking lethal gas into the atmosphere...for some more enterprising criminals would do just that sort of thing to leave a little parting gift after their demise.

In the smokey haze of his apartment he saw the purple, pink, green, and blue glow of Lightman arms.

Nami was kneeling with his twin glass blades jammed into the hardwood.

“Oh!” Blue said, rushing forward and grabbing the man beneath his shoulders, lifting him to his feet. Like most Trowads, Nami tried to keep his arms bear at all times and was wearing a thick gray leathern vest with no sleeves. His skin was onyx black, not the dark pigmentation of some human races, but a darkness that seemed to drink the shadow itself.

His arms always glowed when he fought, the pockets of fluid underneath the skin of his arm would fill with the fluid when he was in high passion or as adrenaline pumped through him; though with practice, arm glow could be controlled by will, as the luminescent fluid also heightened his senses, allowing his nearly preternatural speed. 

The apartment was in complete disarray, laser burns and sword gouges pocked and burned the walls, angry lines of multicolored blood sprayed over multiple surfaces.

Another body lay on the floor in much the same state of the first.

“I was attacked on the way from the guild.” Blue flatly stated, “Maybe it was technomancers.” 

“Maybe it was, but the only problem with that is they were after you and one of them babbled something about Jhiva before he passed.”

Blue’s eyebrows jerked in surprise at that; something larger was at play he was beginning to dread.