**If you have not read Mortal Resistance: Darkstars Denied, please follow the link to do so**
By S.D. Bingham
Mentality, physicality and spirituality, all are areas of turmoil that have a severe impact on those who fight on the frontlines. As the Darkstars spread their influence, the soldiers of the Resistance fight their own battles…
It was a short walk but he couldn’t see much, his vision was blurred and anything in front of him was merely a mesh of colors. He winced as the muffled, yet piercing sounds reached his ears again. There was a brief pause before he felt a hand pressed against his back and was pushed, knees hitting the metal with a thud.
His head hung for a while dazed, he blinked several times before lifting his head. Slowly his vision came back, the mesh of colors becoming more defined just as his hearing returned. In an instant the man was greeted by the sight of crumbling buildings, people screaming, Darkstar destruction. The man remained stoic as he looked out towards the sight, then he laughed.
“If you think this’ll make me feel…guilty, your sorely mistaken,” chuckled the man as he turned his head, glancing with one eye to the man standing behind him. The man in question was a Resistance soldier, evident by the armor he wore. The kneeling man however was a different matter, mainly because he was currently restrained by a pair of security bracers, a thick beam of energy locking his arms together. The ankle bracers were absent but the restrained man appeared to either not notice or wasn’t planning to run.
“Uthalis you are under arrest and to face immediate punishment. In accordance with your crimes against the beings of this Universe after willingly succumbing to the Darkstars you are to be incinerated by fire…”
The soldier spoke like a drone, as if the phrase was burned into his mind for situations such as this. Uthalis chuckled as he turned his head back looking out at the destruction the Darkstars’ military forces were causing.
“Following protocol I see…you really are pathetic,” said Uthalis, a small smirk appearing as he felt the man behind him shift slightly. In one sudden moment, Uthalis was on his feet with his head turned around to face his captor.
Reaction kicked in and the Resistance soldier pulled out his blaster aiming it at Uthalis. Unfazed, Uthalis just walked up to him till the gun’s barrel pressed against his chest.
“Go on Vakalis, I dare you to do it…go on, pull the trigger,” goaded Uthalis as he looked Vakalis in the eyes, taunting the soldier to fire his weapon. Being so close Vakalis could see black veins creeping their way to Uthalis’s horizontal iris, emphasizing the mad look Uthalis had.
Vakalis pulled his weapon away and pushed Uthalis back, making his captive stumble slightly before finding his balance again.
Both men were Yathur, a two legged reptilian race defined by their reddish scaled skin, jagged ears and barbed tails. The color in Uthalis’s skin appeared drained, as well as worn and brittle due to Darkstar corruption.
The Yathur race is just as susceptible to the Darkstar corruption as any other race yet they have a particular resistance to it. It can’t stop it in its tracks but it can cause the corruption process to last a lot longer before taking hold. This however comes with the drawback that the process has a more severe impact on a Yathurian.
Uthalis turned around and walked to the edge of the roof looking out once more at the Darkstars’ destruction. “We both know you don’t want to follow protocol, I know that right now you wouldn’t want to do anything less than shoot me instead of burning me,” said Uthalis keeping his back to Vakalis.
“I mean it’s not like your superiors are going to know…they’re busy evacuating the base before blowing it up…but I think that won’t satisfy you after spending half a cycle hunting me down…” continued Uthalis, turning his head once more to look at Vakalis.
“…to merely ensure I burn instead of meeting the justified end that is in your head right now,” said Uthalis now turning around fully to face Vakalis once again, a small, crazed smile appearing.
“It still plagues you doesn’t it? What I did…”
Vakalis eyes narrowed into a glare as he looked at Uthalis, it had never left his mind since that tragic day.
Vakalis had received some temporary leave from the Resistance and decided to spend it on his home planet visiting family. He was walking down the street when he noticed the commotion; many of the neighbors were out of their homes and from what Vakalis could pick up, there had been a sudden burst of shouting and crashing from one of the residences. It wasn’t until he walked a bit further when he realized the attention was towards his own home.
Vakalis ran the rest of the way and shortly arrived to find the front door was already open. Bursting into the building Vakalis was greeted by the sight of a woman, his mother lying on the ground unmoving and bleeding. Vakalis froze at the sight but the moment he heard a door slam he ran towards the source and just about got a glimpse of a man as he fled out of the house’s back door. Without anything else he could do Vakalis returned to his mother despite the fact that she had already been dead before he had even stepped into the house.
The local authorities deemed the attack as a break in but…
Uthalis’s laughter broke Vakalis out of his thoughts; Uthalis was looking at Vakalis with his head tilted slightly and an amused look plastered on his face.
“So are you going to follow orders Vakalis? Or are you going to do what you want, what you think is right,” questioned Uthalis raising an eyebrow before turning his back to Vakalis.
Vakalis was shaking, his hand was drawing near to his holstered weapon and his fingers were shaking, close to pulling it out. When Uthalis started to laugh again Vakalis was at him holding his gun to the back of the criminal’s head and switching the weapon setting from ‘Stun’ to ‘Lethal’.
Uthalis closed his eyes and waited, he could hear Vakalis breathing heavily but eventually the pressure against the back of his head disappeared, turning around Uthalis saw Vakalis had once again holstered the weapon. Uthalis went to speak but stopped when he felt an unusual pressure against his legs and looked down to find that Vakalis had attached the ankle bracers linking them together.
“So this is it? You’re going to just walk away? I knew it…you little coward!” yelled Uthalis. Vakalis merely glanced at Uthalis before he turned around and walked away as Uthalis started to bellow out a lunatics laugh. The laugh grew more intense and as it grew Vakalis became more tense, then he snapped.
He turned in an instant and marched over to Uthalis, grabbing the Yathurian, turning him around and smashing his clawed fist into Uthalis’s face, sending the man crumbling to his knees.
“That’s it! That’s more like it!” laughed Uthalis from his lowered position, looking up at Vakalis with a trail of blood slipping out of his mouth.
Vakalis stepped back and pulled out his weapon and aimed it at the dead center of Uthalis’s forehead. Uthalis’s laughter drowned out everything, filling Vakalis’s ears with the sound of madness.
Then the laughter abruptly stopped, Uthalis collapsed backwards as far as his legs could bend. A small round burn mark adorned his forehead.
Vakalis let out a deep sigh as his gun wielding arm flopped to his side. Taking a few deeps breaths, Vakalis holstered his weapon and looked down at Uthalis.
The local authorities deemed the attack as a break in but Vakalis knew the truth, when he reached the door it was opened, unlocked…not smashed in or hacked into. It was unlocked through the scanner that rested on the wall.
Walking away Vakalis took one last look at Uthalis, “goodbye…father.”
…And sometimes that inner darkness that is within every man and woman makes the decisions.
Continue the series by S.D. Bingham with the next installment Mortal Resistance 3: Thirty Minutes
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