HyperDimensional Taskforce D-Ranger Episode 1:D-Ranger Dead? Malarek's Claws of Evil!

[D-Ranger]

D-Ranger Dead??? Malarek’s Claws of Evil!

Like so many things in life, it started with a knock at the door…

Brad Ryans, sleepy-eyed, opened the door to face an equally sleepy eyed courier in a brown uniform who smelled of strong morning coffee. At age 24, Brad was a reasonably well-built guy with mussed sandy brown hair, a handsome face and blue-grey eyes.

“Package,” said the courier. “Sign here.”

Brad nodded tiredly and signed the touchpad. The man handed him a box and was gone.

Numbly, Brad carried the box inside and put it on the bare spot on his kitchen table next to the pizza boxes. It was about the width of a pizza-box, but tall as six of them, a little heavy too.

Brad stifled a yawn and looked down at the label. It had indeed been sent to him, but he hadn’t ordered anything off e-bay in months. No return address, which could mean anything. Only one way to find out, he decided. The tape slid smoothly apart under his knife.

Buried under little yin-yang packing foam was a silver metal briefcase, no markings on it. Brad pulled it out and looked it over, then slid the packing box off the table to make room for the briefcase. There was a tingling sensation in his hands as Brad grabbed the latches, but they popped open smoothly, and the case flipped open.

Inside, nestled in shaped foam compartments were what looked to be pieces from some kind of toy set. Across the top was a long grey looking box with red trim, beneath it was stored in bubble-wrap what looked to be a palm-top computer, and another dark grey and red box, this one shorter with a small red crystal set into the front of it.

Brad stared dimly at it for a minute, trying to figure out who would send this to him. Absent-mindedly, he reached down and tugged out the palm-top, freeing it from its wrap and flipped it open. He was almost expecting it to play the theme of some tv-show. Instead, there was a burst of yellow light that made Brad jump backwards, and from the palmtop keyboard, a tiny figure no bigger than a salt-shaker shimmered into existence.

Forgetting to drop it he was so surprised, Brad just stared at the little woman. She had black hair, and a tiny slender figure covered in a pink jumpsuit, tiny transparent butterfly wings grew out of her back, each almost as big as she was. Stretching her wings and arms in a yawn, then she dropped one hand to her side and brought the other up to her temple in a salute.

“Captain Ryans. Pixelle unit 204532573b reporting for duty, sir.”

“Uh?” Was all Brad could manage.

“Sir, if you would like, I can customise my appearance to any form you wish.”

“Are you some kind of doll?” Brad asked, pulling the palmtop up to nose height so he could get a closer look at her.

“Captain, with all due respect,” she said curtly. “We prefer to be called Holo-Aides.”

“Why do you keep calling me Captain?” Brad stared closely at her, she was rather cute.

“You are Damocles Ranger Captain Bradford Ryans, serial number 5643-7668-99832, currently assigned to Earth 243E-2 on special operations duty.”

“I am? Since when?”

“Your operations duty time started one solar day ago.” Pixelle paused and looked around Brad’s cluttered and messy single bedroom apartment. “I am impressed how easily you have customised your new home. Did it come this way?”

“It’s my apartment, I’ve lived here for three years.”

“Captain Ryans, please don’t joke with me…”

“I’m not joking!” Brad put the palmtop down on the case. “Look, I don’t know where you came from, but you obviously got the wrong guy. I’m not a starship captain, or an army captain or anything, I can’t even get into the police college!” Brad grabbed the opened rejection letter he’d been reading when the doorbell rang…“Look!”

Pixelle stood silent for a moment surveying the letter, and then after the pause looked at him.

“You are not Captain Ryans.”

“Thank you!” Brad answered sarcastically.

“This is not possible. You have his genetic signature.”

“His what?”

“I was sent to him.”

“By who?”

“This has never happened before.”

“Hello?”

Pixelle stopped talking and looked at Brad, then she suddenly flew off the palmtop pad into the air in front of him and bowed deeply, Japanese-style.

“I am most sorry for this, sir. There has been a terrible mistake.”

“Umm, okay…Just….Tell me where to send you, and I’ll send you back.”

Pixelle shook her head. “You cannot do that. I might be needed.”

Brad threw up his arms and walked over, and flopped down on the couch.

“Mr. Ryans, what are you doing?”

“Hoping I’ll wake up.”

Brad’s eyes were closed, but he could hear the faint buzzing sound she made as Pixelle flew above him.

“Mr. Ryans,” she said, shifting to a slightly less demanding tone. “I need your help.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Please,” Pixelle pleaded.

[D-Ranger]

“Look,” Brad opened his eyes and looked at her hovering just above his face. “You want my help, you tell me what’s going on first.”

“I….I can do that.” She said after a moment’s hesitation.

“And…?”

“And…I am a Pixelle unit, a holo-aide assigned to Captain Bradford Ryans of the D-Ranger corps.”

“I got that much.”

“The D-Rangers are the elite in an inter-dimensional police force that hunts down criminals who travel between dimensions. There are infinite possible versions of each world in the multiverse, and many of these have different states of human life and technology on them. There are criminals who use this advantage to take what they want from worlds which can’t defend themselves, and the D-Rangers hunt these criminals down.

“Captain Ryans, who is probably your dimensional counterpart from his world, was assigned to protect this Earth during the coming year while this world is in the dimensional stream and vulnerable to attack. He was to have begun his tour of duty yesterday, and I and this equipment are his backup gear sent because the gear he was assigned was found to be flawed.

“This equipment was sent through a local courier to a location that Captain Ryans signature was determined to be, in order to minimise suspicion, and could only be opened by the Captain himself. But, you are not the Captain, and something has gone wrong.”

Brad closed his eyes again. “So, he’s me?”

“He is your dimensional counterpart, and apparently is identical to you in almost every way down to your genetics and radiation absorption patterns. This was considered impossible.”

“Seems pretty possible to me.”

“Yes,” Pixelle said, and Brad was sure he could hear a note of concern in her voice.

Brad suddenly hopped up off the couch, grabbing a pair of Jeans he pulled on over the boxers he wore, then he grabbed his keys and wallet.

“Well, you think about it,” he told Pixelle. “I’m going to the store for milk.”

* * *

KaLi Su sat bored at the table fiddling with her napkin.

Around her, the special dinner held by the Jade Preservation Society went on, the attending people filling the main hall of the Singapore Museum of Natural History. Her father was a keynote speaker, which meant that KaLi got to get dressed up and spend the night surrounded by rich people who were easily old enough to be her grandparents.

KaLi sighed and looked around, an old guy at the next table winked at her, and she turned away in disgust.

Ewwww! She thought, and looked over at her father, who was busy chatting animatedly with some other collectors. She should have taken her mother’s cue, she decided, and “fallen ill” before the party. But, it wasn’t every day you got to be surrounded by several million dollars worth of antique jade artwork.

The artwork had been fun for about a half-hour, now the displays of jade had become her prison.

Getting up from her chair, she tapped her father on the shoulder to excuse herself, then when he absent-mindedly acknowledged her, she turned and headed for the nearest set of double doors. She had to get out of this place.

She had just shut the door behind her when the first scream echoed from the main hall…

* * *

Brad wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go back or not, but in the end he decided he didn’t have much of a choice. The little fairy-woman was between him and his stuff, and he could hardly show up at one of his friend’s places and tell them that a holographic fairy the size of a mouse had sacred him out of his apartment.

He unlocked the door carefully, and peered inside.

No sign of her, he thought. The apartment seemed empty.

Going it, he went to the kitchenette and poured himself a bowl of cereal, heading over to his computer to check his mail. He had just sat down in front of the computer when Pixelle came through the computer screen at him. Milk and cereal went everywhere as he jumped.

“Mr. Ryans!”

Brad grabbed a towel and began cleaning himself and his desk.

“WHAT?!?” He snapped.

“I was using your internet connection to do research when I felt a dimensional shift. It might be Captain Ryans.”

“Can you call him?”

“I tried, but there is no answer. He might be injured. I need to travel to his location.”

“You can fly, can’t you?”

“Only within 150 metres of D-ranger equipment.”

Brad finished cleaning off the chair and sat back down.

“So, what can I do?”

Pixelle thought a minute, and then flew over to the briefcase. “Brad, come here please.”

Brad followed her instructions, and reached down, pulling out the smaller box, which he could now see was a stylised wrist-brace. It looked like someone stuck a strap on the back of a folding cell-phone so that people could carry it on their arm.

“This is a D-Shifter, it lets you create holes in dimensional time and space. With it, you can travel anywhere in the world instantly. Put it against your wrist.”

Brad put the D-Shifter on his right wrist, fabric straps instantly extending out by themselves, and locking the shifter firmly into place.

“Not bad.”

Pixelle flew into the D-Shifter, and then came back out again to stand on the red gem which sat on top of the front of the shifter.

“I’ve programmed the co-ordinates in. Now you just need to activate it.”

“And, I do this how?”

“The D-Shifter is voice activated, just tell it to open a gate to the first pre-set location.”

“Alright…” Brad held the D-Shifter in front of his mouth. “Open a gate to pre-set location one!”

The red gem shone, and a few metres in front of Brad, a vortex of coloured white and yellow light suddenly appeared. Taking his cue, Brad took a deep breath and walked into the vortex…

* * *

They had heard her, and they were coming.

KaLi Su turned and ran down the hallway, hearing the door behind her explode open.

She glanced back as she hit the corner, and saw three of the soldiers coming, marching in unison down the hallway. Dressed in dark blue one-piece bodysuits, they wore black vests, gloves and boots, with black helmets that covered their faces with a smooth mirrored silver visor. They carried short boxy sub-machineguns that had long knives attached to the front, the knives still dripped with fresh blood.

KaLi tried not to think about whose blood as she ran.

* * *

Brad stepped out into a darkened room, and instantly found himself surrounded by armoured figures. Taking a step back, his eyes adjusting to the moonlight, he realised the figures weren’t moving, and in fact were wearing some kind of ancient armour.

It’s a museum display, he thought. Whew!

The figures lined the two walls of the long room, and Brad looked around for the “exit” sign.

He saw a green and white sign glowing palely at the one end of the room, and started towards it when he heard footsteps running outside of the door. Not wanting to be caught like some kind of thief, Brad quickly jumped behind one of the displays just as the doors to the room burst open and an Asian girl about his age in a black party dress came running in.

Her opening the door must have triggered a light switch, because suddenly the ceiling lights flickered on, and filled the corridor with light.

The girl started to sprint towards the other set of doors at the other end of the room, and was almost past where Brad was hiding when the soldiers came through the door. One of them raised his gun and fired, part of the girl’s right leg exploded just beneath the knee and she went down.

[D-Ranger]

As the soldiers marched into the room, the girl tried to crawl forward on her good leg and hands, but slipped and fell on her own blood. As she lay there with tears streaming down her face, her eyes met Brads.

Help me! Brad could see the fear and pain in her eyes.

Brad wanted to move, he wanted to do something, but he wasn’t even armed…What could he do? Attack the soldiers with a sword from one of the dummies? Fear gripped him, and he was frozen in his hiding place.

“I’m sorry.” Brad mouthed the words to her.

As the soldiers reached her, she gave Brad one last look with those brown eyes, and then closed them. The soldiers grabbed her arms and two of them hauled her into the air, then they turned and marched back out of the room, carrying her.

Their footsteps disappeared down the hall.

Brad let himself sink down until he was sitting and leaning against the wall. He was shaking, and he couldn’t stop…

* * *

The soldiers dragged the barely conscious KaLi into the main hall.

She could see the floor was covered with blood as she was carried across the hall, then they stopped, and a huge hand grabbed her hair and yanked her face up.

KaLi looked into the face of a demon.

Bigger than any man she had ever seen, the demon’s face was the head of a jungle cat, and his muscled body was covered in yellow and black spotted fur. His huge vertically slit yellow eyes focussed on her as he moved her head from side to side, examing her.

“Pretty enough.” Malarek growled. “Fix her leg. Put her with the others for transport.”

The soldiers carried KaLi over and laid her on something soft, one of them jabbing her leg with something while the other prepared a bandage. KaLi was vaguely aware of the line of soldiers marching into a yellow light carrying things, and she could hear someone crying behind her. She tried to look back to see who it was, but found her neck wouldn’t move right. Her head got too heavy to move, and the world became more and more distant…

Shoulda played sick, she thought sleepily.

Then the darkness came.

* * *

Now Brad knew what hell looked like.

The bodies were everywhere, their blood covered the floor, and the smell of death was thick in the air. The tables had been smashed, the display cases were empty, the room was in as many pieces as its occupants.

Brad forced himself to stay focussed as he walked through the room. He looked around, trying to find any sign of the girl he’d seen earlier, but he found no trace of her.

“The Blood Rain did this.” Pixelle said as she floated beside him.

“Those soldiers?” Brad asked.

“They’re troopers for the Blood Rain pirate Syndicate.”

“Where did they go?”

“Back to their base, in another dimension.”

Brad listened to the sound of police sirens in the distance. “Will they be back?”

“Yes.” She answered gravely.

Brad thought a minute.

“Pixelle…If Captain Ryans was here, could he have stopped this?”

“I believe so.”

“I did nothing, Pixelle. I did nothing, and now she’s probably dead.”

“You are unarmed and untrained, there was nothing you could do.”

“I have the Captain’s equipment. There must be something I can do.”

“That may be true, but you don’t have the training. It takes years to become a D-Ranger.”

“Pixelle, I may not be a Ranger, but I am a soldier. I’ve been in the infantry reserves for four years.”

“You don’t know how to use the equipment.”

“You do.”

“You wish me to train you? It will be dangerous.”

“Pixelle, without Captain Ryans, we’re all in danger.”

“I cannot…,” Pixelle said as she looked across the remnants of the party. “Disagree.”

* * *

Brad walked out into the forest clearing, silver briefcase in hand. He reached a pile of logs cut for firewood and lifted the case up onto a flat spot, flipping it open. Pixelle was standing inside looking up at him, concerned.

“Are you sure you wish to do this?”

“Pixelle, all my life I have wanted to be a cop. I wanted to help people. When I was given the chance yesterday, I blew it. I’m not going to let that happen again.”

Pixelle nodded. “As you wish. I will explain this equipment to you.”

Pixelle flew up to float beside Brad, and pointed at the D-Shifter.

“Brad, please pick that up and put it on your wrist again.”

Brad did as she said. It attached itself automatically, as before.

“Now, tell it to open.”

As Brad said it, the D-Shifter’s top suddenly popped up and forwards, revealing an empty space inside. Brad could see there were five slots, all of them empty inside the shifter.

“The D-Shifter is capable of condensing ambient energy into physical forms, it uses pattern chips to produce physical objects on command. It can produce simple or complex objects, but each chip can only hold a single form. They’re also limited in mass; it can’t produce anything more than 100 kilos in weight.”

“Got it. No cars. So, do I have to make these chips myself?”

“You can. Please open the big case at the back.”

Brad flipped open the long rectangular case and found it held a small chip-burning device at one end, and about thirty little plastic-looking red squares. Ten of them had markings on them, the rest were blank. Brad picked up one of the marked chips, at first he just saw a bunch of black lines and dots, but then suddenly the marking moved by themselves and he was looking at English letters and numbers.

“Whoa! What just happened? Why can I suddenly read this?”

“It’s the D-Shifter. As long as you are wearing it, you can read, write, and communicate in any of the languages stored in its memory. Six million languages are registered, more can be added if you need to. The marked chips are already burned with patterns, and you can use the burner to copy them onto the other chips as backups, or program new patterns onto them using the minicomp. The chips already burned are the most standardly used configurations.”

“This one says “Zero-One: Medium Combat Armour”.”

“Yes. You will want to make that your first chip selection. That armour is designed to protect you from most known weapons, it enhances your strength, your reflexes, and provides enhanced senses and short-term life support. It is the most basic tool of any D-Ranger, and recognised through the multiverse as the armour of the Damocles Corps.”

“While wearing the armour, you are invisible to the enhanced sensors the Blood Rain will use, they must see you in order to pick you up. Conversely, however, the same is true of them, and their members and equipment will only be visible to you when you have line of sight. This is why conflict with the members of the Blood Rain tends to be close-in affairs, and your armour is designed specifically for close-in fighting.”

“Cool. What about these other chips? What do you recommend?”

“The rest of the standard compliment is 02: D-Sabre, 03: D-Blaster, 04: Restraints and 05: D-Mine. The Sabre is a sword, but it can also be charged up with a plasma sheath and used as a contact-stun weapon to render targets unconscious. The Blaster is a energy pistol, with variable power settings, stun settings and autofire options, you will use it a lot. The restraints are intelligent and designed to keep any prisoner immobile until you set them free, they also have a timed option. The mine is a contact explosive that will stick to anything and can be detonated remotely, or by timed option. The yield on the mine is variable, but can produce blasts as large as a small fusion weapon.”

“Is that big?”

[D-Ranger]

“It would eliminate 10 square city blocks.”

“Ahh.” Brad nodded as he slipped the D-Mine chip into the last spot very carefully. Then he flipped down the lid of the D-Shifter and felt it lock into place.

“You can summon any of these items by voice command. Be aware, however, the D-Shifter has limited energy reserves, and summoning too many items may leave you unable to summon more until the D-Shifter naturally recharges from ambient radiation. So, you are advised to make use of the items beyond the armour as sparingly as possible. The sword especially can be draining.”

“How long’s the recharge time on this thing?”

“Variable, but from full discharge to capacity will take twelve-hours under normal conditions.”

“Got it.”

* * *

Brad vaguely remembered hitting the bed, every muscle in his body ached, and he had been too tired for words. Between work, what was left of his normal routine, and training with Pixelle, the last few weeks had been absolute hell. Now he was summoned to consciousness by Pixelle’s voice.

“Brad, wake up. I’ve detected a portal opening.”

* * *

“Jesus!”

Brad fell backwards against the railing, only his quick reflexes kept him from flipping back and over it. The D-Shifter had planted him on the rear deck of a cruise ship, the very back of the rear deck of a cruise ship which was moving while the portal was not. The moment he came through, he was slammed from behind by the railing, and all that was behind that railing was ocean and propeller blades.

Steadying himself, Brad pushed off the railing and took a few steps forward onto the deck. The desk was littered with lawn-chairs, but no people were around to be seen. Not entirely a surprise since it was the middle of the night in the Caribbean, just like it had been at home.

“Pixelle, can you tell how many are here?”

Pixelle flittered out of the D-Shifter.

“No, as I told you, they are invisible to my sensors.”

“Right.” Brad started forward, walking carefully along one of the side passages. The ship was huge, and he’d landed on one of the upper decks, one which doubled as a helicopter landing pad.

He made his way through the side passages, until he came around a corner. The deck opened up to either side, one side was ocean, and the other side looked inward onto the sprawling pool and recreation deck that filled the middle of the ship. Passengers huddled on the deck in their nightclothes, the dark blue and black troops Brad had seen before walked among them. Just ahead of Brad and around the upper walkway, other troops stood guard, ready to deal with anyone who caused trouble.

“Time to cause some trouble,” Brad whispered to himself and got ready to activate his D-Shifter.

“Brad, if you attack, the passengers will be caught in the middle.” Pixelle whispered from beside his ear.

“But…” Brad started to protest, but then saw she was right. He couldn’t endanger the people he came to save. “Okay then, plan B.”

Brad stepped out onto the open walkway and whistled, then turned and ran. He could hear the soldiers shout, and boots hitting the deck as they charged around after him. He pounded back to the landing deck, running until he almost hit the railing again, and then turned to face the troopers.

Twenty troopers poured from both sides of the ship and filled the deck, marching towards him with guns raised. One of the ones in the lead motioned for him to get down on his knees.

They stopped when Brad raised the D-Shifter into view.

“D-Armour…Activate!”

Energy coalesced over Brad’s body, and a wave of energy washed over him from head to toe, leaving in its wake red and black armour. Form fitting, the armour consisted of a red bodysuit with black gloves and boots, a white belt was around his waist, and a red helmet with a mirrored black strip visor covered his head. A darker red armoured vest covered his chest and back, which split into two just above his rib cage and covered his sides. On the left side of the vest, the Damocles Corps. symbol of five gold diamonds forming a single star against a black background glowed briefly and then faded.

“D-Blaster.”

The gun appeared in Brad’s hand, and he levelled it at the troopers.

“Alright, all of you. Drop the guns.”

“Brad….” Pixelle’s worried voice sounded in his helmet.

All twenty troopers opened fire with their machine guns.

Okay, not the best plan! Brad thought as he dove to the side, firing and hitting several of the troopers. Then he did a summersault and bounced off the side railing and hurled himself at the pack of troopers, doing another drop and roll as he made his way to the pack, dodging fire.

“D-Sabre. Low-charge!”

Brad left the gun behind, and the sword appeared in his hand, glowing yellow as he hit the line of troopers and began hacking his way into them. The charged sword rendered them unconscious as he weaved among them, dodging and rolling. Avoiding the bayonets on the guns as they tried to slash and slab at him. A few of them fired at him, but only succeeded in hitting their comrades as his enhanced speed carried him through them faster than they could react. To him, they were moving in slow motion, and he was lightening given form.

Finally, Brad stopped and turned, watching the last of the troopers drop to the deck unconscious.

Inside the helmet, Brad smiled. He’d had dreams like this, and now it was all real. It felt incredible. HE felt incredible, and the armour was amazing.

“Pixelle, where do I find more?”

“Brad this isn’t a game, there are lives at risk.”

Brad nodded, catching himself. “Yeah. Okay. Pixelle, they hit the museum because they’re hunting for relics, right? These guys don’t care about money, only goods.”

“That is correct.”

“So, let’s go with they’re here for the same reason. I know you can’t pick out guys, but can you find anything on this ship which is really old? Stuff they might want?”

Pixelle’s voice was silent a moment while Brad started to move forward into the ship again, looking for a stairwell.

“I found it! There are items ten decks below us that are over 10,000 of your years old.”

“Are they moving?”

“Yes.”

“Lead me on, little lady.”

* * *

Malarek stalked through the corridors, the line of troopers walked in twos behind him carrying the treasures he’d come for in the crates they’d found them in. He was considering what to do about the passengers and the ship when he hear footsteps coming from the left side of the junction up ahead. He raised a hand to stop the troops just as Brad skidded into view.

“D-Ranger.”

Malarek was already moving forward when he said it, his body reacting without thought.

* * *

“Aww hell…”

Brad barely had time to register the Beast Enforcer before it was on him, he felt it’s long sharp claws rake across his chest armour and then another hand impacted into his gut, throwing him back down the hallway behind him until he skidded on his back into a steel wall.

Stunned by the impact, he could still hear the thundering footsteps as the giant hurtled down the hallway after him. Almost instinctively, he pulled himself up and threw himself to the right just as Malarek’s fist came slamming down where his head had been. The inertia carried the enforcer through the metal wall like it was paper and he disappeared out of sight.

A little condition light had appeared in the corner of Brad’s visor, showing green.

Well, that’s nice to know. Brad thought as he brought himself to his feet as fast as he could. Bullets began to bounce off the wall next to him, and he saw the troops were coming, guns blazing.

Time for a little retreat! He decided.

Brad spun and dashed away from the t-junction, heading for a nearby stairwell.

He had just reached the first landing when the wall at the bottom of the stairs exploded outwards and Malarek burst into view half a floor beneath him.

“D-Blaster! Autofire mode!”

[D-Ranger]

Brad levelled the blaster at Malarek and fired, sending a stream of bright blue energy bolts at the Enforcer, who brought up his forearms to protect himself as he leapt up at Brad. Seeing his shots doing nothing, and a wall of yellow and black coming at him, Brad dove to the right, hitting the stairs as Malarek slammed into the wall, spinning himself around this time to avoid going through.

In an instant, the Enforcer was towering over Brad. One hand grabbing his blaster hand and crushing it, while the other grabbed him by the armoured vest and pulled him up to bring Brad face to face with the Beast. Yellow cat’s eyes framed with anger looking right into Brad’s.

“Your blood is mine, D-Ranger!” He roared.

“I don’t think so.” Brad put everything he had into a kick.

It did nothing, he had no leverage.

Malarek slammed Brad into the wall, then he did it again, and then he did it again.

Brad’s world was spinning as the little indicator light suddenly went from yellow, and then to red.

He was going to die, he was honestly going to die.

Helpless, Brad tried to fight back, but there seemed to be nothing he could do.

Then suddenly he was airborne, and he felt himself falling and saw the world passing around him as Malarek threw him back down the stairs and he slammed into the floor. Bouncing and rolling uncontrollably, he skipped down the hall until he finally hit something and stopped.

Still dizzy, Brad looked up to see what he hit.

The Troopers kicked him with their boots, and then stepped away from him, surrounding him.

“Kill him,” Malarek growled as he leapt down to the hall level.

The Troopers levelled their guns at Brad’s head as he looked up helplessly.

He just needed a second more to catch his breath…

Just as the troopers were about to fire, Pixelle suddenly burst from Brad’s faceplate and whizzed up and around in front of Brad in a spiral of bright light. Distracted, the soldiers raised their weapons to track her…

Brad saw his chance and took it, jumping up and smashing his elbow into one soldier’s faceplate while grabbing another by the head and slamming him into the wall. He threw the one he had just elbowed into the other troopers and bolted through the opening he’d made to run down the hall, and away from the oncoming Malarek.

Running around the corner of the t-junction, Brad suddenly found himself face to face with the pile of crates the troopers had been carrying.

He was about to go leaping over them when suddenly an idea hit him…

“D-Mine!”

Brad slid to a halt, and then slammed the dinner-plate-sized mine against the nearest crate.

He rose up and spun to face Malarek who had just come roaring around the corner.

“Don’t move, or your stuff is history.”

Malarek, obviously recognising the D-mine, came to a halt.

“If you destroy it, I will have your head on a pike!”

“Yeah, but you’re the one with a boss to answer to. You think he’ll be happy if you lose his stuff?”

Malarek let out and animal growl in frustration that made Brad take a step back.

“So…?” Brad said, trying to hide his nervousness.

“Give me your terms.” Malarek snarled unhappily.

Brad let out a long slow breath under his helmet.

“Okay…Here’s the deal. You can have the stuff. But, I want you to leave the people on this ship alone, and I want the people you took from the museum back! All of them!”

“They’ve already been sold.”

“Yeah? Well unsell them!”

Brad moved over to the boxes and made more D-mines, covering the other boxes.

“You try anything, these mines will make you sure lose like I did.”

Malarek said nothing, just turned and marched away.

* * *

As the last of the slaves came through the portal, Brad walked over to the boxes and started to remove the mines as the troopers carried each box through into the circle of light and beyond.

In the end, only Malarek was left standing there, facing the armoured Brad in the morning light.

Brad suddenly realised Malarek could now do whatever he wanted, and tensed for action.

Malarek looked at the slaves huddled nearby, wrapped in blankets by the ships crew. Then he looked at Brad, and Brad didn’t have to question what Malarek was thinking, it was all in the Enforcer’s eyes.

Finally, the giant just turned and walked through the portal. It flickered and winked out as he vanished.

With Malarek gone, Brad sank to his knees. His head slumped over, and he forced himself to breathe as the energy left his body.

“I can’t believe…I just did that.” Brad gasped.

Then he felt something wrap around him, and looked up.

KaLi Su smiled weakly down at him, it was her blanket around his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she half-whispered. She looked so tired, Brad thought, but there was still warmth in that smile and he drew strength from it.

“All part of the service.” Brad said as he drew himself back up and got to his feet.

“Who are you?”

“Me?” Brad answered. “Call me….D-Ranger.”


Fin.

[Ryuranger]

I was expecting "Ranger...D-Ranger." lol. just kidding. great job, man. Nice approach with Brad.

oh...i also like the japanese-style titles.

[D-Ranger]

Thanks Ryu. ^_^ Hahaha I didn't think of that answer!

I love Japanese style titles, so for the most part I'll use them in most of the uncoming stories, with a few exceptions...

Rob

[Qi]

Rob,

That was great. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Qi

[Imperialwar]

I love the tech feel of your story.

[D-Ranger]

Thanks to both of you for your comments. ^_^

IW - I like logical and consistent technologies, nothing peaves off the nerd in me more than inconsistent tech. :-P

Rob

[Qi]

Originally posted by D-Ranger
IW - I like logical and consistent technologies, nothing peaves off the nerd in me more than inconsistent tech. :-P

Rob

You and me both.