The Star Warriors Read online

  The Star Warriors

  Book VI of The AXOM Saga

  by

  C. S. Cooper

  E-Book Edition

  * * * * *

  Published by C. S. Cooper

  The Star Warriors

  Copyright © 2021 C. S. Cooper

  All rights reserved.

  http://www.cscooper.com.au/

  Based upon characters created by CLAMP, Atsushi Oukubo, and Nobuhiro Watsuki

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: It Begins

  Chapter 2: Anzacs

  Chapter 3: An Unexpected Prize

  Chapter 4: Hunt in Rome

  Chapter 5: A Shaky Alliance

  Chapter 6: The Great Escape

  Chapter 7: Reunion in Hong Kong

  Chapter 8: Sparring

  Chapter 9: Moon!

  Chapter 10: Homunculus Assault

  Chapter 11: Scythemeister

  Chapter 12: The Reaper

  Chapter 13: A Much-Appreciated Call

  Chapter 14: Interrogation

  Chapter 15: Skirmish in the Dam

  Chapter 16: The Trojan

  Chapter 17: The Blame Game

  Chapter 18: Meeting of the Minds

  Chapter 19: Haka!

  Chapter 20: Moonface’s Army

  Chapter 21: The Battle of Sydney

  Chapter 22: Shaula’s Lair

  Chapter 23: The Behemoth Falls

  Chapter 24: A New World Begins

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Other Works by this Author

  How to Contact the Author

  Footnotes

  Chapter 1: It Begins

  Even in summer, the Australian outback is chilly at night. The sun falls below the horizon, blasting out rays of red light as if clambering to stay in the sky. Then comes the bluish darkness of night, which pushes the day off the ledge and stands at the top of the sky. And the land becomes cold.

  Though cold, it was the night that gave the Kunja people a magnificent view of the stars. Those Kunja people, who lived in regions of Southeast Queensland, saw the Magellanic Clouds that orbit our galaxy, and thought them elders watching over the red Earth. They had names for the white, the blue, and the red stars pockmarking the celestial tapestry, its light woven into myths by the spiritual loom known as the Dreamtime.

  “That, at least, is what I’ve read,” said the man as he gazed up at the night sky.

  “That sounds amazing, Dad,” said his daughter’s voice, carried all the way from Japan through his mobile phone. “I’d love to see Australia someday.”

  “Well, once you’ve finished high school, we’ll go on a trip,” said the man. “Your brother too. Maybe even Tomoyo and Yukito would like to come.”

  “Don’t forget Kero,” said the girl excitedly. She added softly, “And Xiaolang too.” The girl’s sigh reverberated through the phone. “You’ve been on this dig for weeks,” she moaned. “When are you coming home?”

  The man grit his teeth. He eyed the guard nearby, who tapped his watch impatiently.

  “Soon,” said the man. “There’s a really difficult passage this faculty needs me to translate. And only I can do it.”

  “Well, hurry up and finish it soon, okay?” asked the daughter.

  “Will do, Sakura,” said the man. He ended the call, and followed the guard back into the unmarked building. He slipped through the doors with a sigh, knowing he was going back into that wretched underground facility. He took his access card from the front desk, bearing the name ‘Doctor Franklin Avalon.’ He would have preferred the surname of his wife, Nadeshiko Kinomoto.

  Franklin swiped the card and the elevator opened for him. The guard didn’t notice the woman waiting inside for them. Only Franklin could see the ghost of his wife, and it was all that had kept him sane for the last few weeks.

  “Don’t worry, Dear,” she said, though only Franklin could hear her. “You’ll be seeing Sakura soon enough.”

  Franklin smiled at that. His elation was only hampered by the fact that he couldn’t respond, on account of the bulky, emotionless agent standing beside him.

  That agent escorted him back to his office, filled with papers, drawings, and photos of an artefact. That artefact – the absolute bane of his existence for decades – sat infuriatingly still on his desk. He hunched over it, and glared at the intricate metal carving. He ran his finger over the text engraved upon its surface.

  “You managed to translate the writing,” said Nadeshiko. “Remember what it says.”

  Franklin nodded. Amid the fires of his frustration, he saw the words hanging in his mind.

  “Two into one, space and time re-sown,” he recited. With a shake of his head, he plonked down on his chair and stretched. “What does that mean though? And why does this Alchemic Regiment care? They need to know how it works, he said. But … it’s a plank of metal. Beautiful, of course, and significant to history … but it’s just a metal carving.”

  Nadeshiko chuckled, “You thought that about our daughter’s wand until a few months ago. Thanks to her, you have some magical abilities now. Perhaps this Silver Key is another wand.”

  Franklin huffed, “I can see you, sure. But I doubt I can fly.”

  Nadeshiko leaned down and looked at him fixedly. She smiled warmly and said, “You could only see me because you still desperately wanted to. It’s all about intention.” She directed his gaze to the artefact. “If you focus on what you want to know, perhaps it will tell you.”

  With a sigh, Franklin rose to his feet. Of course, he would have. Nadeshiko never steered him wrong when she was alive. He approached the rod, touched his hands to it, and closed his eyes. He breathed in slowly, and breathed out with increasing force. Every time he exhaled, he uttered the same question, “What are you?”

  An infinitesimal flash burst through his mind. He saw a technicolour tapestry of threads, woven and overlapping each other in tremendously diverse combinations. He gasped at the overload of information, which brought to the fore lessons he’d forgotten when he was a teenager: quarks, electrons, and the energy fields that bound them together.

  He gazed down at the artefact, and perceived wisps of cyan puff outward from its surface. They mesmerised him as much as they terrified him. He came to a realisation that almost made him laugh.

  “There’s another,” he murmured.

  “Another what?” asked Nadeshiko.

  Before Franklin could respond, an explosion hit him like a tornado. His ears rung, and his vision was blurry. He couldn’t get a fix on what was happening as half a dozen burly hands pulled him out of the rubble. He shook his head furiously as he struggled to get a bearing on his surroundings. He could feel heat on his skin from nearby fires, and his lungs burnt from the smoke. He managed to open his eyes, and look at the person in front of him.

  The woman’s irises, cyan in the middle and blood red at the edges, emanated the pungent stench of pure crazy. Her head was crowned with deep magenta hair cut at neck-length, and she wore a leather outfit that left nothing to the imagination.

  “Doctor Franklin Avalon, I assume,” said the woman with a strident voice. Franklin didn’t respond, so she slapped him so hard his jaw almost broke. “I don't have all day, Brit-shit! Are you Franklin Avalon?”

  “Yes!” barked Franklin. He struggled against his captors, but their vice grips were stronger than steel. The men who held him thrust out their chins in hostile sneers. Their thick, leathery skin contorted as they grunted, especially around their foreheads that bore helical tattoos of purple ink.

  The tattoo elicited memories from within Franklin’s concussed mind. He recalled his briefing with his current employers, and knew exactly who they were. />
  “Homunculi!” he exclaimed.

  “Moon!” bellowed a high-pitched, jovial voice. Through the wreck of the laboratory strode a tall, lanky man with a yellow face. He held the collar of his double-breasted suit, and carried himself with sophistication that was not reflected in his wide, psychotic smile. “This ardent archaeologist knows of our carnivorous kind, Shaula,” he chirped as he looked right into Franklin’s face.

  “You’ve come to eat me, then?” spat Franklin, doing everything he could to hide his terror.

  “Pshaw! Not at all,” said the yellow-faced man. “Your utility yields adroit advantage.”

  “Moonface, enough with this crap,” snapped the woman. “Just make him a homunculus already.”

  Franklin’s chest stung with horror. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Of course, not,” exclaimed Moonface. “You’ll remain just as you are, my fretful friend. You’ll yet pursue pertinent purpose.” To his men, he chimed, “Take him.”

  The brutes dragged Franklin, flailing and yelling, toward the exit. The woman named Shaula growled, “I can’t brainwash him, so how do you propose we make him do as he’s told?”

  Moonface was too busy looking at the box containing the Silver Key. By now, the wisps of energy signifying the artefact’s activation had dissipated. And yet, Moonface knew it was the real thing. He closed the box and hefted it off the desk. To Shaula, he said, “He’ll do it, because it’s his constant compulsion – his furious fixation, fuelling him to find the fundamentals.” He dumped the box in Shaula’s arms and motioned her to leave.

  But Shaula wouldn’t go.

  “Then, why did you bring an embryo?” she asked.

  Moonface’s grin widened with perverse excitement. He motioned for his subordinate nearby, who carried a metal cylinder with as much reverence as a priest would a holy relic, or mother a newborn. Moonface’s tiny eyes darted around, looking at all the corpses their bomb left behind. His nostrils, highly attune to the scent of live meat, smelled a body. He hopped over the rubble and upended a bulkhead, under which writhed a woman in a Regiment security uniform.

  The woman saw Moonface loom over him, and panic burst from her face. She fumbled for the hexagonal talisman strapped to her chest. Glimmering tendrils of black light wrapped around her wrists and held her down. The woman looked over in dismay to see Shaula, her hands waving to direct the magical bonds with tremendous strength.

  Moonface took the canister from his subordinate. When the captive woman saw it, she knew instantly what it was and started to thrash and scream with horror. The canister cracked open with a hiss of cold air, and Moonface withdrew a creature from within. The tiny thing, no bigger than a garden lizard and made of both metal and pale flesh, flailed and squealed. Moonface held it in front of him, cooing it as it swung by its tail.

  The woman wriggled and screamed in Shaula’s magical vice grip. The Witch snaked a black energy ribbon around the woman’s neck to subdue her further, and another to wrest her mouth open. Slowly and affectionately, Moonface lowered the creature into the woman’s mouth, then forced closed by Shaula’s magic.

  The woman thrashed, cried, and screamed as her body started to morph and contort. Shaula released the woman, who flopped around like a fish out of water. Her head smashed against the floor, her limps pounded the rubble around her, until she fell still. She looked dead by all accounts.

  Then she gasped back to life. She robotically looked at Moonface, her gaze no different from that of a mindless zombie.

  “You will soon have the memories of your host,” said Moonface. “Maintain membership here, supplant your symbiote’s service, and avail us of these arrogant Alchemist’s aims.”

  The woman nodded mechanically. Shaula then flipped her onto her front, and Moonface covered her with rubble. The subordinate who had held the canister looked confused.

  “My lord,” he said. “You don’t intend to take her Kakugane?”

  “And tip off the shrewd shysters?” retorted Moonface. To Shaula, he intoned, “That’s why I brought the embryo.”

  Shaula chuckled as she gazed around the mess they’d made. The scent of death never ceased to arouse her, and she drew deep of it. Then she and Moonface re-joined their group on the surface. They climbed into their escape craft, and, as it took to the skies, Shaula looked at Moonface with a maleficent grin.

  She proclaimed, “Let’s change us some history!”

  They did not see the Japanese woman on the roof of the building. Only their hostage could see her. She wore a pained, worried expression, which was tempered by foreknowledge and the certainty that everything would be all right.

  “Clow,” she murmured to the skies. “It’s begun.”

  Chapter 2: Anzacs

  A sweet, dry scent wafted upward from the box. The security guard opened it, and his grin widened.

  “Careful, they’re dangerous,” joked the young woman. Her facetious grin wrinkled the scar that crawled across the bridge of her nose. She noted the gleam in the guard’s eyes and snapped, “You’re not allowed to have one.”

  “Sorry, Warrior Rachelle,” said the guard. “I haven’t had breakfast, and you’re making me hungry.”

  “Too bad, they’re for him,” said the girl.

  With a growl of disappointment, the guard pushed the box through the X-ray machine. The woman then placed a paper bag, her wallet and phone on the conveyor belt, and strode through the metal detector. She pocketed her things, grabbed the box and paper bag, and eyed the technician behind the scanner. The technician reported, “All clear. Have a nice day, Astrid.”

  Astrid nodded and strode down the brightly lit corridor. She had a bit of a spring to her step, though it mystified her as to why. All she’d done was bake some Anzac1 biscuits, and it was at his request. Had it not been for him, she wouldn’t have lost her Kakugane, wouldn’t have been suspended from active duty, and wouldn’t have had to babysit him. On the other hand, this idiot, his sister, and his friends had become such a wonderful part of her life. It at least put a damper on her traumatic past.

  Of course, the stupid stunt he pulled to get him in this mess had also landed her in hot water. Hence, the suspension.

  It made her marvel, Then why the Hell am I bringing him biscuits like a schoolgirl?

  Astrid reached the end of the corridor, where another pair of guards waited. The Kakugane holstered to their chests glistened as she approached, betraying the guards’ heightened nerves upon seeing her. It was understandable, given who – or rather, what – they were guarding. The doors slid open and she passed them, revealing a laboratory full of jittery scientists, overseen by an impatient supervisor. Astrid edged toward the supervisor and mumbled, “What’re they worried about, Commander?”

  “What do you think?” retorted the Commander. He nodded to the boy in the isolation room, playing a Nintendo Switch furiously.

  Astrid scoffed, “He’s playing Smash Brothers. He’s not going to go Victor over that.” She nudged the Commander. “You should go and play with him. He’d love a visit from Captain Bravo.”

  Bravo glanced at her, the slightest sliver of irritation present in his eyes. In the next instant, it was gone. With a sigh, he moved toward the science team and said, “That’s enough. Stop the IV, draw some blood, and re-run the analysis.” One of the scientists protested, but Bravo insisted. They carried out his orders, and moved their work to another lab, leaving only Bravo, Astrid, and a few remaining overseers.

  Astrid and Bravo went into the room with smiles. Astrid’s was far more genuine than Bravo’s. The boy’s eyes brightened when he saw Astrid. She presented him the box.

  “Baked ’em this morning,” she chirped. “Be grateful, it’s my first time cooking.”

  “You’re a disgrace to your gender stereotype,” jibed the boy.

  “Oi, Nathan, make sure you say ‘thanks,’” chided Bravo.

  Nathan rolled his eyes and said, “Thank you very much, Astrid.”

  Astrid chewed her lip nerv
ously as Nathan took a bite of a biscuit. He leaned back and savoured the taste.

  “God bless those Anzacs, eh!” he exclaimed as he took another bite. Astrid found herself sighing with relief.

  Bravo curiously reached forward and nabbed one. He too found them delicious.

  Astrid eyed the screen. Nathan, playing as Cloud Strife, once again stood the loser, while the victor was Solid Snake. She chuckled, “Still can’t beat him?”

  “That bastard, Hellhound99,” grumbled Nathan. “I swear, I meet that dude in real life, I’ll wring is neck.” He swallowed another biscuit and sighed, “That said, only so many times I can replay every game on the net. Any chance on a day pass, Bravo?”

  “No can do, Grant,” said Bravo. “That last test didn’t work.”

  “No duh,” spat Nathan. “I was sitting here for an hour, waiting for those drugs to knock me out. Nothing.”

  “So, we can’t anaesthetise you and remove the Black Kakugane,” said Astrid. She rubbed her nose scar, which tended to tingle when she was stressed. She turned to Bravo. “What about Newton’s Apple? Where I found the Black Kakugane.”

  “Already checked,” said Bravo. “Sent teams there twice to scan it up and down. ASIO2 investigated quietly too. Nothing. Whatever was done to disguise it as a regular Kakugane, it wasn’t done there. And according to the head priest, it’d been there since the school’s founding. The one who donated it died ten years ago, with no relatives.”

  “Damn,” growled Astrid.

  “Back to my first point, could I please have a day pass?” asked Nathan. His brow furrowed with stress and boredom. Bravo’s response only frustrated him more. “It’s been six months, Bravo. I’ve been in this room for six months!”

  “Well, you should’ve thought of that before you pulled that stunt at Warrawul,” snapped Bravo. His hair stood on end, and his breathing quickened as he glared down at the boy on the bed. Nathan’s glare returned the same hostility Bravo radiated, and the Commander forced himself to calm down. “Look, I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I don’t want you to be stuck here any more than you do. I don’t want that thing in your chest anymore than you do, okay?” The boy gazed away, his shoulders shaking. Bravo huffed and decided to throw him a bone. “I might be able to arrange a visit for your sister and parents. But until we figure out how to reverse your condition, you’re staying here. Understand?”