The sky was an oddly particular shade of green that day. Pale but still bright, it reminded Nathan of the lime juice his mother would serve on a hot summer day.
Sitting on the back deck of their farmhouse, the hot sun beating down on him as he’d sit at the table with his siblings overlooking the farmland his mother would maintain. Their father would be in his lab, a large backyard facility disguised as a red barn.
His siblings, his younger brother by two years named Zack, and his little sister by four years named Tessa, were play fighting at the table. Swatting at each other, their dark skin already looking red from not listening to their mother’s pleas about applying sunscreen in the summer. Speaking of her, she walked in then, carrying the large jug of lime juice Nathan remembered. Her smile always made Nathan feel like he was home.
It was a simpler time.
However, as the memory faded Nathan remembered how far from home he truly was, the lime green sky dotted with mysterious floating orbs that were red, yellow and blue. Like little moons that seemed too close to the surface. It reminded Nathan of bubble tea.
“I must be thirsty,” Nathan commented to himself, shaking his head.
Lying flat on his stomach on a rocky cliffside, Nathan reached down to his belt and unclipped a water bottle that was snuggly fit into his body so as not to jiggle and create noise. As he took a sip, he heard Tessa over the communications line.
“What’d you say?” she spoke quickly and hushedly, and Nathan was still getting used to her new speech patterns since the incident.
“Nothing, ignore me,” Nathan replied.
Clipping his water bottle back into place, Nathan then grabbed a set of binoculars off from his belt and put them up to his eyes. Comprised of technology Nathan didn’t fully understand but knew well how to manipulate after many operations such as this, the binoculars looked down from the ridge Nathan was nestled on, as the advanced HUD blinked to life.
Nathan looked through the lens to see the military base below him.
A large perimeter fence made of a blue translucent energy and metal surrounded tents, temporary structures and small jails and cages that comprised this camp. After a moment’s pause, the binoculars became littered with red and blue dots, signaling to Nathan where the hostiles and where the prisoners were. While the functionality was always in the binoculars, Nathan had enough experience to know that whenever he ran into a Raktar, they were going to be hostile.
Flipping a switch on the top of the binoculars, Nathan switched it so only the Raktar showed. His gaze instinctively went to one of the Raktar who was patrolling the perimeter fence, walking across the fence. The binoculars, detecting where his eyes were headed, automatically zoomed in and enhanced the image. It had taken Nathan a long time to get used to that feature, but several headaches later he had become a master of trusting the device to zoom in on exactly what he was looking for.
The only way Nathan could describe a Raktar would be if an 8-foot crocodile was a pale blue colour, walked on two legs and instead of a snout it had an oddly disconcerting human-like face. Their arms were burly and rippling with strength but their legs were stubby and barely kept their bodies off the ground. Nathan had learned not to let that fool you, somehow they were still ungodly fast for their size and peculiar physique. Not to mention their heavy, gold and black armor that covered their torso, forearms, their legs up to their knees, and protected the top of their heads with a round helmet. Even their tails, which protruded out from the armor, had some armor that clinked every time it swayed back and forth.
Some might consider their raw power would be enough, but the Raktar still had advanced, deadly weaponry. This particular Raktar Nathan spied on had a large plasma rifle that was rectangular in shape along the rifle’s shaft and was almost half the size of Nathan. It glowed and hummed with a yellow energy. If that wasn’t enough, almost every Raktar, this one included, had a large red sword strapped to their side that sparked with electricity.
Nathan watched as this one snarled, an involuntary action the Raktar did, akin to sneezing.
Turning his attention elsewhere, Nathan tried to take note of the Raktar’s positions, their patrolling patterns, anything he could need to know to infiltrate this base without alerting the guards.
“Tess, I count about twenty active patrolling guards, and roughly thirty more either inactive or performing other tasks. How about you?” Nathan whispered into his earpiece.
There was a small gust of wind through his earpiece, and then it stopped as Tess said something to quickly to catch.
“Tess, slow down. How many times have I told you to come to complete stop before reporting?” Nathan scolded.
Before Tess had a chance to respond, Zack angrily chirped into the comms.
“Relax Nathan, not all of us were lucky enough to not get super powers like you. We’re still figuring these out,” Zack said.
Nathan sighed and felt the blood vessel began to throb in his head. It always did when Zack talked.
“Not the time Zack. I need you guys to be focused on things like this,” Nathan responded.
“Yeah, and we need you to be patient,” Zack retorted, his voice rising.
“Boys,” Tess said as commandingly as she could. For the youngest of the family that wasn’t easy, but she had been getting better at it lately. “Can we bicker like the dysfunctional family we are once we’re done this?”
Nathan sighed and collected his thoughts. Being the oldest brother, he considered himself the leader and the one responsible if anything happened to his siblings. He knew it was something he took too seriously at times, he was always just scared the others didn’t take it seriously enough.
“Right. Okay, how many did you count?” Nathan asked again.
“I didn’t see as many as you, but I can confirm there are six active guards patrolling the perimeter,” Tess responded.
Nathan nodded to himself, Tess’ statement lining up with what he had seen. He then changed the setting on the binoculars, and certain structures became outlined in green. As Nathan changed his attention to different buildings a list of the types of energy signatures the structures gave off appeared just to the side of his vision. Nathan would read them and then check another building. Finally, he found the one he was looking for as it gave a considerable amount of electric energy, as opposed to all the other energies that Nathan didn’t know of.
“Okay, I found the server bank,” Nathan reported. “I’ll sneak in, steal their files, and then we’re out of here. Tess, I need you to be my eyes on the outside. Let me know if I’m in trouble. Zack, you’re on standby. If Tess or I get in trouble, create a distraction as only you can. But do not engage before that, understand?”
There was an angry huff over the earpiece, but Nathan knew to wait it out.
“Yeah, understood,” Zack replied.
Just as Nathan was about to put the binoculars away, Tess chipped in.
“Wait, what about hostages?”
Nathan sighed, and then took a second look. As he changed setting on his binoculars to turn off the hostiles and energy signatures, he commented, “We’re here for the intel, not to liberate. But I’ll take a look.”
As blue dots started appearing on in the lens, Nathan felt a mix of annoyance followed immediately by guilt. They were taking risks everytime they did something like this, and taking additional risks endangered their main objective. However, deep down he knew Tess was right and there were still innocent lives in danger. She was, ultimately, right to be worried.
Locked up in cages barely big enough to fit a few normal sized people, were scores of humanoids of all shapes and sizes. In their journeys across dimensions, Nathan had seen the races, citizens, and peoples of different dimensions and was still finding that there were more and more eclectic ones to find everywhere they went.
Some, like the Raktar, could be compared to things on Earth, creatures with giant elephant-like ears but a set of spider eyes on the body of an ape. Others looked more like things that defied Nathan’s imagination, incorporeal shapes like clouds that would fluctuate from depending on their emotion, smooth and soft when calm, angry and spikey when angry.
Nathan didn’t have a proper chance to even digest all the things that were in that jail cell, nor in the two others around the camp. Of immediate alarm, were four isolated blue dots in the middle of the camp that appeared on Nathan’s binoculars. He focused his attention on them. Nathan exhaled sharply, loud enough for his siblings to hear.
“What? What is it?” Zack asked.
On their knees, hands behind their head were four Fenions. In the interdimensional war, the siblings had got themselves stuck in, the Fenions were the primary resistance against the Raktar.
Fenions had an almost regal bearing about them, their noses pushed in close to their face, with their four colourful defined eyes just up the bridge from the nose. Their heads pushed backward narrowly from the forehead straight back for almost a foot, the length often a good indicator of their age as their brains never stopped growing and their heads had to accommodate. Their bodies were mostly humanoid, with the exception of their four arms and hands with eight fingers. Fenions had a skin that looked like rubber, and their skin was blue and green if they were male, or red and orange if they were female.
Far more intelligent than Nathan could grasp, he knew the Fenions were the only race in the dimensions they had been too smart enough to know what would happen if the Raktar succeeded in their conquest. They weren’t fighters though, not for the most part, more able to perform complicated and dexterous actions with their fast thinking and multiple arms. A few would take up the mantle of soldiers, but they just weren’t as ruthless as the Raktar in a fight. They would often not be able to win a straight-up fight, but the Fenions and their superior technology could outmaneuver and out strategize their enemies.
That often led to situations like this, when a Fenion plan had managed to stop a Raktar attack, but as the Fenion’s tactical thinking usually did, sacrifices had to be made. Leading to hostages.
“Fenions, four of them,” Nathan stated. A Raktar stood behind them while one stood in front. Guns aimed at the Fenions.
“They’re getting ready to execute them,” Nathan said.
No sooner than he had said that, there was a gust of wind over the communications. Nathan knew what that meant.
“Tess…” Nathan started to say.
Through the binoculars, one of the Raktar prepared to fire. Rifle trained at one of the red Fenions head, it’s pointy, angular finger went to pull the trigger. The Fenion grimaced, ready for the end.
There was an abrupt blur of colour, and any loose articles of clothing attached to the Raktar or Fenions flapped in a gust of wind. The Raktar who was trained on the Fenion stared at its claws in confusion. Its rifle was gone.
The other Raktar standing behind the Fenions, equally as perturbed, tried aiming its rifle at the Fenions. Another blue of colour later, the Raktar was off its feet like it had been hit by a train. It flew backward in the air, flipping over top of itself and crashed into the ground.
“Tess!” Nathan harshly whispered.
The other Raktar was now under full alert and it began barking and screeching in its native tongue, trying to alert the guards. Nathan slammed the ground as the alarm could be heard echoing out to where he was lying.
“Well, I guess that's your plan shot to crap,” Zack said.
Nathan stood up, clipping his binoculars back to his belt. He started getting his gear ready, activating the shield on his black armor with the red trim. Slim and fit to his body, his armor was forged of another metal Nathan had never heard of, but one that could create an electromagnetic shield that slowed the impact of force before hitting him. Between that and the actual armor itself, Nathan had some decent damage protection.
“Alright Zack, do your thing. Keep Tess safe and keep the attention on you while she does her hero thing,” Nathan instructed.
Reaching around his belt, he pulled a small sidearm pistol. Angular with sharp sides and no bigger than a spray bottle, Nathan quickly checked that it had enough power to be useful. Content, he holstered it back and drew a small blade hilt from the other side. He clicked a small button on it, and from the end of the hilt extended a sharp swath of energy that looped onto itself, creating a dagger that was a foot and a half in length that glowed with red energy.
“I’ll go and steal the info from the server bank. If we lose that, we might never find Dad,” Nathan concluded.
After a moment’s pause, where Zack didn’t reply, a small smile found a way to Nathan’s face.
“Do your thing, little brother.”
In the distance, at one of the borders of the camps, there was a small explosion of dust and debris. Nathan’s smile grew, and he knew Zack had gone to work.
Nathan tapped a small button on the neck of his armor, and his helmet formed around his head. Fitting around the perfect shape of his head, the helmet was pitch black, and there were two narrow red slits where his eyes were.
The man who had was known as Nathan to his family, friends, and allies, had become what the Raktar had grown to fear. He was Shade.
His armor augmenting his physical prowess to do the peak of human condition, Nathan jumped down the hill and let himself slide down. Skidding against the ground and controlling his descent, Nathan then leaped into a crouched sprint at the bottom, carrying his momentum forward.
Reaching the edge of the perimeter fence, he extended a hand for one of the physical pillars between the energy fields. His hand magnetically locked onto the pillar, and with another hand he reached up and climbed to the top of the fence, locking and unlocking his hands as he went.
Vaulting over the top, Nathan landed on the bridge next to the perimeter fence. A Raktar that had been guarding it turned to face the interior, trying to discern what was happening. As Nathan landed he dashed forward and extended his energy blade. The Raktar never heard him coming as Nathan grabbed the Raktar by the head. Pulling him back in close, Nathan then reached around and stabbed the blade into its throat silencing it before it could scream out in alarm.
Nathan quickly dropped the Raktar and then jumped down to the ground below. Chaos was abounding on the ground below and Nathan dove to take cover behind a building as a platoon of Raktar ran past. The sounds of rifle fire were deafening the camp, and tangy residue smell left when fire permeated the air. Nathan blocked it out of his mind and continued forward. Stopping at the edge of another building, Nathan waited as another patrol ran past.
Crouching low and sprinting Nathan covered the gap between buildings in the blink of an eye. As he took cover behind the next structure, he allowed himself a peek to see what was unfolding.
Standing at seven and a half feet tall, Zack was inhumanly large. His arms and legs were bursting with muscle, making him look more like a silverback gorilla than a person. He was wearing black armor similar to Nathan, instead of with a green trim and green eyes. Unlike Nathan, he wore a large purple robe with its hood up. The accident that gave Zack and Tess their powers when they jumped dimensions left Zack disfigured, and the robe helped him feel less self-conscious, even when his helmet was on.
As Zack tore through the platoon of Raktar, Nathan figured being self-conscious was the last thing on Zack’s mind. Holding a Raktar up with one hand by its leg, he slammed it into another Raktar and pounding it into the ground. Zack dropped the Raktar and slugged another one as it ran in to stab him with its blade. That Raktar toppled over and landed on its back, and then as it tried to stand Zack stomped on it.
The platoon that Nathan had waited to pass lined up and opened fire on Zack. The blasts hit Zack and made him stutter as his shields absorbed the brunt of the attacks. As the Raktar prepared another volley, Zack reached for a large crate of supplies that was about as large as he was. Picking it up with two arms, he spun and threw it at the group of Raktar. The group was crushed by the weight of the crate.
It was a good reminder why Zack was referred to the Raktar as Monster. A term that insulted Zack, but struck fear.
Nathan continued forward toward the building he had spotted earlier, ducking behind cover and hiding when necessary to avoid Raktar. Just as he could the last gap of open space between him and the server farm, Nathan got greedy and ran to cover the distance. Just as he did, a Raktar screech stopped him.
He froze mid-run and turned to see two Raktar with their rifles aimed at Nathan’s head stalk towards him. They were growling and muttering something in their language to each other as they neared. Just as Nathan began to reach for his sidearm, there was a gust of wind.
One Raktar was forcefully spun around to face the other direction. The other was flipped over forcefully. As the Raktar turned back around to face Nathan it was suddenly hit with a cavalcade of blows. Its body shuttered and shook as a figure stood still long enough to finally be seen.
Wearing the same armor only lighter as her siblings with a blue trim, Tess was the shortest of the three siblings but still stood tall at just under six feet. Her armor had to be specially designed to compensate her high moving speeds, and on the legs, armor, and ribs there were visible blue glowing lights, signifiers on how much energy was left in the armor to maintain the speeds.
Tess then ended her bombardment and she ran off, too fast for the eye to follow. The Raktar she had pummeled staggered for a moment and then fell to the ground unconscious. The other Raktar tried to stand but as it did, it was suddenly face down in the dirt and being dragged. Tess had it by the back of the heads and ran it in circles into the ground. Only a few moments later there was the trail left by the Raktar’s body dug into the ground half a foot deep. Tess stopped running and the Raktar’s body slumped to a stop.
“I thought you were the careful one,” Tess joked for a moment.
Before Nathan could respond, like she always did Tess was gone in the blink of an eye. It was why the Raktar had grown to call Tess: Blur.
Nathan shrugged it off and then kept moving into the building. Stepping in, he was surrounded by bright screens, the hum of the servers, and Raktar who were desperately trying to erase the servers. It wasn’t the first time the three had attempted a base raid, and the Raktar had their orders from higher up to wipe the servers whenever they suspected one.
Not about to let that happen, Nathan drew his sidearm and fired into the Raktars. Most didn’t have a chance to react and fell to the ground, while others quickly drew their blades and charged at Nathan. As one neared and swung in at Nathan, he blocked the attack with his energy blade and then disarmed the Raktar with a quick flick of his wrist. He then fired his sidearm at that Raktar and dropped it as two more charged in. They each swung in and Nathan leaned back to dodge the blades.
He then propped upright and slashed at one Raktar taking it out of the fight in an explosion of sparks as his blade rattled the Raktar’s armor. The other then attempted to run Nathan through thinking he was vulnerable. Nathan turned and grabbed the sword mid-stab and held it in place. Gritting his teeth and straining against the superior strength of the Raktar, Nathan then pushed the sword off to the side. The Raktar stumbled forward, and Nathan spun around the Raktar and stabbed his dagger backward through the Raktar.
As Nathan extracted the dagger the Raktar collapsed. Nathan looked around the room for a moment, taking in what he had done. There wasn’t any time to dwell, however, as he noticed on one of the screens that the sequence had already been initiated to start the purge of data. Nathan rushed over and began to enter in an override, something the Fenions had taught him. It was a complicated process and required Nathan’s focus to complete.
“Nathan!”
Tess’ alarmed voice gave Nathan a pause for a moment.
“We’re pinned down! We can handle ourselves, but we can’t get to the hostages! They are going to die!” Tess yelled.
Nathan clenched his fists in anger. There was intelligence on these servers he needed to access if he had any hope of finding their father. The reason they had ended up in the middle of the interdimensional war, the reason his siblings accidentally had superpowers, was all because they had just been trying to find their father. He had been conducting experiments trying to access other dimensions and went missing. Nathan had reason to believe he was a Raktar prisoner, but he had no idea where he was being held. On this server, there was a chance he would find this information.
If he didn’t act soon, however, they would lose the hostages. Other lives that didn’t deserve to be lost and he could save. His conscious battled his logic, arguing with himself over what course of action. His family versus innocent lives. Logic versus compassion.
He thought back to those days on the farmhouse, playing with his siblings. His mother’s smile.
Simpler times.
Abandoning the server, Nathan left the base.
“Where are the hostages?” Nathan asked over the comms, sprinting to where he had seen the action happening earlier.
Tess relayed him the approximate location and Nathan saw a shortcut. Jumping up onto a crate and then onto the roof a building, Nathan leaped and vaulted from rooftop to rooftop. Just to the edge of the camp against the fence, he saw the group of hostages, being cornered by a small platoon of Raktar getting ready to fire. With all the athleticism he could muster he jumped from the edge of the closest building.
Clearing over the platoon of Raktar and landing between them and the hostages, Nathan rolled into a crouched position. Then spinning around, Nathan attacked.
A short time later, the camp was cleared of the Raktar. After a discussion with the Fenion, the Fenions agreed to take one of the Raktar vessels back to their dimension and would bring the hostages back with them to find them food and shelter. The family was back in their own shuttle, the original ship they had left Earth in by accident what felt like a lifetime ago.
Nathan leaned against the window of the ship, staring at the camp they had just liberated.
Liberation hadn’t been the mission, but it was what they had accomplished. The ship was preparing to take off, and as they floated over the camp waiting for the engine to kick in, Nathan just wondered what accomplishing that mission had cost them.
Tess, her helmet off revealing her dark braids and childish features, walked over to Nathan. She stood next to him and looked at him as he stared out the window.
“Beating yourself up?” Tess asked.
“He shouldn’t,” Zack interjected from his seat. His helmet was also off like his siblings, but his hood remained up concealing his features. “We did a good thing today.”
“I know that,” Nathan replied. “No, we did the right thing. It’s just hard to think that it might have cost us our chance to see Dad again after everything we’ve been through to try and find him.”
There was no rebuttal from Zack, but rather a resigned silence. Zack would never verbally agree with his older brother, but the quiet always spoke volumes. Tess eyed Zack with a smile, and then Nathan. Finally, she caught Nathan’s attention, and he turned to look at her. Reaching into the belt around her waist, she pulled a thin rectangular data disc. Nathan looked from the disc to her sister, and then back to the disc.
“When did you…?” Nathan started to ask but found his own sentence trailing off.
“Please, did you think it would take me that long to disarm the Raktar?” Tess asked. “I snuck it in there before I saved those Fenions. Found a port and extracted all the info that would fit.”
She handed him the data disc and walked away. Nathan found himself chuckling and shaking his head.
“Well, it means instead of just the info we need we now have their entire database from this camp,” Nathan pointed out. “So we’ll need to sort through it to find what we’re looking for, which could take some time.”
Tess shot Nathan an incredulous look and even Zack turned to look at his older brother.
“But, it’s a heck of a lot better than nothing,” Nathan concluded. “Good work team. Let’s get out of here.”
A few moments later, their ship departed that dimension for new realms unknown. In their search for their father, they would always help fight the Raktar forces and any others that threatened the innocent lives of others across the span of dimensions.
The Dimensional Defenders were on the job.