Free Blade of the Lucan: A Memory of Anstractor by Greg Dragon

over here and carry him, we need to take him back to—”
    “Keep that damned thing away from me!” Furis barked. “I’ve had enough of aliens for tonight. Look, Bee, thank you, but I need to get back to the station. I have to report on what happened just now.”
    “B-but you’re bleeding badly, Furis,” Beatrice whined.
    Furis shifted the chest piece of his armor away from where the strange bullet had lodged itself into his skin. The shot was unlike anything he had seen on Tyhera, a shot that could mince through Hurakin armor. He removed the chest piece gingerly. It was still burning and he found that he was unable to move his right arm more than a few inches. When he was down to nothing but his wet pants and boots, he walked into the light of a nearby building and tried to examine the wound.
    “Let me,” Beatrice said, and leaned in close to him to peer into the gaping hole of his shoulder. “There is something glittering in there,” she said.
    “Glittering?” Furis snapped. “What do you mean, glittering?”
    “I think you should go see a medic first, Furis. There is something glowing in your arm, and I doubt that it is good for your health,” she said.
    Thanks, genius , Furis thought, and then forced a smiled at her and nodded to the Deijen before hobbling to the gates. Veece had begun to lock its walls at night as an extra precaution against the resistance fighters. The city’s footprint was in the shape of an oval, and at one of its smallest points stood a set of tall, narrow gates. Furis walked up to the gates and faced the panel, and when the droid asked for his identification, he presented his family ring to it.
    The doors slid into the walls and revealed an entrance. Furis Kyle stepped through and headed towards the police station. The building, like most of the architecture in the city, was a sandy color, circular, with arched windows and doors, and a domed ceiling of black and red to indicate that troopers worked there. In Veece, the colors of the roof were the unmarked signs of what one could expect to find inside. It was a feature that was meant to confuse outsiders and trip up the resistance, but still inform citizens.
    He held the throbbing area of his wound, and ignored the glances from people he passed as he made his way to the building. When he finally got there, he barked at the young man at the front desk to get him an audience with the captain. His head was spinning and his patience was gone, and his arm was beginning to feel really numb.
    When he plopped down on the stone bench inside of his office, he lost control. It was as if all the energy within him decided to take a vacation. He sat down hard, and his head led the rest of his body down to the floor. When his face slammed into the floor, he blacked out. A tiny crystal embedded in a metallic bullet shell slipped out of the hole in his shoulder and rolled out next to his face.
    A tear in the atmosphere above the crystal rippled reality in such a way that if anyone had witnessed it, they would have thought there was an earthquake. A slit opened up, revealing the inside of a house, and then a bald, coral-skinned woman in all black stepped through. The shaking subsided and closed before the crystal evaporated into tiny particles.
    Marika looked around quickly to make sure she was alone. She had her gun at the ready in her right hand, and the left was holding a large sack with hers and Marian’s belongings. She rushed to the open arch of the window to peer outside. The streets were dark, with the exception of street lamps suspended from tall poles bordering the roads and buildings. She threw a dark shawl across her face, pulled up the hood of her cloak, and then tossed the bag out the window. She gave the place a final look before reaching down to collect the tracking bullet that was next to Furis, then turned to climb out of the window.
    She stopped and looked down at Furis for a time, working through her head the pros and cons of