Esteria, named so by its discoverer, is a terrestrial planet in a small solar system with six other planets. It is about 4.5 times bigger than Earth and its gravity is about 1.16 times that of Earth. A single day lasts 19.92 hours and a year lasts 100 days. The planet is made up of 3 continents, which make up 79% of the planet's landmass. 6 moons orbit the planet and Esteria itself orbits a purple sun in a circular orbit.
The planet of Esteria was built upon the war, drugs, strong minds and treachery of its past, this planet is now among the bleakest parts in its corner of the cosmos. Their science and industry are among their current greatest strengths. Unfortunately, they lack a lot of natural resources. So they raid other planets. There are no real opposing groups against the current leadership, but this is only a recent occurrence. However, the current greatest threat to the nation is aggressive drug abuse, but the current leadership can't do anything more to solve this issue. Religion holds real importance in their lives and, if anything.
The Bratleon are on the top of the social stratification in Esteria. They look like humans, only muscular and winged. They have two eyes which sit high in their sockets and can often make them appear to be straightforward. Their eyesight is excellent. Their ears are huge and their hearing is impressive. Their skin colors are mostly shades of blue, which tend to become pale as they age. Their hair thicker than humans and braided stylishly. The braiding of hair is a part of their heritage, past on from generation to generation in the Bratleon culture. The Bratleonese males are usually bigger than their female counterpart. The females, however, are usually friendlier.
Now squadrons of the Crowburn Police, better known as the Alphas, are pushing through this warp. The Vartachoz warp or 'frog belly' as it was now called, hence the unusual nomenclature Vartachoz technology had acquired. Two frog belly warps coexist in the Crowburn. They are the travel link between Crowburn and two other metropolitan cities. A frog belly teleported anything that passed through it in a matter of seconds.
Most of the Alphas are flying through the frog belly; others are on their autopilot war-cars. Their orders are simple: Arrest lord Xarth.
Operation Jackpot.
The target now isn't some regular thug, but Xarth, the drug lord of Esteria, the boss himself. The originator of the Vibe, a drug created from dried human blood. Xarth's been running Vibe out of Crowburn for five hundred years. The Interstellar Agency of Organised Crime or IAOC opened a front in Esteria. It is a new agency, barely ten years old. Most of the new recruits came from the places that Xarth had previously destroyed. Taking down Xarth was personal. A lot of them had formerly worked in police departments and narcotic bureaus of their old worlds. Lyric Blu worked for the IAOC.
A Nurru Boy. That's what the Alphas call any of the guys who came in from the Mothership. There's a lot of bitterness and mistrust between the IAOC men and the local policemen.
Two years of military training on Esterian soil weren't that hard for Lyric. Six feet tall and built like a jock; the physical training was a breeze --Lyric could easily run and swim 4-mile courses and the self-defence aspect was similarly easygoing. Muay Thai lessons he took in his college days came in quite handy. Lately, he was having a hard time with his handler at the bureau, Drakkar. Hanford Drakkar, an American who survived the last wave of the war on Earth, is the Esterian RAC (Resident Agent in Charge). An old IAOC guy who had lived through the beggarly days. Now that war against substance abuse was a huge priority, he didn't intend to lose his hard-earned spot to a bunch of newbies. He is perpetually in a bad mood and always quotes cliché-ridden phrases like 'play by the rules.'
The blind fools of fate at the Bureau played by the rules. But, the field is a different ball game and Lyric wants to win. Drakkar has no clue about Operation Jackpot.
And now, as Lyric reached the place, he saw a proper ambush. He thinks as he takes his position and waits for Lord Xarth to show up, we might be close to doing it.
Lyric hated the "waiting" part of an ambush. He sat in the bamboo field by the highway, his legs went numb but he didn't move. His hair is now sweaty and his grey eyes an epitome of boredom. He hated the humidity of Crowburn. He hated Crowburn. The Alphas spaced on the area around him are likewise disciplined, armed with plasma rifles, dressed in black uniforms, perfect for an ambush on any night.
Atlas Zaramuk is wearing a Solsta suit. Even here at an ambush, the governor's special assistant is wearing his trademark black traditional solsta. Black hair, longer than an average Bratleon. A handsome face with a jawline as sharp as a knife. He looks at ease, calm and composed, the image of Bratleonese male dignity.
Eyes as black as the ace of spades. They said his eyes could strip a man's soul bare. That no secret could be hidden if he met your gaze. Lyric had never believed it but when he first met Zaramuk, he could see why others would.
Officially, Zaramuk is a cop, a Crowburn policeman, the bodyguard to the governor, Azure Ghost. Unofficially, Zaramuk is the governor's playmaker. And seeing how Jackpot is technically a Crowburn operation, Zaramuk is the guy who's really running the show.
And me, Lyric thinks. If I really want to be honest about it, Atlas Zaramuk is running me.
Lyric had been stationed at Crowburn a few years ago. Night after night, he would lie on the bed in his apartment, drinking cheap alcohol, maybe watching old Champions League football games on his tablet, pissed off and feeling sorry for himself.
And missing Verina.
God, how he missed Verina.
Lyric met Verina Moraru at the Mothership infirmary. She was his personal physical therapist. Tall, thin Nurru girl, she was confident, cosmopolitan with blue hair and her three blue eyes set a little too deep to be considered traditionally pretty, but Verina was beautiful.
Lyric had lost his muscular strength as he was bed-bound for a hundred years during the telepath experiments. Verina helped him recover. They grew fond of each other. He was twenty-three and she was six hundred years old when they met, which is more or less the same. In Nurru years, a five-hundred-year-old is coequal to an eighteen-year-old teenager from Earth.
He found out that she was the daughter of Immor Moraru, a big shot on the Mothership's Defense Intelligence Department.
They hung out every evening in her chamber, she loved talking and he loved to listen to her talk. Had a tournament been held that year to determine the Universe's Best Listener, I would have won hands down, he thought. They argued about free will and the meaning of life while sipping espresso that he made.
To her, he was insanely handsome, with those messy brown hair that fell over his forehead, a rugged jaw that saved him from boyish charm, and the quiet intellect that had brought him from the Earth to the Mothership. There was something else, too—a vulnerability, a loneliness, a pain, a bit of rage—that made him appealing.
He texted her long, passionate messages from Crowburn that never included anything about what he actually did. Because I don't do anything, he wrote to her.
Not a bloody thing except feeling sorry for myself.
So get off your ass and get cracking, she wrote back. Or quit and come home to me. I know Dad could get you a job in his department in no time, just say the word.
Lyric didn't say the word.
So now, Lyric sits crouched in a bamboo field, waiting for the old lord to walk into the trap. He can feel Zaramuk's eyes on him. He gazed over to see Zaramuk pointedly looking at his watch.
Lyric gets the message.
Anytime now.