The Mies Divide (Tentative)

Chapter 3

I crouched at the exit of a dark alley, awaiting the signal from Captain Felix that it was safe for us to cross. He was squeezed against the shadows of a wall a good thirty feet on the far side of a large street. I was still trying to adapt to the slightly heavier gravity of Nem, and though it was similar to Earth, I couldn't move as fast as I could back home quite yet. This was only my second mission and I couldn't screw up by getting us caught. That would sure be embarrassing for my family full of war heroes. Even my mother served as a medic for several years. We had come all this way (roughly 200 miles from our base) to extract a high officer in the Nemian army of Theia for interrogation. The job was fairly straightforward, but we were also given permission to kill any who got in our way. I just hoped it didn't come to it, but this was war, after all. I had been told by countless Captains and even my brother (who was a Colonel) and father that by serving in Gaia, I was part of the greater good; we were freeing the natives from the tyrannous leaders of Nem and many of the hostiles we would encounter in this city would be contributing to the mistreatment of the less fortunate citizens.

Something hard smacked me in the forehead and jerked me out of my reverie. I blinked several times and my eyes shot in several different directions before they focused on Captain Felix, who hadn't moved, but was waving at me impatiently. Instinctively, I looked both ways and sprinted across the dirt street, little puffs of dust lept up around my feet as I ran and I realized that it hadn't rained since I had come to this planet and I briefly wondered if it ever did. As soon as I was within arms reach of Captain Felix he grasped me and expedited my approach to the new section of alley. He shushed me and pressed me against the wall as a hover vehicle hovered past us at an agonizingly slow rate. I peered at it from behind the wall, at least five armed Nemians were clinging onto the side of the vehicle scanning the streets for anything that moved. 

When most people, especially those from Earth saw Nemians, they didn't think that they could ever seem like a formidable foe, but most people saw them on Earth and in indentured servitude where their every move was measured with great care. Many of their owners could lash out at what seemed to be nothing, so any Nemians that I had seen before being stationed in Nem moved slow enough to go mostly unnoticed. Here, on their home planet, they didn't delay in blowing the brains out of a passing human. One or two often weren't a threat, but when they were in groups they could decimate a human convoy in minutes and suffer little to none of their own casualties. When my brother had just joined the military, he'd been the lone survivor of a convoy and managed to take out every last Nemian that had destroyed his brigade. People said that he only made it due to a fusion of luck and his mage abilities and I was beginning to believe them. The few that had made attempts to infiltrate our base were hard to take out with sheer bullets. Gunfire often just held them back long enough for a mage to take them out with a fireball to the face.

I pulled my robe close and started to slide against the alley wall once the danger had passed. In front of me were three other companions. Al was a small, but very tough woman who specialized in explosives. She could make a bomb out of the most arbitrary of objects within just moments, she sported dark black hair and wore a jacket lined with two dozen pockets which I assumed stored all of the vital bomb-making materials. Behind her was Lee, he was what one would call a "heavy weapon," he was a large man with stacks of muscle all over his body and he towered over most humans. He carried a large gun that was the size of Al as if it were no big feat. Next in line was Winston, he was my co-mage and wore identical garb to mine; a dark robe made of poly-cotton, which was a very thick but breathable protective cotton that provided magi with agility and protection, for practicality, most of us cinched them at the waist with a belt. Though we were both magi we had completely different roles; he focused on the offensive while I provided protection in the way of barriers and performed minor combat healing so that my comrades could survive until they could be taken to the true healers at the base. I still had some offensive capabilities as well, though. No mage was any good if they didn't know how to hold their own when it came to it.