by Tristan Vick
“Thank you,” she replied excitedly, and quickly scurried over to take her seat. Before she could pass the young man, however, he reached out and shoved her over the railing.
Aidora screamed as she fell.
The wind rushed out of her as she crashed onto the arena floor from the second story balcony and she looked up to see the group of Dagon teenagers peering down at her and laughing.
The mean boy who’d pushed her spat at her. She raised her hand to block it, but luckily the slight breeze diverted its trajectory.
“Serves you right, you Nyctan bitch!” the Dagon kid shouted down at her. Without warning, a massive wave of blood, guts, and gore splashed across the young man and his friends. The force of it was so strong it knocked them off their feet and drenched them in the thick, sticky goo of a slain razorback lion of the planet Scalios.
With three giant porcupine-like needles sticking out of her metal arm, which hung limp at her right side due to the venom darts shorting her servos, Danica was glad it hadn’t been her flesh and blood arm. If the razorback lion’s needles had hit her anywhere else on her body, the venom would have paralyzed her and she’d be little more than the evening’s entrée.
Electric blue venom seeping out of the holes of her silver metallic arm, she edged up to Aidora and said, “Get behind me. This one's pissed. I killed its mate.”
Aidora scrambled to her feet and got behind Danica as ordered. As soon as she was behind her, Danica erected a forcefield. Several more poison tipped needles pinged off the energy shield with such force they deflected back up into the stadium and pierced the underside of the balcony seating. The crowd erupted with startled cries which quickly changed into cheers.
“I don’t know if I have enough energy left to deflect the brunt of another attack,” she said through a clenched jaw, her blue hand raised as she maintained her forcefield.
Aidora put her hand on Danica’s back. It had red claw marks which trailed down her blue skin in the form of three bloody gouges. “You’re hurt,” she said, sounding genuinely worried for Danica even though they had never met before this moment.
“I’ll live,” Danica replied stoically. Wanting to keep it that way, she promptly reached over and tore one of the quills out. Her metal arm sparked and then settled down again after a moment.
No wonder razorback lions are so formidable in the arena, she mused, they can kill you with their claws, teeth, and needles, if need be. There were extremely lethal.
“Stay close,” Danica said, and she began to jog. As they headed for the lion, Aidora grew nervous.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“No,” Danica said, leaning into an oncoming volley of needles, using her metal forearm as a makeshift shield to deflect several of the quills. One of the quills pinged off her arm and lodged itself in the dirt a couple of meters to her right. The others were wide of the mark and the reddish-purple spines peppered the ground all around Danica and the young Nyctan girl.
Aidora pulled back at the last minute and watched Danica charge the lion. The lion roared at her, warning her it was the apex predator on this field, not her, and then pounced.
Together, woman and beast toppled to the ground, the lion’s massive jaws biting down on Danica’s metal arm.
The weight of the lion was crushing, but she held it at bay, reinforcing herself with an energy bubble. The lion gnawed at her arm, trying its best to tear the non-functioning appendage off of her body. While it was preoccupied with its new chew-toy, she drove its own quill through its right eye and into its brainpan.
It was an instant kill, and the lion collapsed on top of her and, with a grunt, she shoved it off. Rolling away, she clambered to her feet and, resting her palms on her knees, panted until she finally managed to catch her breath.
Looking back over her bruised shoulder at the Nyctan girl, she asked, “Are you all right?”
The girl nodded and tried her best to smile.
Danica straightened up and said, “Good,” and walked over to the girl.
Aidora looked up into Danica’s golden eyes. She was a little intimidated by the woman’s size. Although she was only six foot three, by Nyctan standards, that was extremely tall, and only the males ever got that big. To see a woman so large was both awe inspiring and, quite frankly, rather impressive.
“Thanks for saving me,” Aidora said as Danica hoisted her up onto her shoulder and allowed to her climb up onto the entry level railing.
“Next time someone pushes you around, don’t just sit there and take it. Push back,” Danica offered in the way of some friendly advice. Aidora nodded in the affirmative and watched the gladiatrix turn and limp off. Without looking back, Danica shouted, “Because next time I won’t be there to save your sorry ass.”
Aidora couldn’t believe her luck was holding. Not only had she survived the mass slaughter at the trade summit days earlier, but she'd survived a ship crash from high orbit, and now she’d survived falling into a live battle in the arena.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins and caused her to have the shakes. Succumbing to a mild state of shock, she did her best to answer, even though it came out in a barely audible voice. “I will,” she said, clutching her ticket close to her chest.
It was funny. In all the turmoil, she’d never once let go of her ticket. Now, it was a keepsake she’d cherish forever.
STILL ON HER COCKTAIL of adrenaline and excitement from her experience in the arena, Aidora checked in to the Varuna Luxury Beach Resort and made her way to her room.
Upon entering, she was left speechless. It was more than a master suite. It was a royal suite. She’d never had a room to herself, let alone one as fancy as this. As a servant, she’d always shared her accommodations with two or three others, and this seemed so grand that she could scarcely believe it.
The floors were made of white marble and the counter tops of the island kitchen were set with black marble. A set of stairs descended into a den replete with a gas fireplace, and rugs that were of the finest and most elaborate weaving she’d ever seen.
It even had a crystal chandelier that hung from a high ceiling.
After roaming through the mansion-sized suite, she found the bathroom. The bath was basically a small pool, a hot and cold portion partitioned off from one another. The hot side filled a long rectangle and the cold filled a small square at the end. But the two pools spilled over a low partition separating the two sides and bled into one another, their waters mingling to form a lukewarm area.
Excited to take her first ever bath like a true sachem, she stripped off her soiled clothes, stained with the blood and sands of the arena, and rinsed before turning to the pool.
Slowly, she dipped her snow-white toes in and, finding it wonderfully pleasing, sank into the warmth of the inviting waters. Swimming about, she took a deep breath and submerged herself.
Overextending herself, she came up for air and gasped out loud. As soon as she’d taken in a fresh breath of air, however, she felt gloved hands wrap themselves around her throat and hoist her out of the water.
Startled, she tried to scream but couldn’t. The hands crushed her throat with such force that she thought her neck would snap like a twig. Her eyes shot open and she clutched the wrists that held her in their vice-like grip. She kicked and squirmed, trying to break free of the wrists she clutched in her hands. But it was no use, her attacker was too strong.
The next thing Aidora knew, her head was smacked hard against the sandstone floor. Raising herself slightly, she touched the gash on her temple and inspected the smatter of blue blood on her fingers.
In a state of shock, she sat there not knowing what to do. As she caught her breath, her vision began to come back into focus and she cautiously looked up to see her attacker’s face.
“Senator Targon?” she gasped.
He was already undressing himself as he stood over her. “What happens here tonight stays between us. Do you understand, snow-sow?”
She nodde
d yes, but then the words of Danica came back to her. “Next time someone pushes you around, don’t just sit there and take it. Push back.”
Wet, scared, and desperate to scream, she leaped to her feet and shoved Targon back with all her strength. He tripped on the lip of the pool and fell in. As he splashed around furiously, trying his best to get out of the water, Aidora sprinted into the main room.
She raced across the floor, panic filling her chest, but she was dripping wet and slipped on the marble floor and crashed down hard, her entire back and head slapping against the surface with a thwack.
Aidora knew she must have hit her head hard, because the next thing she knew, the light dimmed as redness encroached upon her vision. She wanted to scream for help, but her voice was so coarse only a raspy half whisper escaped her lips and by then, it was already too late. The darkness had taken her.
As she came to, all the horror of her worst nightmares became a reality. She could feel him inside of her. She wanted to throw up, but she couldn’t.
With a sinister grin, Targon pressed his leathery blue skin into her pristine white skin and groaned with a sickening pleasure that only one as debauched as he would feel for violating a young woman in such a manner.
She squirmed to try get out from under him, but it was no use. He outweighed her by several stones and all her struggling was in vain. She gave it one last effort, but abruptly felt his hand pressing down on her throat to try and force her to stop. When she looked up at him, he was grinning down at her taking great delight in violating her. Sick bastard.
Silent tears streamed from the corners of her eyes as Targon Van Morgan had his way with her, then, with a depraved grunt, he finished inside of her.
“Let that be a lesson to you, snow-sow,” he whispered into her ear. “Next time you try to embarrass me like that in front of anyone of stature, I won’t be so forgiving.”
Senator Targon pulled out, dressed in front of her, and then left her lying naked in a puddle of cold water, blood, and his semen. Curling into a tight ball, her shivering and tears melded into a trauma-wrought sobbing.
Aidora clasped her knees to her chest and cried so hard that she had to gasp for air. All she wanted to do was be a good servant for Onelle. She hadn’t asked for any of this. But everyone seemed to despise her race. At every turn, people lashed out at her in terrible and vicious ways. Were her people really so loathsome?
Even with the lingering resentment of the occupation and the fact that her kind had taken the side of the invaders, she didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. She didn’t deserve to be bullied, beat, raped, and then left bloodied and broken as though she were little more than refuse.
She forced herself up, even as the pain of his violation lingered, and she covered her body—not because anybody could see her, but because of the overwhelming sense of shame she felt for allowing herself to be violated—and went back into the bath. She sank down and let the blood of her wounds seep into the bath, dying it a pink color.
As the pool thickened to a uniform rosy hue, she stared at the open entrance and whispered, “I tried. I did.”
Even though she had pushed back, like Danica had told her to, she hadn’t been strong enough to protect herself. Ultimately, he was stronger and far angrier than she. And this anger fed his violence.
If only she’d been stronger, like Danica, like Jegra, like Anaïs Nin and all the women she looked up to and admired, then maybe none of this would have ever happened to her.
Her faint words were quickly overtaken by another torrent of sobs and she buried her face in her hands and cried bitter and salty tears which bled into the pool and mixed with the rest of her sorrow.
38
Six heavy Nyctan battlecruisers hung in geosynchronous orbit around Dagon Prime. Three more held a fixed position just beyond Thessalonica and tracked any and all ships.
“Knights, you’re with me,” said Jegra, marching into the shuttle bay in full power armor. She wore a purple sash across her armor with the Vorteshian symbol of the tree of life embroidered on it in gold. Even though she knew the Nyctan people called it a Vorteshian knot, it resembled the woven roots of Celtic images from old Earth.
A troupe of twenty Knights of Caelum, fully suited up, marched behind her in single line formation as they made their way to the drop ship sitting on the hangar bay deck.
Deck crew stepped aside to let the heavily armored soldiers pass. It was a little unnerving to the ship’s crew to see elite Nyctan warriors aboard the flagship of the Dagon Empire, especially seeing how they were currently at war with the Nyctans. But the Knights were loyal only to the head of their order, who, unfortunately, had been murdered by a megalomaniacal space entity with a god complex.
Of course, this meant command of the Knights fell to the next highest-ranking officer in the holy order, which just so happened to be Jegra, who held the rank and title of Vorteshian Emissary to the Knights of Caelum.
This made her the High Voroxian Priestess of the order of all female knights, long since disbanded. And subsequently, the seneschal—when there was no grandmaster or administratrix to lead the order of Knights of Caelum.
Vortesh, an ancient Nyctan theologian, had interpreted the Enchiridion in such a way that allowed for females to join the holy order of celestial knights, or the Knights of Caelum, as Vortesh had named them. This gave rise to the order of female-only warriors who took the name Vortosh, which later was simplified linguistically to Vorox, the root of both being the same in the Nyctan etymology.
Since only a high priestess could join the Knights on missions, all female knights were so christened Voroxian High Priestesses. A special order of warrior priestesses who could fight alongside the Knights in battle and of whom Jegra was, as far as she was aware, the only living member.
Despite all of the religious rules and theological subtleties, nobody could find a religious or cultural rule that objected to Jegra’s position. Even the current High Priestess of Nyctan, Yolkai Estan, assured Sir Lance Bishop and the Knights that Jegra’s rank and title were official.
As such, with the High Priestess of all of Nyctan vouching for her, the knights all swore their undying allegiance to Jegra Alakandra, Voroxian High Priestess, Empress to the Dagon Empire, Mother of Dagon, and the Gladiatrix of the Galaxy.
And the Knights of Caelum gladly welcomed her leadership, for they were lost sheep without a shepherd until she had arrived on Nyctan, six months ago.
Lance Bishop, her first in command, had reassured her that his men’s loyalty was to her and her alone and not to the imposter god that had killed their queen. And although the queen had considered Jegra a traitor, her time in prison had abolished her sins, as far as any of the knights were concerned.
And despite all the twists and turns, the lost flock had found their shepherd in the form of a warrior cut from the same spiritual cloth as them.
Jegra stopped in front of the loading ramp to the Falcon heavy drop ship and turned to address the knights.
“Honor. Death. Glory,” she said. She scanned their faces. As was typical of the Knights, they all stared straight forward with emotionless gazes. Pacing in front of them, she repeated herself, this time much louder. “Honor. Death. Glory!”
There was a pause, and she stopped and faced the knights. “Honor! Death! Glory! Honor! Death! Glory!” the knights all roared in boisterous reply. “Honor! Death! Glory!
She smiled and then stepped aside. “Board the ship and prepare for zero-grav space-drop.”
Their armor clanked in unison as they gave the Dagon salute. This unnecessary but respectful gesture brought a smile to her face. She returned the salute and then ushered them inside. Remaining behind for a moment, she turned just as Captain Blackstar and Lieutenant Commander Brei’Alas stepped onto the hangar deck.
Brei’Alas had on her white with burgundy striped EV spacesuit, helmet tucked under her arm. “I’m going with you,” Brei’Alas said in her usual chipper way.
“Like Helios yo
u are,” Jegra replied.
“I’m afraid you’re overruled, Your Majesty, seeing as it’s under my orders,” Lianica informed Jegra, pulling rank.
It wasn’t often that Lianica overruled Jegra like this, but it was her ship, and she had final say on all mission objectives and assignments. If she was doing it now, then she must have her reasons, and Jegra backed down.
Jegra nodded silently and then nudged her chin in the direction of the ship. “What are you waiting for then, Lt. Commander? Get your ass onboard that ship, ASAP.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Brei’Alas saluted, a smile curling onto her lips, and then scurried up the loading ramp.
Jegra watched her disappear into the opening of the ship and then slowly turned back toward Lianica, her gaze weighted with concern.
“You have command of the fleet while I’m gone. Just make sure to give those enemy ships Helios and the Knights and I will handle the rest.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lianica answered, crossing her fist over her left breast and bowing slightly. With that she spun on her heels and marched back out of the hangar bay.
Jegra slapped the side of the bird and, looking up at the canopy motioned for the pilot to spool up the thrusters and get going.
As the ship began to rise off the hangar deck, the rear loading ramp began to retract. Jegra, still standing on the open landing pad, tapped a small button on the neck of her armor. A knight's helmet unfolded from seemingly out of nowhere and wrapped around her head and locked into place. Her visor flashed a menacing red.
Fully suited up, Jegra started jogging alongside the drop ship as it made its way to the blue shimmering energy field that looked out onto space.
She arrived quickly at the end of the hangar then leapt through the forcefield at the same time the ship shot out of the Shard’s hangar bay doors. Both Jegra and the ship entered zero-gravity with a smooth transition. She reflected back to her first zero gravity space walk and how nervous she’d been. Now, she’d gotten accustomed to falling through the empty vacuum of space.
