Eclipsing Vengeance

by Jeremy Michelson

  I stretched my foot out and put my toes on the blade’s handle. It was cold. Colder even than the floor. A shiver ran through my foot and up my leg.

  Something hit the ship, jarring me so hard my boot slipped off the knife. It slid across the metal deck with a metallic scrape. The ship took another blow and the knife slid further away, spinning out of reach.

  I cursed it and the alien and maybe Buck. Now all I had to show for my efforts was a cold foot.

  Then the ship took off like a scared rabbit. The acceleration pushed me back against the table. My ribs creaked and I tasted blood in the back of my throat. The knife came spinning back toward me. I yanked my bare foot up just before the blade hit the table. I jerked out my booted foot and stomped the knife to the floor again.

  After a few seconds the acceleration let up and I could breath again. I clamped my toes around the handle and lifted the blade off the floor. Quick as a wink I twisted my knee and brought the blade to my fingers. Gingerly, I took the knife between my thumb and index finger. I worked the handle down to where I could grasp it.

  Then I started sawing at the strap over my waist.

  The knife was plenty sharp. It only took a few seconds to part the strap. I scrunched around until I could get at the next strap.

  The ship took another hard turn. I had a heart stopping moment when the knife almost slipped from my fingers. I took a few seconds to breathe, then I went back to work.

  The strap parted and my arm was free. After that it only took a couple seconds to slice the rest of them.

  I pushed off the table and went after my sock and boot, which had flown across the room. If I could have reached my feet with my lips I would have given them a big kiss. I promised them if we survived this I’d treat them to a big city massage when we got back to mother Earth.

  Once both my feet were safely shod, I picked the knife back up and made my way to the door. I’d never killed any people or aliens before. I didn’t have any intention of killing a human being, but there was a certain alien that might be my first victim if I didn’t get some cooperation.

  Fourteen

  The Don ship must not have been very big. When I walked out the door of the torture room, the Don himself was sitting in a pilot’s seat not more than ten feet away. I took a second and looked around. I seemed to be at the end of a semicircle. The smooth wall’s black expanse was broken by three more silvery doors. More cabins of some sort. If there were any more Dons on the ship, they must have been snoozing behind one of them doors.

  I could only hope me and the guy in the pilot’s seat were all there was on board.

  The place the Don sat was recessed a bit into the deck. An array of 3D screens surrounded him, showing of shapes and lines. Direct in front of him was either a screen or window. Stars streaked by it.

  All of a sudden light exploded in the far corner of the screen. The ship shuddered and the Don made frantic motions with his hands in the fancy images surrounding him. He made some noises that I suspected was an alien version of swearing.

  The ship slewed to the side and threw me against the door frame. The stupid knife flew out of my hand and clattered against the wall.

  The Don twisted his head around. His orange eyes went wide, his piranha toothed mouth open in an O of surprise.

  Which looked to be all the surprise I was gonna get.

  I launched myself toward him, my feet pounded the metal deck. The Don waved his hands in the colored lights. And then I was falling. Or felt like it.

  My feet left the floor and I started spinning in the air. My head didn’t know which end was up and tried to send an order to my stomach to evacuate. I clamped my jaw shut and flailed through the air.

  Somehow the Don asshole had turned off the gravity in his ship. Which didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t nice to just yank the ground out from under a guy’s feet. And if I managed to get my feet back under me, I was gonna lodge my complaint in that jerk’s teeth.

  Then the Don hit the gas on his space jalopy and sent me flying back at the wall where I came out of. I slammed against it. The air whuffed out of my lungs and spots danced in front of my eyes.

  A sound like a goat trying to yodel snapped me back to reality.

  I blinked away the spots just in time to see the Don flying toward me like a blue bat out of hell. He had his jagged teeth bared and his hands spread out, fingers curved into claws. At the end of which looked to be actual claws. I tried to roll away, but the air was like molasses.

  My feet found the edge of the door frame and I pushed off with all my strength.

  I rocketed away from the wall, angling away from the Don. He spun in the air, just enough to change his direction. We passed mid-air, but he took a swipe at me with his claws.

  Fabric ripped and pain lanced out from my forearm. I bit back a scream and cradled my arm as I hurtled toward the cockpit.

  “Son of a bitch, that was my favorite flannel you ripped!” I shouted.

  I crashed face first into the big screen. Stars streaked past. There was something else, too. A shape, moving across the screen, blotting out the stars as it went. Another ship?

  “Now you die!”

  I rolled over. The Don was flying at me again. He had a wild look to him, spittle flying out his mouth. His arms were outstretched, hands reaching for my throat.

  I saw the colored 3D pictures he’d been using to control the ship. There was one right by my foot. So I ran my boot through one of the pictures.

  The ship shuddered, then went into a spin, tumbling end over end. The Don screamed like a wounded turkey and crashed into the ceiling. He flipped over to his hands and knees and crawled toward me.

  That was when I realized I had some gravity back under my butt. I still felt light, but my head was saying there was an up and down to this place again. It was kind of a funny up and down, with the big screen being the current floor and the black wall with with its doors the ceiling.

  But I’d take it.

  I got to my feet and jumped up as the Don lunched at me. His claws skittered over the soles of my boots, but he sailed on. A flurry of alien swearing pounded my ears as he crashed into the pilot’s chair.

  For a moment I was stuck in the center of the room. The ship spun around me. The whirling scenery made me so dizzy I had to squeeze my eyes shut. Then I drifted far enough to the back of the room that I fell toward it.

  I tried to twist to land on my feet, but I was no Buck. I landed on my butt. At least there was enough cushion on it to take the worst of the fall. I fell over and something shiny caught my eye.

  The knife.

  It as only a few feet away. I scrambled for it. Just as my fingers clasped the handle the ship stopped spinning. Or I thought it did.

  I felt my full weight drop on me. Buck was right, I could lose a few pounds.

  The metal deck rushed up and body slammed me. Somehow I kept hold of the knife. I heard footsteps thumping my way. I looked up and the Don was running at me.

  Again. Guy did not want to give me a break. I wanted to call a time out. Take a breather, maybe get a sandwich and a beer. But no, here he came again, with that death to all humans! look on his face.

  This sort of crap was supposed to be Buck’s department. How’d I get roped into it?

  You look after your brother, hear?

  Okay, momma, I’m trying.

  Behind the Don I saw the stars streaking down the big screen. Damned jerk had just turned the gravity back on. I caught a glance of something as we spun. A blank spot in the stars, and a hint of light on curved metal.

  That you Buck?

  The Don jumped at me. Guess he didn’t see the knife in my hand. Course, maybe cause I was holding it behind my back.

  I jerked to the side and slashed out at him. The blade caught his throat. There was a tiny instant of resistance, then the knife sliced through his skin, going deep.

  The Don’s orangey gold eyes went wide. He fell back, grabbing his throat. Dark purple liquid spurted between his fi
ngers. Don blood.

  I got to my feet. My whole body shook. The Don staggered away from me. He made choking sounds. Purple ran down the front of his gray uniform. It dripped and spattered to the floor.

  There was a lot of it.

  He fell to his knees. I took a step toward him, then stopped. There wasn’t nothing I could do. Even if there was some way to help, I didn’t want to. Son of a bitch was going to slice and dice me.

  Time for pain to clarify your answers.

  “Got any clarity now, you piece of crap?” I asked.

  All I got was some more gargling and choking. Then he fell backward, arms flung out. Purple oozed out of the terrible gash in his throat. His eyes seemed to glaze.

  I let go of the knife from my shaking hand.

  It clattered to the deck. I hoped the alien wasn’t faking being dead. I didn’t think I was up for any more alien slaying. Could a guy go to hell for killing an alien?

  I’d have to ask Buck if I saw him again. When I saw him again.

  Which brought up my next problem. How the hell was I going to tell this dang ship to get me back to Earth?

  I trembled and shook as I stepped around the pool of purple blood and went to the cockpit. I took a look at the empty pilot’s chair and the colored displays hovering around it. There were symbols and lines and curves and shapes that made absolutely no sense to me and probably never would. I had no hope in hell of doing anything useful by sitting my fat butt down in that chair.

  I also had no choice. What was I going to do, flag down a taxi? Call triple A?

  So I eased myself down into the chair, careful to avoid putting any part of my body into them colored lights. The chair was uncomfortable and smelled like an open sewer on a hot day. Did all the Dons smell that bad, or was it just that one? Guy needed to hang an air freshener from his rearview mirror.

  I looked over the blinking, flashing, buzzing, swarming lights in front of me. I rubbed my face, rasping the day old stubble on it. Unlike Buck, I preferred to shave on a regular basis.

  I thought of getting up to see if there was a bathroom and a razor I could shave with. I shook my head, knocking the thought ought of there. Sometimes I tended to avoid the problem right in front of me. Especially when it seemed impossible.

  Again, I stared at the display in front of me. Something stood out right in the middle. Outlined in red was a cylinder, tapered a bit at each end. The cylinder rotated end over end, back and forth. Squiggly marks appeared around it and made lines to the thing.

  I recalled the flash of light on something curved I’d seen earlier in the big screen. I checked the screen, but all I saw was streaking stars. Was this the thing chasing the Don ship?

  Buck?

  I reached out and touched the cylinder image.

  Noise screeched out all around me, like flaming violins being chased by hyenas. The red-outlined cylinder stopped rotating. A dot expanded from it and formed large black circle in front of me. The circle went gray, then a fuzzy image formed. I jerked back in the chair at the sight of the thing.

  It seemed to be made out of lines. Lines that moved and shifted and twitched. It squeaked like a barrel of crickets. A rudimentary sort of face formed from the shifting, sliding lines. It didn’t have no eyes or mouth.

  I shuddered. A Stickman. The spooky scary aliens that had shown up after the Blinkys made first contact.

  “Earthman,” it said, “Where is Teh Kovan?”

  Its voice was like an out of tune violin stuck in a swarm of angry bees. But I seemed to understand it well enough.

  “Uh, hey, um, whatever you are,” I said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. You asking about Ken Corbin?”

  “Who is Ken Corbin?” the thing said.

  “Oil guy back on Earth,” I said, “I’m kind of working for him, I guess.”

  The fuzzy stick thing seemed to pause for a bit. Maybe it was thinking it over. Maybe it was eating crickets. I had no idea.

  “Earth person, are you currently in control of Kovan’s ship?” It asked.

  That’s when it hit me that we were talking in different directions. The other name sounded enough like Ken Corbin, that, well…

  Of course, then there was the issue of what the thing was asking me. I glanced around the crazy colored displays hovering around me.

  “No sir, I am not in control of this ship,” I said, “And if you’re asking about the guy who was flying this ship, he’s no longer capable of flying it, either. On account of I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

  There was another long pause. The stick thing got fuzzier, sort of losing it’s vaguely human shape for a few moments. Then it pulled itself together.

  “Understood,” It said, “Earth person, do you have a name?”

  “Roy DeHaas,” I said. I watched it close to see if it had a reaction to my last name. Sure enough, it did. The sticks that it was made out of shot out for a second, almost like it was exploding. Then it composed itself right quick.

  “DeHaas,” it said, “Are you familiar with an Earth person who is named Buck DeHaas?”

  “You bet I am,” I said, “He’s my brother.”

  I said it with some attitude. Truth was, I wasn’t quite sure if I was proud to be the brother of a dude famous with aliens–or annoyed that it wasn’t me who was famous. Course, I wasn’t cut out for fame. I didn’t have that kind of steely presence that Buck has. The kind of grit that could let him stare down a room full of bad ass bikers. Or chase aliens.

  Then what was you doing hiding in the ceiling of that ship, bro?

  I pushed the thought away.

  The Stickman got fuzzy again, then pulled hisself together. Was it some kind of stress thing? An alien version of shouting holy crap!

  “Brother means you share the same parentage, is that correct?” the alien asked.

  I sighed and somehow managed to keep from rolling my eyes. “Yeah, that’s what it means.”

  “Do you also share his…abilities?” it asked.

  Now that was an interesting question. What did this crazy stick thing mean by abilities? I leaned back in the chair. It didn’t fit right. The torso area was too long for me. Thing was gonna give me a backache if I sat there too long.

  When Buck came back from that long trip to the outhouse all those years ago I knew he was changed in some way. It wasn’t like he got laser eyes or had tentacles coming out of his nose or anything. But there was a difference in him. There’d been times I’d tried to talk to him and pry some of what happened out of him. He always gave me the same story. But he didn’t talk about what else there was. What he was like inside.

  The stick alien waited for my answer, pulsing and sliding, with the chirping of a zillion crickets.

  “Buck is different,” I said, “He’s got his own way of doing things.”

  The Stickman took this under consideration for a few moments. Then his shape solidified some more.

  “Roy DeHaas,” it said, “My name is Fe’zor. I am of the Perseus Clan, representing SixUnion Treaty Enforcement, though your race calls us by another name.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Stickmen,” it said.

  Fifteen

  Fe’zor, the Stickman, talked me through how to get the Don’s ship under control. Or at least get it stopped spinning and brought to a stable trajectory, it said. Whatever it was, it made the stars quit streaking past the big window in front of me. After a bit of instruction I was able to call up a screen that showed me the Stickman ship approaching for docking. It was the tapered cigar shape that I’d seen on the screen earlier. Was a kind of funny looking spaceship, but then my prior experience with spaceships was watching Star Trek and Star Wars.

  As Fe’zor’s ship pulled up top the Don ship, I contemplated what the Stickman had said. SixUnion Treaty Enforcement. There was a bit to digest in there. First of all, there was a Galactic Union of some sort. Which suggested there was a lot of aliens out there. So far in the last few hours, I’d gotten acquainted with
three of them. Blinkys, Dons and now Stickmen. Odd names, but I’d just have to go with it for now.

  How many races of aliens were out there? Half a dozen? A dozen? A million? The thought of it made me shudder in the rancid sewer stinking confines of the Don’s pilot chair. What chance did Earth people stand against a galaxy full of space faring aliens? Especially nasty ones like the Dons.

  Not much of one. Maybe we had nukes, but I bet them aliens had stuff that made our hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.

  Then there was the other part of that Galactic Union phrase Fe’zor had said. Treaty Enforcement. Which sounded a lot like Cop to me. I had the strong impression that Fe’zor was some kind of Space Policeman…thing…whatever.

  I tried not to think about the dead alien lying in a pool of purple blood behind me. I had to hope this Stickman would be on my side, since I was pretty sure he was shooting at the Don before I distracted him. And, well, killed him with his own knife.

  The Stickman ship docked with a thump and a shudder that I could feel through the uncomfortable pilot’s chair. An image of the two ships appeared in front of me. I hadn’t seen the Don ship from the outside. It was shaped like a crescent with a rounded spike coming out from center of the inside curve. From what I could tell, I was sitting somewhere near the base of the spike.

  A flashing diagram showed the Stickman ship mated to the top of the Don ship toward the center of the crescent shape. It looked like the center door behind me led to a corridor, which led to larger room within the ship. The Don ship seemed to accept the Stickman ship without protest. Fe’zor had me turn off some things before he tried to dock. He didn’t exactly explain, but I got the feeling they were weapons and defense systems.

  “Roy DeHaas, are you still in the control station?” Fe’zor’s screechy voice came over the speakers.

  “Yeah, still here. Not much else to go,” I said.

  “I will now give you instructions on how to equalize the atmospheres between our vehicles,” it said, “Once that is completed, we can open hatches.”