Eclipsing Vengeance

by Jeremy Michelson

  “It’s already there,” he said, “You brought it with you.”

  My blood about froze in my veins. “How did I do that?”

  “What are you talking about?” the Emperor said. He’d looked up from his little phone thingy. Apparently we’d caught his attention again.

  “Deal’s done, your Majesty,” Buck said, “You got your traitors all nice an neat. Practically had a bow put on them for ya.”

  “Yes, yes, the rest are all being executed as I speak,” the Emperor said.

  As I speak…

  Was that what he was doing with his phone thing? Coordinating mass executions? I tried to picture it. All across the planet–maybe across many planets–Don men and women would have their doors kicked in. Caught in the middle of a meal or dragged from their beds. Put up against a wall and…that’s it.

  Buck was getting what he wanted. The head was being chopped off a huge part of the Don leadership. Buck was getting his revenge. Part one of it anyway.

  Somehow he had turned me into part two of it.

  “You remember our deal?” Buck said to the Emperor.

  “Yes, yes, you flush out the traitors and I will give you a world to rule,” the Emperor said, “Now what were you just saying to your sibling?”

  “We never did establish what planet I was going to get,” Buck said.

  The Emperor lifted the undamaged side of his mouth in a smile. His jagged teeth were black.

  “I assumed you wanted your own planet to rule,” the Emperor said, “Once I have reconsolidated my power and brought my fleet back from the far dark, you shall have the conquering you desire.”

  The Emperor glanced down at his phone thing and tapped the surface a few times.

  “I think I’d rather have your planet,” Buck said, “It’s a bit of a fixer upper, but I think I can do something with it.”

  The Emperor looked amused. He tapped out something on his phone thing.

  “You are amusing, Terran,” he said, “Perhaps you think you can double cross me, but you are but a child compared to me. A child cannot hope to defeat an adult. Especially one such as me. Now, give up your foolishness while I am still in a good humor. Otherwise your reward will be the same as my former generals.”

  Buck gave a slow shake of his head. “You’re not as smart as you think,” he said, “Like right now, you’re sending fast ships where my signal is coming from. If things was going good for you, those ships would be just about in range. They’d sling out some missiles at me and that would be the end of your problem. With you it’s wheels within wheels, always thinking a few steps ahead. That’s how you survived for so long.”

  The Emperor was staring at his phone thing. His hand looked to be gripping it tight, his arm trembled. His face was like stone, but his eye got wider.

  “Well?” Buck said. He made a show of looking left, right, around behind him. “Where is them ships now, Emperor?”

  A tremendous crash shook the room we were in. A sound like stone and metal colliding echoed through the open door. A cloud of dust followed.

  “Why, I think that might be one of them now,” Buck said.

  The Emperor’s fingers flew across the surface of his phone thing. Another image popped up beside Buck. It showed the great hall next to the room. A crumpled black wreck smoked in the middle of it. Chunks of stone fell from the hole in the ceiling where it punched through.

  Something flashed through the image, too fast for me to see. The Emperor shoved his phone thing back in his tunic and bounced into his tank tread thing. Faster than I thought he could move. In a wink he was on it and the panels snapped closed around his lower half. The knife arm whined to life, swinging up, the blades flashing out in a clash of metal.

  “Better get down again, bro,” Buck’s image said.

  Forty-Five

  The clashing metal blades on the Don emperor’s prosthetic arm filled the room with a sound like a box of carving knives dropped in a washing machine on spin cycle. The rancid stench of the Don blood and dead Don bodies in the room made my eyes water and my stomach churn.

  Buck told me to get down.

  I didn’t ask why, I just slid my ass out of that chair and got under it. I looked toward the doorway where dust still came through. Mixed with an acrid, plastic tasting smoke that made me cough.

  Then a pair of golden feet strode out of the smoke and dust. My heart leapt.

  “Liz!” I said, “Watch out!”

  The clap sounded again. The sound slapped against the walls, echoing over and over. The golden legs stopped.

  I crawled through the chair legs. Through clearing dust and smoke, Liz’s body appeared. She stood still, like the general and the soldiers had. Just before their fricking heads fell off.

  “No,” I whispered.

  Then she stepped forward. And her head came with her, firmly fixed in place.

  The clap sounded again. Light sparked at her golden neck. She slowed, but didn’t stop.

  Again the clap echoed through the room. The light sparked, but still she strode on. I cranked my head over the Emperor’s way. He was pushed up against the back of his chair, his eye wide. The fingers on his knife arm slashed back and forth.

  Liz stepped into them. The knives struck her golden skin and shattered. Jagged shards flew off in all directions. I covered my head against the razor-like rain. When I looked up, she put her hands around the arm and yanked it off. Metal screeched and sparks flew. The Emperor cried out and the tank thing rolled back.

  Liz’s foot shot out and kicked one of the treads off the throne. The throne thing started to topple. The Emperor screamed. Liz caught him by the front of his bag-tunic and yanked him out as the tank throne crashed to the floor.

  He beat at her golden skin with his lone arm as she tucked him under her own arm. She spun around and headed for the door.

  “Come on, Roy,” she said.

  What else was I going to do? I followed her out.

  The Emperor shouted a string of colorful curses at her. After one particularly nasty one she rapped him on his head with her knuckles. He went lip. Either unconscious or dead.

  I hurried to catch up with her. She left the fireplace room and entered the Great Hall. The smoking wreckage of what I could only assume was a Don ship sat near the center of it. A ragged hole in the vaulted ceiling showed reddish sky.

  Other than the ringing of Liz’s metal feet on the floor, the place was eerily quiet. Why wasn’t this place crawling with troops? This was the freaking Emperor’s palace. What was happening here?

  Liz stopped near the wrecked ship. Gray smoke curled around it. It smelled like burning plastic dunked in cat urine. The minty smell the filled the hall earlier was getting further away with every breath I took.

  I finally caught up with her. I was getting a stitch in my side from the running and a headache from the acrid smoke. I cinched my stupid kimono robe tighter around me.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, “How did you get through the defenses? Hell, how did you find me?”

  “Finding you was easy,” Liz said, “But I’m not here for you. I’m here for him.” She pointed a golden finger to the bag of Emperor under her arm.

  I wasn’t feeling a lot of love from any direction.

  We stood in a bright spot of red sunshine that came from the giant hole in the roof. Which probably wasn’t good for my skin. I was probably going to get some kind of alien skin cancer and die a horrible death. Not that any of the other horrible deaths that had been stalking me lately were any less horrible. Truth be told, I’d be happy to avoid them all.

  “You might want to suit up,” Liz said.

  This time I didn’t even hesitate. I shucked off my robe and hopped in the air. I slapped the medallion on my chest and…

  My bare feet slapped the debris strewn stone floor.

  “Didn’t work,” I said. I covered my manly parts with my hands. It was a good thing I had big hands.

  Liz’s head swiveled my way. “Did you
jump up?”

  “Yes, and yes, I hit the dang thing, too.”

  “Try again,” she said.

  I gave her a glare, but I did what she said. The only thing I got was a shard of something stuck in my foot when I landed. I hopped around cussing a blue streak and yanked the piece of rock out.

  “See, told you,” I said.

  Liz shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to hope for the best.”

  I snatched my Kimono from the floor and put it back on. My face burned almost as much as my foot hurt. I guess it was a good thing I didn’t try to fight the Emperor. Woulda been a real short fight. Especially since he played dirty.

  I was about to ask Liz what she was waiting for when I saw the shadow moving across the floor. A curved darkness blotted out the sunshine and I looked up just in time to see something eclipse the red sun. The edge of the object gleamed white.

  A low rumble began to build. The floor under my offended feet started to vibrate. Overhead, the thing in the sky seemed to descend toward us.

  “I hope to hell that’s our ride,” I said.

  “It is,” Liz said.

  “Who’s driving it?” I asked.

  Apparently the Emperor wasn’t dead. His eye popped open and fixed on the ship lowering toward us.

  “Dendon!” he shouted, “No! They’re dead, all dead!”

  He twisted and struggled under Liz’s arm until she rapped his head again. He went limp. He was gonna have quite a lump on his old noggin when he woke up. Assuming we managed to escape.

  The ship stopped just above the roof. The whole building was quaking now. One of the big spikes on the ceiling came loose and plummeted to the floor. It hit and drove itself several feet into the stone.

  Then another fell. And another.

  “Can we go now? Please?” I said.

  “Just a second,” Liz said.

  Her head titled up to the hole in the ceiling. Giant spikes fell all around us, like rain in hell. Shards of broken stone bounced off Liz’s golden skin. They bounced off me, too, but not before leaving some bruises and abrasions. It made me wish my dang alien armor still worked.

  A circular, white light appeared on the ship hovering over the hole.

  “Now we can go,” Liz said.

  She put an arm around me and suddenly we were in the air. Wind blasted against my face as we rocketed up to the hole. Then we were in open air and I had the barest glimpse of a vast alien city of blocky towers, bathed in red light.

  An instant later we were inside the ship.

  Liz banked and flew us forward. We were in a cavernous area, almost as big as the Great Hall we just left. A row of lights along the ceiling showed smooth walls curving down into darkness.

  Then Liz braked so hard my head felt like was gonna pop off my neck. Another door opened in front of us and she flew in and set down. She let me go and my feet touched cold metal.

  I took deep breaths of the strangely scentless air. “Dang it, you could give a guy a warning,” I said.

  “Warnings are for people who aren’t serious,” she said.

  “What is this ship?” I asked.

  “One of Dendon’s lost fleet,” Liz said. She tapped the Emperor on his noggin. “Jerk boy here thought he got everything. He was only partially right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She strode forward. I realized we were in some kind of corridor. It was white and evenly lit. The ceiling was very high, like it was made for taller people than us. I hurried after Liz. She still had the Emperor stuffed under her arm. He was starting to regain consciousness, his yellow eye rolling in his head.

  “The makers he sent to destroy Dendon got everyone on the planet. There was a special fleet that came back too soon and tried to help. Unfortunately, the maker infection spread to the ships. The command crew isolated themselves and jumped the ships to a secret location. The crew still died, but at least the ships stayed out of Don hands.”

  A ghost fleet? “How did you find it?”

  “Chris found it,” she said, “With some help from his buddy.”

  A door slid open ahead of us with a gentle hiss. Liz stepped though. She accidentally banged the Emperor’s head on the doorway. Least, I think it was accidentally. Or maybe it wasn’t.

  I hustled through and came to a skidding halt, barely able to believe my eyes.

  Forty-Six

  The room I entered had to be the command deck of the Dendon ship. It spread out before me in a large semicircle. The walls, floor and ceiling were black as night. Little bars of light traced out pathways on the night-like floor to various stations where curved black panels sat. Colored shapes flashed over the panels in patterns that probably meant something, but not to me.

  There were at least six different control stations near the left and right edges of the semi circle. In the center of the room were three more stations in a stepped down area. At the top of the step down area was one more station. Something that looked very obviously like a command chair.

  Beyond the control stations, a giant view screen followed the curving surface of the room. Stars sparkled in the upper half of the screen. The curve of a reddish brown planet filled the bottom half. Things that looked like the blasted remnants of space ships drifted in between.

  Scents of cinnamon and rancid cat food tickled my nostrils. My mouth went dry and my heart pounded against my ribs like an angry monkey in a zoo. I blinked, then blinked again to make sure I was actually seeing what I was seeing.

  “Hey there, Roy,” Chris said, “Good to see you again.

  He sat in the command chair, of course. He’d swiveled it around when we came in. He was dressed in his usual blue jeans. This time he wore a tie-dyed t-shirt that seemed ridiculously out of place on the command deck of a starship.

  “Yo little brother,” Buck said.

  He sat at one of the lower command consoles. He was leaned back in the chair, one arm over the back of it. It didn’t appear he was doing anything to drive the ship at the moment. His black cowboy hat was perched firmly on his head and he had on his zebra stripe duster. He snapped his gum and tossed off a lazy salute to me.

  To the right of him sat a Stickman. It had a vaguely human form, but it was using its creaking, squeaking sticks to work the two control stations in front of him.

  To the far right, sitting at a darkened work station was a blue skinned Don. A female Don. Who looked a lot like Yen. She frowned at me and gave a curt nod. Beside her sat–

  “Roy DeHaas, I am grateful for your survival.”

  A tall, four armed alien sat beside the Don. I stepped around Liz and her bag of Don Emperor. As I approached a spicy chili pepper smell came to me. The four armed alien stood up, lightning bolt patterns rippled down her creamy yellow skin. The lips on her wolfish snout turned up in a grin.

  “T’Vel?” I said, “It that really you?”

  “No, I am her sister, T’Vey,” the alien said, “Though her spirit shares my body now. We are grateful for your friendship. And for the opportunity for vengeance.”

  My head liked to about spin around on my neck. I gave a glance at the others. Chris took sympathy on me.

  “T’Vey’s race are strong telepaths–within their own species,” he said, “They can’t read our minds. They are an interesting mix of individual and group mind. As long as there enough Yevhae alive, no individual will every truly die.”

  “T’Vel’s murder has been remembered by us all,” T’Vey said, “And we have requested retribution through the Council of Six.”

  “The Council of Six are nothing!”

  His Majesty was awake. Chris got up and pulled a chair out from one of the dark stations. He rolled it over to Liz and she deposited the Emperor on it.

  “Filthy Terrans,” he said, “How dare you touch me.”

  Chris strolled back over to his command chair and set hisself down.

  “I say we string him up and beat him like a piñata,” Buck said.

  Buck. I’d forgotten about him for a momen
t. I was torn with a desire to go kick his ass.

  I needed someone to fix my armor first, though.

  But before that, I needed someone to tell me what the hell was going on. Buck must have seen the confusion on my face.

  “Got any of it figured out yet, little bro?” he said.

  For a moment, everyone stared at me. My face went hot. I wished I wasn’t standing there in nothing but a bright red kimono.

  “All I know for sure if you’re going to find my foot embedded in your butt sooner or later,” I said.

  “Is that a type of greeting?” T’Vey asked.

  “Of a sort,” I said.

  “Maybe that is how they mate,” Yen said, “They only have one penis. Which I would think is inadequate for the task of reproduction.”

  “Hey!” I said. That sure got in the gutter quick.

  “You will return me to HeJovna immediately!” the Emperor said.

  “Naw, that’s my world now,” Buck said, “A deal is a deal.”

  Yen jumped to her feet. She wore a loose black robe–and probably nothing else. Her orange eyes narrowed, and stared daggers at Buck. Who just grinned back at her.

  “HeJovna does not belong to you, Terran,” she said, “Your filthy kind will never set foot upon our world.”

  Buck pointed to me. “He just did. Fact, he was in your Emperor’s private quarters just a few minutes ago,” he said. He pointed to Liz, too. “She was there, too.”

  Yen straightened up, tilting her tentacled head back and looking down her narrow blade of a nose at him. “Other than them,” she said, “No other Terran shall–”

  “HeJovna does not belong to the Don any longer,” Chris said.

  Yen went silent. So did everyone else. Even the Emperor. A hush fell over the room as everyone looked to Chris. He turned his face to the Emperor.

  “HeJovna had been forfeited, due to the actions of Hejov the First, Emperor of the Don,” Chris said, “By his own admission he caused the genocide of the Dendon race.”

  “You have no proof,” the Emperor whispered.

  “Actually we do,” Chris said.

  He beckoned to me. I walked over, my knees wobbly. How did I get to be the center of attention again? Chris reached out and touched the black medallion on my chest. An electric jolt went through me and my body went stiff for a moment. Just as I thought I was gonna topple over, the feeling went and I had control of my body again.