by Ian Cannon
A silent moment of curiosity fell over Tawny and Ben as they squinted at Xantrissa Von’Domina, Matron Bitch of the Obsalom Order. Ben could feel the blood in his veins surge to a halt, his skin freeze.
Tawny, on the other hand, flushed an angry hot.
The Obsalom Order. He still couldn’t believe they were real. In his dreams he’d never imagined this—a woman as evil as anything he’d ever encountered. And here she was, as real as today.
Xantrissa said, “Well, well, well.” Ben felt prickles go up his spine like spider’s legs from that sickly sharp drawl. She said, “You would be … the upstarts.”
Tawny replied quickly, confidently, “That’s us.”
Xantrissa said, “De-lish-ous,” and snickered.
Ben said, “What is it you want?”
She gave him a corrective smile wagging a finger at him. “I never want. I only get. But let’s be clear. You’re in possession of the one they call N’halo, yes?”
“That’s right,” Tawny said.
“Then allow me,” she said resting a hand with long, slender fingers over her chest. “I am Prime Matriarch Xantrissa Von’Domina of the Obsalom Order, the one they call Matron Bitch. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, we get that,” Tawny said.
Ben cut in quickly, saying, “I’m Captain Benjar Dash, and this is …”
“You may stop.” Xantrissa put a hand up halting Ben midsentence, mouth open. “The only relevant thing is this: If you bring her to me now, I will make her eradication quick and painless.” The following grin was designed to stab. She said, “Perhaps, immediate incineration would be best?”
Blood-curdling, mind-erasing insult—deep and black—dripped from Tawny as she replied, “Oh—I don’t think so.”
“And what makes you relevant?” Xantrissa demanded, suddenly angry.
Tawny blenched, her insult deepening. “Excuse me?”
“Excuse you?” Xantrissa hissed. “How am I supposed to excuse something like you?” She started pacing forward, the holoball adjusting to her motion so that they gathered her long, loping strut, the control deck of her ship becoming more visible as she moved across it. She continued, “You’re nothing but a ragtag spacer with mocked black market credentials hauling under-spec’d cargo to backwater colonies.” She made an invective expression as she continued with her diatribe. “And who are your people? What riffraff do you claim—the transient deposits of the system, those apathetic mongrels, failures of their own time for lack of capacity? Or perhaps waste-aways, valueless and pathetic.” She stopped and leaned forward growing in the holo-image, and said real slow, stretching her words, “Like an orphan.” She allowed a pause as she reached out and grabbed the image ball. It looked to Tawny and Ben as if the Bitch was enfolding them in her cold arms as she pulled the thing closer to her face, bringing her image up close. “Yes—I know who you are, always ducking from eyes, hiding in shadows where you belong, doing everything in your meager, little power to run away and hide from the great war of our time. And why, I ask.” Her voice grew slowly as she continued, “Because your fear has crawled into your heart and frozen every instinct within you until you are nothing more than a despicable little fleck,” now snarling and loud, “neither humanoid nor creature!” she released the ball and it adjusted its position showing her from the waist up again. She laughed at Tawny and said, “You are perfectly insignificant, and yet you have the gall to tell me what you do or do not think as if it has any consequence at all. You aren’t worth the insipid, frightened glare that spills from you now, and you dare ask me to excuse you.” Her words trailed into sick, menacing laughter.
Tawny rolled her head on her shoulders until her neck cracked. She sneered, “You have no idea who I am.”
Xantrissa flicked a wrist at her and said, “You’re a stupid, helpless, little woman. That’s who you are. You will either comply to my will, or you won’t. It matters nothing to me. You are of no issue.” Xantrissa straightened, fell serious. “The girl, however, is. And mark my words …” she grabbed the imaging ball and brought it close again bringing her face to them big and clear. “… I will find her. I will take her. And when I do, I will make her scream in agony for every minute you keep her away from me. I will. Make her. Screeeem.” Her eyes rolled with ecstasy. “Oh, and I will so delight in it.” Then she concluded, blithely, “Any thoughts on that?”
Tawny quaked with a fury she had never fully known. Her hands quaked, the skin of her face quaked, her whole body quaked—but her words were stoic and balanced. She whispered, “I. Am going. To kill. You.”
Xantrissa screwed her lips up unimpressed, one eyebrow lifting. Her gaze went over to Ben and looked him up, then down, then back. She said, “Just be sure to bring your man. If given the proper incentive, he looks to be rather … playful.”
Tawny grabbed one of the stools and wheeled it over her head, bringing it down onto the holotable and smashing the projector into pebbles with a scream of rage. The image cut away. Ben jerked back, shielding himself and got to his feet. “Tawny!”
Her eyes darted back and forth as if hunting for her fury, something that could never be found, never be caught.
Ben said in a whisper, “Baby …”
She turned her glare on him as if to turn her hatred on him as well, and sneered, “Don’t say it, Benjar. Don’t. You. Say it.”
He shrank back surprised, gawking at her as if he’d never seen this woman before. She turned and stormed from the main hold. He nodded to himself as she left.
Yep—those kids had gotten to her.
This Captain Dash and his woman evaporated with the broken DPM stream leaving Xantrissa staring amusedly at the hovering holoball. No longer in use, its projection light went dark and it fell to the floor with a thud. She had shown no fear to her new adversary, only a deep command of her words and her senses.
Yes. New adversary.
She hadn’t had one of those in many years. They had all been wanting—weak priests and harmless monks and passive religious men. There might have been a warrior or two among them, but in the end they were lackluster. They hadn’t stood a chance against Xantrissa, not even when things had gotten personal.
But this new one, this new adversary.
Xantrissa knew a killer when she saw one, and it was clear. These two seemed capable, especially together. Xantrissa had read them well—he the tactician and strategist, she the killer. What an uncommon blend of partnerships. The woman had seemed smallish, yes, but the storm that raged inside her was cosmic. And she was Raylon. Very hot tempered people, those Raylons. Perhaps after so many years, Xantrissa had found someone worth killing.
The amused grin on her face turned to steel, and her hands became fists at her sides.
Her belt communicator sizzled at her hip. A voice came over. “Matron Von’Domina, this is major Lars requesting council.”
Her Minister of Xeno-antiquities was hailing her. She brought it up to her mouth still gazing forward with that cold steel in her eyes. “What?”
“Success, my Matriarch.”
Without blinking, she said, “Do we possess it?”
“Indeed.”
“Meet me in the antiquities bay,” she said.
“I await you now, my Matriarch.”
Xantrissa stormed across her command stage with all eyes diverting away from her, her searing temper felt by all, and down the central tube to an admittance corridor. Major Lars greeted her with an entourage of Obsalom guardsmen. The grin on his face was one of victory. He said, “This way, my Matriarch.”
He led her into a cargo bay lined to either side with shelves of interplanetary antiquities, long displays of their plunder from the cultures of the Underworld Cabal. Ancient statues, enormous, wood bound texts, ancient artifacts. At the far end sitting alone on its transport pallet was a small, clay cup no larger than a grail. It had been unearthed from Iot to a world of celebrating voices, before being stolen by Obsalom agents and transported to Malice 1.
&nb
sp; Lars dismissed the guards standing around it, each cloaked in the ceremonial garb of the Obsalom and adorned with full helms and open visor slits. They stepped away with practiced uniformity as Xantrissa moved through.
Lars presented it with flare. “My Matriarch, the holy cup Ch’tickott of the Iotian people.”
Xantrissa bent down and picked it up eyeing its ancient shape, sensing the eons inside it.
Lars continued, “It is the vessel from which sprung forth all life, wielded by the prophet Venza of the Junga Gods.”
She stared into it, the steel in her gaze turning to madness—That woman and her man.
“It is said to hold every heart of those ascended to heaven …”
How dare they keep N’halo from me.
“… and shall do so for those to come.”
The cup trembled in her hand—They deprive Obsalom of our greatest prize.
“Such that, at the end of all time …”
And they insult me.
“The souls of every Iotian man, woman and child will be contained within.”
The ancient Ch’tickott cup shattered into clay shards dropping to the floor.
Lars jerked back, surprised.
Xantrissa squeezed her hand into a fist forcing a thick rivulet of blood between her fingers and down her knuckles, a nice deep cut from Venza of the Junga Gods. Her eyes drifted to Lars who snapped a nod, turned and left with his guardsmen very quickly.
Xantrissa moved to the window and stared out into space. Somewhere in that vastness lost among all that dark and light was a tiny ship, a man, a woman, and a child.
But where?
She opened her palm and looked into it. No ugly deep cut, no slice, no wound at all—just supple, unscathed flesh. She wiped the blood off on her hip.
Her eyes went back up and she grinned. “They will come to me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ben had his feet up on the control panel lounged back in his pilot’s seat. He stared into space feeling a little low. He’d always known his wife to be hot-headed, emotional, a little explosive. Her internal ass kicker required a certain finesse, and it had saved their lives on many occasion. She was unafraid of the galaxy, always ready to head-butt her way through a problem.
But this …
He’d never seen her imbued with so much …
Hells, he didn’t even know what to call it. Was it anger, was it madness? He dare not call it hate, but if the boot fit, kick with it.
He sighed big. Thinking about it was taxing him. He tried to turn his mind to other things, but couldn’t. Especially when the cockpit hatch opened and he heard footsteps move to the co-pilot’s seat. He looked over. It was Tawny. And it didn’t look like she was there to apologize.
She stood on the rear deck not sitting down and said, “What’s the plan?”
He offered an incensed huff. “We don’t have a plan.”
“Then it’s easy,” she said with a dry voice. “We find out where she’s at, we go there and we kill her.”
He huffed again, this time more pronounced, and quipped, “Well that’s, uh … that’s certainly a plan.”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
He turned to her. “First of all, we’re going to calm down.”
Big mistake.
She snarled, “Don’t tell me to calm down!”
He turned fully around angrily and shouted, “And what about the kids? You just want to drag them along with us while we march into battle?”
Tawny growled out loud and slapped the top of her co-pilot seat. Everything cooled. Ben let silence fall on them, thick and awkward. He took a breath and slid out of his chair, got to his feet. With a gentler voice he said, “Look, if we’re going to do this—”
She shot a look up at him, said, “We are going to do this.”
He gave her a patient, tight-lipped grin. “Right, I gathered that. Then we need a place to hide them. Somewhere safe.”
“Okay, where?” she said sounding petulant.
Ben paced to the other side of the cockpit running fingers through his hair and turned around. “I actually have an idea on that.” He followed that up with, “Maybe.” She looked at him, waiting. He said, “But, Tawny—you’re not going to like it.”
Outer Commerce Routes
The Planet Molta-Danora
Nonpartisan space region
Molta-Danora was the perfect planet for Tawny and Ben to find some shelter from wandering eyes … or sensor scans … even if it was just for a half day, or so. The planet was tucked away in nonpartisan space way beyond the inner commerce routes. That meant no Imperium and no Cabal. And the planet was exorbitantly rich. When the global magistrates so much as whiffed an armored column, a battle cruiser, or so much as a tiny patrol boat hovering over their atmosphere, the first to hear about it was whichever respective consulate was responsible. And the Danorans were a fiercely independent lot. They wanted nothing to do with the war, and because of that, they had been able to develop their entire planet into a vacation spot. It was the pearl of the solar twins, not to mention the perfect hideout for bounty hunters on the run.
One in particular.
“On approach,” Ben said. The planet was displayed in 3-D over the holopad broken down into the grid lines of latitude and longitude. Their destination had been auto selected, and REX was bringing them down to the surface.
Tawny gawked through the viewport. The planet was a lovely fusion of darkness and beauty. The shadow of the gas giant Optus suffused the entire globe in a state of permanent nighttime, the huge red and blue gargantuan shedding all the light Molta-Danora would ever get, yet Molta-Danora was absolutely lush. It was entirely made up of oxygen and hydrogen creating a rotating ball of ocean water, speckled with hundreds of thousands of tiny landmasses like freckles. It was known as the planet of a million islands possessing no contiguous landmass greater than a few miles in length, and most were tiny, isolated spits of tropical island. Privacy was never too far on Molta-Danora.
However, the planet was also home to extensive resort-style vacationing where the islands nestled together, all connected by endless stretches of elevated maglev train rails and seas of nightlights. Navigating the planet by its multitude of glowing island lights was as complex as navigating space by its vast starscapes.
REX broke through the clear, dark skies whisking them to their destination—a collection of urbanized atolls known for its vacationer’s paradise called the Islets of Mondola.
As the area grew nearer, it also grew more stark and magnificent with enormous street wide holo-projections shifting through streams of flashing imagery, and laser light shows casting an euphoric show across the heavens. Settling into their travel lane, REX grumbled overhead to the vessel parking designation, an island separated by a small bay from the others, with a tall mountain peak, orbicular terraces shaved into its slopes. They were parking slots for smaller vessels of every class and type.
REX hovered down to the lowest parking level having to fold the giant mag-spires into their upward position and settling to the excavated beach. All systems wound down and they exited through the cargo bay ramp. They spent several moments telling the kids to stay put. Tawny put Allessanda and Toon, the oldest boy and girl, in charge of their good keeping, and promised they’d only be gone an hour or so. They were orphans. They could handle it. They could handle just about anything.
Stepping out onto the beach, the air was exultant, the cleanest breathable planet in the system, with its natural planetary, oceanic filtration system. Tawny swam in it for a moment, then shook her head resolute. She wasn’t here to vacation. She was on a mission, and there was a job to do here. She adjusted her blaster around her hips and followed Ben to the visitor escort train loading pad and zipped off toward the main islets of Mondola.
Minutes later, the train nestled into its disembarking bays releasing jets of steam, and Tawny and Ben stepped out. The elevated platform stood on pylons over the beach to the left. A world of bla
ck water shimmered under the natural light of Optus. To the right they overlooked a strip of casinos with running neon lights around their entrances and across their visages. An explosion of sound came from each establishment mingling together over the street creating an enchanted combination of bells and zingers, music and laughter.
Ben scanned the big establishment signs searching like a hawk. Nothing. He couldn’t find what he was looking …
There it was. He grinned. Nestled in between the enormous, glittering establishments was a dark little hole-in-the-wall set below street level with a blinking sign. That’s it. He tapped Tawny on the shoulder and pointed. That was where they needed to be.
A place called Nubbie’s.
She glanced up at him. “You think he’s here?”
“Something tells me yes,” Ben said.
“He better be,” she quipped.
“Okay—we spot him, you flank him, I’ll approach.” She nodded and they were off, blending into the crowd.
Nubbie’s was exactly what they expected. As they stepped inside, they were greeted with a dim world just below raucous. The ceilings were low and one long bar area spanned across the east wall with a series of holo-image TVs running across the top. It displayed sporting events and media broadcasts. The far exit was two hundred feet away at the extreme end. Pop-sounding interplanetary space music rang throughout. Multi-colored lights sliced through the low hanging smoke of cloud machines turning dwellers into apparitions. Patrons sat at tables placed at random through the place. The pungent smell of cigar smoke, liquor and sweat lingered in the air defeating the built-in incense regulators, and as Ben looked up, he muttered, “Yep, this is definitely the place.”
