“Right. Good luck. I’ll find some way to reward you if this goes well.” Paula signed off.
“Do you think she can afford to pay us for this?” Clarice asked.
“Not a chance,” I replied. “But we’ve got a cargo hold of outdated colonial rations, generators, and atmosphere processors. I don’t know anywhere else to dump em.”
“You’re motivation to prevent planetary genocide is stirring, sir,” Jun said.
“Thank you, Jun.”
Ten minutes later, the image of Doctor Isla Hernandez appeared in a box to the upper left corner of the viewscreen. She was a lovely white-haired woman with alabaster skin and piercing yellow eyes. Isla was a bioroid that had freed herself from involuntary servitude and taken up residence on our ship. She was also my lover, along with Clarice’s—because it got really boring in space and there was only so much to do.
“Howdy, Doc,” I said. “Do you bring us good news or are we going to be handling a bunch of homeless refugees soon?”
“Possibly both,” Isla said. “I’ve managed to analyze what little data we have on the creature and have come to some disturbing conclusions.”
“I take it your medical degree didn’t come with ‘creatures made of fire’,” I said, cheerfully.
Truth be told, I was covering for a sense of deep sympathy for the colonists. I, too, had lost my homeworld to a disaster beyond my control. Crius had been pelted by mass drivers as part of the Archduchy-Commonwealth War. Tens of millions had died and hundreds of millions had been left homeless. This wasn’t a disaster on the same scale but, costly or not, I was going to try to do something.
“We have to do something,” Clarice said. “We have options.”
“Which are?” I asked, looking back at the viewscreen. “I mean, our problems are starting with planet-sized monster eats star.”
“It’s alive and capable of reproduction,” Isla said.
I blinked. “That is in fact very bad.”
“It converts the energy and gas inside the sun into whatever strange matter it’s made of,” Isla said. “By the time it finishes eating in a few hours, it’ll have split off into dozens of more of its kind who will also feed from the sun.”
“Okay,” Clarice said. “This has gone from being a problem for five thousand people to an existential threat to the universe.”
“Not really,” Eugene said, forgetting he wasn’t supposed to talk. “There’s like a trillion stars.”
“A hundred fifty-five billion at last count,” I corrected. “Even then, if each of these things feeds off a star in a few days and breeds then that could rapidly grow out of control.”
“That’s assuming they’re capable of reaching other star systems,” Clarice said. “Without access to jumpspace, they’d take millennia to cross the void even at light speed.”
“They’re capable of entering jumpspace,” Isla said. “In fact, I think they’re made up of matter from that dimension. They could in fact devour the entire galaxy given a few million years—which is more impressive than it sounds.”
“I’m pretty easily impressed,” I said, imagining the end of everything. “Yeah, we should probably stop this if we can.”
“Agreed,” Clarice said. “How do we kill these things?”
“I’m not sure we can,” Isla said. “However, we can possibly lure them back into jumpspace with a modified jumpdrive.”
“Yeah, because we have a bunch of those lying around,” I muttered. “Even if we can, that’ll leave us at half-speed and make evacuation all but impossible.”
“Other-dimensional entities turn out to be a problem requiring unique solutions,” Isla replied, dryly.
Was everyone on my ship a smart-ass? Well, I guessed it was a requirement to be promoted to the bridge crew. In an emergency, I needed people who spoke my language. Still, her plan had merit. Sort of. If we could get a jumpdrive hooked up to a generator, it could create a field large enough to take the thing back into its dimension. The problem was, well, it was in the fricking sun. There wasn’t a way we could get a jumpspace drive within a million kilometers of the place without destroying it.
Literally.
“There’s more,” Isla said.
“Oh joy,” I said, feeling like our time was running out.
“This one you’ll like,” Isla said, smiling. “I think I’ve found our evil wizard.”
I stared at her. “Tell me more.”
“This is a terrible plan,” I muttered inside my spacesuit. I was sitting in the cockpit of the Engel-class fighter that was slowly propelling itself through space despite its engines being offline. The thing about space was the absence of gravity meant that if you started propelling an object forward, it would continue going forever. There was no resistance to slowing it down.
With a single burst of thrust, we could send the starfighter moving toward our target and be almost undetectable. It was an old pirate trick and I knew it well even if I had a couple more decades before I qualified. I also had a cybernetic implant linking me to the starfighter’s computer so controlling it was as easy as thought.
“It’s your plan,” Clarice said, sitting behind me in the co-pilot’s seat. She was dressed in an identical spacesuit, though hers had a couple of emergency patches on them from the various battles she’d fought in them. Frankly, I was hoping we could use the money from this run to replace them but if wishes were fishes then Aquarians would rule the galaxy.
“Technically, it’s Isla’s plan,” I replied, checking our instruments.
In addition to the starfighters, weapons, and shields that were not standard issue onboard a cargo hauler, the Melampus also had a top-rate sensor system. It came from being an ex-spy ship we’d stolen from the Galactic Commonwealth. The Melampus’ sensor system was strong enough that it could pick up a cloaked Chel light saucer at short range. It was about the size of a small house and probably didn’t require more than a single person to run it. I didn’t know if it belonged to this Akavma guy but given it was the only other ship in the system, I was willing to bet on it.
“It’s a plan, at least,” Clarice said. “We exit out the ship, give a bit of thrust, and propel ourselves towards the saucer. We murder the guy and hopefully figure out how he summoned the Fire Dragon to the system.”
“Maybe we should do the latter before the former,” I said, amused. “Dead men tell no tales.”
“I don’t care as long as it involves murdering the guy,” Clarice said. “We’ve only got a few more hours until that sun becomes a red giant. If we stop it now, then it’ll be a few more million years of life. As insignificant as that may be in the life of a sun.”
“In another life you would have made a brilliant scientist,” I said.
“In another life, you a decent captain,” Clarice said, good-naturedly.
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” I said, dryly.
“You know this is a really good thing we’re doing,” Clarice said, annoying me. “It feels nice to do something to help people rather than just spend all of our time robbing or cheating people.”
“You shouldn’t say anything,” I said, faking looking at the dead instruments in front of me. “Akavma might pick it up.”
“Sound doesn’t travel through space, dumbass,” Clarice said.
“Then maybe I just don’t want to think about the fact we’re doing charity work,” I replied, shaking my head. “It never works out well. You think you’re doing a good thing and then it blows up in your face.”
“Is this about the war?” Clarice asked, referring to my past a soldier. I’d been involved in the biggest war in humanity’s history and my side had lost badly.
I blinked. “Yes, Clarice, it’s always about the war. I went into the conflict thinking I was a hero, got everyone I loved killed, and killed a bunch of other people who probably didn’t have it coming.”
“I’m pretty sure this guy has it coming,” Clarice said. “Destroying a star is some grade-A supervillain stuff.”
“He�
�s an evil wizard controlling a dragon and threatening to kill some (semi) peaceful villagers. You don’t get much more morally unambiguous than that,” I said, sucking in my breath. “That’s why I’m hesitating to go forward. This seems all a bit too straightforward. You don’t destroy a star to wipe out a bunch of settlers barely scraping by. We’re missing something.”
“Maybe he’s making a demonstration,” Clarice said.
“What?” I asked.
“Maybe he’s going to show the galaxy what his Fire Dragon can do,” Clarice explained. “Then sell it for a hundred trillion credits to whoever will buy it. Maybe he’s just insane. Maybe he’s a guy who tripped over some Elder Race junk and found it can summon monsters that eat stars like a dog whistle. Does it really matter?”
“Yes?” I suggested. “I think it does.”
“I don’t,” Clarice replied. “Because in a few minutes he’ll be dead, and we’ll have a Chel ship we can sell for more than ten of these runs.”
She had a point there. “I love your pragmatic mind.”
“It’s my third best feature after my eyes and homicidal tendencies,” Clarice said.
“What’s mine?” I asked, absently.
“You’re remarkably pleasant company when you learn to shut up,” Clarice said, pausing. “We’re here.”
My spacesuit’s micro-binoculars were able to pick up the sight of the ship on visual as I lightly activated the thrusters to slow us down. The Chel light saucer was a sleek piece of engineering that barely looked made by human hands, possessing none of the usual lights or flourishes that decorated typical vessels made for our race. Instead, it looked like one solid piece of metal, floating in the darkness. There was something about it that made me feel a sick and I had to clamp down that feeling.
“Do we even know how we’re going to get into that thing?” Clarice asked. “I don’t see any airlocks.”
“I have an idea,” I said, simply.
I opened the cockpit up to the vacuum of space with the emergency lever and let the atmosphere escape around us. We were only a few meters away from the light cruiser and I fired a magnetic grapple from a pistol I’d packed ahead of time, tossing it to Clarice as it floated to her. The two of us then pulled ourselves to the side of the Chel vessel and attached ourselves to its side with our boots.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Clarice asked.
I reached to the side of my space suit where an electronic sheath was attached to my belt. It contained a very anachronistic weapon which was a relic of my days with the Crius military: a proton sword.
“Oh no,” Clarice muttered.
“Oh yes,” I said, lifting it up and activating it. The weapon crackled with strange energies I didn’t fully understand and yet which functioned perfectly fine in the vacuum of space. They were based on Old Earth technologies from before the Great Collapse and allegedly made the blades sharp enough to shear an atom in half. I doubted that since I’d yet to cause a nuclear detonation with my blade, but they were really sharp.
I brought mine down and cut a triangular hole, feeling Chel hypersteel fall prey to my weapon like it was paper, and exposed a chunk of the vessel’s interior to vacuum. The chunk I’d carved floated away and I prepared to begin my assault on this so-called Master Akavma.
That was when a living shadow emerged from the hole and ate us.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, looking down upon us as we die. When the blazing sun is gone, when the nothing shines upon, then you show your little light. Twinkle, twinkle in the eternal night,” the voice that interrupted my dreamless slumber was soft, slick, and somehow slimy.
I recognized the nursey rhyme as the one they used on my dead planet of Crius. It was a reminder that space was a deadly and horrifying place that would eventually consume us all. Yeah, we were a messed-up people.
My wrists were tied to some sort of metal table and I could feel myself unclothed. There was always the sense of being violated when captors undressed you. On the other hand, you were always lucky to wake up when knocked out. I’d known plenty of people disabled by gas or electricity who hadn’t woken up at all. Opening my eyes, I saw I was in an empty chrome room with no sign of Clarice. My captor was nearby, looming over me like I was the most interesting thing in the world.
He was over two meters tall with a sphere bald head, corpse-like papery skin that was covered in fish-scale-like splotches, and with a neck twice as large as a normal man. He was wearing robes and carrying a staff that I could tell had numerous devices built into it but, from a distance, could pass as a fantasy wizard’s tool. His eyes were bulbous and completely black. Each hand had about six fingers with no thumbs.
“You are one ugly son of a bitch,” I said, simply.
The Chel slapped me across the face.
“You stand before a Master of Eighteen Paths, an Enlightened Lord of the Red Lodge. I, Akavma, have seen the planes that lie beyond this realm. I have visited realities you could not begin to comprehend and know the secrets that lie in men’s minds,” Akavma said, raising his staff like he was on the stage.
“I’ve visited alternate realities too,” I said, dryly. “Met a weredeer, a cyborg, and a supervillain. Are people actually impressed with this nonsense?”
Akavma frowned then shrugged. “You wouldn’t believe how many people fall for it. I used to have a position as the special advisor to the President of Belenus. He paid 50,000 credits per session and that was in addition to the millions for the curses I laid on his enemies. Fifty million to kill the Prime Minister of Bridget.”
“How’d that work out?” I asked.
“A freighter’s toilet fell on her from orbit,” Akavma said, chuckling. “Sadly, the President turned against me when the media found out about my use of his young attractive staff members.”
“Yeah, they’ll get you for that, Fishboy.”
Akavma frowned. “You are Cassius Mass, Count of Crius. The Fire Count. The Butcher of Kolthas. The—”
“Guy possessing titles every bit as ridiculous,” I replied. “Yes, I know. Is the Hephaestus sun changed yet?”
“No,” Akavma said. “Not yet. But soon. You weren’t out that long. Changing the nature of a sun is by itself a great accomplishment but it’s snuffing a healthy sun that will get me trillions.”
“Money, really?” I asked, unimpressed. “Such a pedestrian motive?”
“Why do you kill people?” Akavma asked.
He had a point. “I still don’t get it. Why here? To what end?”
Akavma shrugged. “My organization, the Technomancers, benefits strongly from the fact the Great Collapse left much of humanity a bunch of superstitious fools. Hephaestus III is a planet full of useful relics that could be used to make us a feared power in the galaxy. The locals resisted so I decided to teach them a lesson.”
“And you think killing their sun was a proportional response?” I asked, trying very hard not to be sarcastic and failing miserably.
Akavma smiled. “It was one of the Elder Race objects I found on their planet that was still functional. When all you have is a sun-killer, a sun killer you must use. In any case, once my demonstration is done, I can loot the planet to my leisure. I probably won’t need however much money I’ll get from ransoming you back to your old enemies in the Commonwealth or selling Ms. Rin-O’Harra to the Shogun Syndicate, but I never turn down free money.”
I smiled right back. “Of course. I don’t suppose we could make a deal, Akavma was it? Is that your real name?”
“Dave Johnson,” Akavma admitted. “But no, I don’t think we can.”
“Shame,” I said, closing my eyes and checking to see if the Chel hypersteel blocked a transmission from my cybernetic implant. Given there was a big hole in the side of the ship blocked off only by a life-support barrier, it turned out it didn’t. I ordered my starfighter to power up and fire its energy cannons.
“What are you doing?” Akavma asked.
“My ship has found you!” I said. “You have to release me to tell them to stop before we’re both killed.”
Akavma hesitated before the second blast and reluctantly released my restraints, shouting curses. “You have no idea what terrible—”
I headbutted him in the face, grabbed him by the neck and snapped it in a single smooth gesture. His body fell useless to the ground as his staff bounced across the chrome surface of the floor.
“Wizards beat fighters at long range, not close,” I muttered, picking up the staff. “Everyone who plays Star Fantasy Control Online knows that.”
The staff wasn’t a particularly complicated piece of machinery, being a basic control rod for a starship with a disintegrator built into it—expensive but not magical. Using it to open the door, I found Clarice outside my cell door, trying to force it open. She was wearing a hospital gown from what I assumed to be the ship’s medical area.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” Clarice said, blinking. “I see you managed to get yourself free.”
“Likewise,” I said, chuckling. “Ding dong! The witch is dead.”
“Wizard, not witch,” Clarice said.
I shook my head. “Whatever.”
We found a weird Elder Race monolith with a computer-interface hooked up to the light freighter’s central computer and did the only thing we could do in that situation by moving the ship around. It lured the Fire Dragon away to the next star system where Isla tried out her jumpspace generator trick. I had no idea if it worked since both it, the Fire Dragon, and the stone monolith vanished once they came together.
I hated using the Chel ship, but it was better to use its generator than the Melampus’ own. We’d also cleaned it out of anything valuable along the way. It turned out the late Master Akavma a.k.a Dave Johnson, had been a collector of fine art as well as alien junk. Stuff that would fetch a high price on the black market once we got back to “civilized space.”
As for the Hephaestians? Well, they were very grateful for what we’d done. So grateful that they believed me when I told them that the relics on their planet were all cursed and needed to be transported off at no charge.
Blackest Spells Page 3
