by Foxx Ballard
The propeller started to chop through the wind and increased to a steady roar as Synth-E-Uh cranked her speed to maximum.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Zondra said quietly beside him, her deep black eyes reminding him of his wife’s. He finally didn’t feel any guilt, though. She would have liked Zondra, and he was sure she would have wanted him to be happy. She had always been a kind woman.
“Thank you being there.”
She hugged him, and then Lais called out to all of them. “We need to plan what’s next, and debrief on our mission, which was quite successful, thanks to Rusty.”
Mogul woke from his relaxed stupor next to Synth-E-Uh and smacked his chest repeatedly with one hand, making loud cracking sounds as if two rocks were being bashed together. Zondra joined in clapping and soon they were all applauding him, which just embarrassed him. Angel woke up, but said nothing. Her eyes were red, and she looked feverish, but instead of using him to sate herself, she looked skyward and let out a mental scream that he just caught the edge of. She had directed it away from all of them, thankfully. He knew she was respecting Zondra, but he wondered how bad of an effect it would have on her.
Lais hadn’t noticed Angel’s silent scream, so continued on with the conversation. “Tell us what happened Rusty, who is your friend?”
He told the story from the beginning of how Drak had threatened his family for not being willing to commit murder for him and that led to the brief sabotage of the justice system on Earth that resulted in a number of people being falsely accused and sent to this world. How he, Zondra and Karnij had run together from the dropship, and met the villager, Guh, and how he had taken them in. Occasionally someone else would pitch in their part of the story, but inevitably Lais stopped him at the point he had cut his way into the final room of the hive he was attempting to escape.
"We know the rest from when you emerged out that wall, but... they were eating people? Not just animals, but people, live people?!"
"Most dead, but one alive I saw." A tear formed at the bottom of one of Rusty's large black eyes. He wiped it away, but another appeared to take its place. Zondra took his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder, which gave him some comfort.
"We never knew," Keena admitted. "About the tortured navigators or the people being fed to grubs. We never knew. What they showed us made it look like a paradise. I'm sorry I was ever going to join them." She spat over the side in anger and stabbed her dagger into the wood beneath the metal railing before yanking it out and sheathing it on the hip opposite her laser pistol.
"Careful Miss," Jack warned as he deftly pulled flap strings. "I'm not sure how much more The Maiden can take. She's been through a lot."
"Yeah, sorry, it does look pretty beat up." She pulled the laser pistol out of its holster. “I guess this isn't of much use anymore. Probably has a couple shots left, but I have nowhere to charge it now. Chais called it charging. I thought charging was when you ran at someone, hard, but I guess many words have multiple meanings.”
“Bring it to me,” ordered Synth-E-Uh. When Keena handed it over, Synth-E-Uh popped out the clip and then turned it over and around in her hands. She then tried sticking the clip in several locations on her body before she settled on one spot on her lower abdomen, near the main chassis where people sat when riding her. “Looks like it charges through wireless induction, I can charge it for you.”
“Thanks, whatever-you-are. Why do you never come out of your armor?” Keena replied, still obviously dumbfounded by the droids. Rusty could understand feeling that way, but she would get used to them.
“I am built into my armor. I can’t come out. We’ll have to have a talk someday about technology.”
“I’ll hold you to that!” Keena answered excitedly. “And the sooner the better!”
No one else said anything for a moment, so Rusty spoke up. “I not know what do now, Drak—The Boss—gone. I think I should feel better, but I not feel better. Just sad, though happy I see Zondra.” Rusty smiled at the blue woman.
“We had no idea Drak was capable of such things,” Lais interjected. “He seemed so nice, I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Rusty responded. “He almost as bad as how ant-men treat prisoners.”
Keena’s face turned from excitement to disgust. “I didn’t know about the driver of the big worms. That sounds horrible. And people being eaten alive…” She shuddered.
“It is horrible,” Angel confirmed, managing to speak despite feverishly shivering. She looked like she was going through withdrawal from a bad addiction. “And who knows what other jobs they have people doing.”
Keena nodded in agreement. “The Chakran thought I should be happy to sacrifice myself for their cause. It was weird. To the extent that once Rusty surrendered, they let me go, assuming that I would be on their side again.” The young woman shook her head in wonder.
“But fortunate,” Lais finished for her. “Their instincts seem to drive them to always think in terms of their colony over their own individuality.”
“Their Queen,” Rusty corrected. “Their Queen most important to them.”
“I didn’t realize I was just a bargaining chip to them, to keep others in line.” Keena added. “But it’s all starting to make sense. I noticed that any captured craftsmen never made it to the lounge. Ever. I thought they just took them somewhere else. But then I also saw many handmade goods assembled for trade. I don’t think the Chakran build anything but hives. I think they capture others and force them to do work for them. They are no better than the River Slavers…” Keena unconsciously rubbed the branding scar on her arm.
Lais nodded in agreement and crossed her arms. “The question is, what do we do now? We are in no position to take them all on.”
Rusty raised his hand shyly. “Karnij might be on village island, on old continent. Could be all alone, we look for her? And Keena River People on that continent. Can we help them? With Karnij we have good band of fighters.”
“Well, first and foremost, a number of you will require food and water. Let’s resupply and head to the old continent. With any luck, the Chakran won’t realize that we have left this one and they will waste time looking for us here instead of there.” When Lais looked about and received nods of agreement, she turned to Jack. “Take us down to the nearest river, Jack.”
Happy to oblige, Jack immediately pulled strings to open flaps, and they started their descent again.
“And be quick people, I don’t want the Chakran getting within sight of us again. Are we all in?”
Mogul reached his enormous hand in the middle of them all, and one after the other, they all reached to put their hands in on top of his. Rusty was last. And with a smile he said, “With this new family, I go anywhere.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Captain Leucantis: WOLF Carrier Nemesis, Orbit, Incarcerata IV
Captain Leucantis stayed seated as she listened to the briefing her Vesuvian Military Advisor was giving her from his holo-podium. She needed to keep her arm-charger plugged in because she had been nervously pacing about, worried that she was going to risk losing the Fusion Atom Drive, which she was going to call FAD as soon as she had it under production. She just had to be patient and wait for an opportunity. Being patient was the hard part.
The hair tentacles of most Vesuvians hung limply, but General Alcor’s writhed and twitched as if they had a mind of their own, and she found it distracting.
“I’m sorry, what was that again, General?” she asked, having missed the last part of Alcor’s speech.
His brow furrowed in annoyance, but he repeated himself. “The ‘Technoid’ is unfortunately not an empty shell, devoid of consciousness. It is functioning just fine without a head, in fact it’s growing a new one.”
Leucantis balled her fist tightly, but refrained from striking anything. She had been fined enough this month. “But it has the same atom drive as the other woman Technoid, yes?”
“Yes.”
She had though
t her dreams had been answered when they had been monitoring the woman and discovered the second Technoid when she was fighting with it. As soon as it had been decapitated, she had sent a pair of fighters down to pick the body up. “Well perform every scan you can on it quickly before it can tell us not to.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Science Officer Paligrad’s hologram appeared just in time to hear the last and then disappeared before Leucantis could say anything to him.
“Bring up—”
Commander Gabriel jerked suddenly, and he had a look of pain on his face, just for a moment.
“Are you alright?” She had never seen him act this way before.
“I’m fine, Captain.” Though his tense jaw showed he was still experiencing the pain. He appeared in thought for a moment, and she was tempted to tell him that he should report to the ship’s medic, but he said something that threw her off-guard. “I’d like to request a permanent leave, Captain.”
Leucantis stared at him dumbfounded, and then waited a moment for an explanation, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to give one unbidden.
“You’re my right hand. There is no way I’m letting you go without knowing the reason.”
“I don’t think you’ll understand, but I will do my best to explain. Do you remember that batch of prisoners that were transferred to this world by mistake?”
“Yes, of course, but we can’t legally oppose the System of Justice. It makes very few mistakes.”
“Well, there is a Valkyrie woman that is in her ‘Year of Breeding’ and she is one of the innocent ones.”
“That doesn’t explain to me why you’re asking to leave, Gabriel, but I am listening. Go on.” Leucantis turned her chair to face him so he knew he was getting her undivided attention.
“She will suffer greatly without a proper mate. Her scream of anguish reached me from the planet’s surface. That should tell you something when our normal range of communication doesn’t exceed one hundred paces.” The sadness and pain in his eyes made her heart melt, but it meant that she would likely never see him again.
“You know once you go down there you can’t return, you’ll lose your commission.” Of course he knew that. She just had to say it.
He nodded. “Can I give the order?”
She nodded in return, so he punched a few buttons on the arm of his chair and got up from his seat to leave the room.
“And Gabriel?”
“Yes, Captain?” he asked as he turned back to face her.
“It’s been an honor serving with you. I always respected your opinions.”
Commander Gabriel looked surprised. “Thank you, Captain. And I should say, though I don’t always agree with your methods, you earned the right to be in that chair, and it was my honor to serve under you.”
She bit her lip and purposely fought off the image that statement resulted in. It was the wrong time to be thinking that way.
Gabriel and Civilian Filick briefly clasped hands, and then arms, and with a brief nod to each other, Gabriel left the bridge.
“Get Science Officer Paligrad back in here to give me an update on the scans, I need to hear something positive.” Hopefully the next Commander would be as pleasing to the eyes, it was extremely boring spending a few hours every day on the bridge without some sort of entertainment. They needed to change the regulations to “as needed”.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Rusty: Unknown riverside, Farrun
Rusty was thankful that Zondra and Angel had similar diets, because he knew very little about plants, and the Valkyrie was in no shape to accompany them down to the river to gather food and water. Angel had remained on the ship, and occasionally he, Keena, Zondra and Mogul caught her mental screams. The ship was anchored to a large tree, and Jack and Synth-E-Uh had remained on board as well, but Mogul and Lais had come down to assist in food gathering and had both run off into the forest.
“See if she’ll eat these…” Zondra handed him an armful of leaves and tubers.
“I will see,” he replied, and carefully wrapped them in a silk bundle. Holding the bundle in his teeth, he easily climbed the anchor rope and pulled himself over the railing of the airship. Angel was nearby, wrapped in her wings and shaking. He took one step toward her, and it was then that he heard the sonic boom. What now?
When he looked up, he saw a fighter far above them eject something white, and then the ship shot back up above the atmosphere while the white object fell toward them. Intrigued, Rusty drew Buck and aimed his scope. “Wow…” he said through his lips, not wanting to drop the vegetable bundle still in his teeth. “Iss a Valkywie.”
The object was a male Valkyrie that had spread his wings to slow his descent just before he reached the airship. As he landed, he immediately put up his hands, noting that Rusty and Synth-E-Uh were both aiming at him, and Synth-E-Uh had spun up her gun barrels. He was an impressive figure of a man, Rusty thought, so far as in comparison to other Valkyrie. Most were thin and agile, probably to aid in flying, but this man had a powerful build, more like a well-muscled human.
Jack appeared to not notice the tension between his friends and the newcomer.
“Welcome, sir! Thanks for dropping in! You must have heard of us, Rusty Incorporated, the name in no way representing the quality of our goods…”
The male Valkyrie ignored Jack, focusing more on the others, as they pointed weapons at him. “I am Gabriel and I come in peace.”
“Oh, sowwy,” Rusty apologized. He immediately shouldered Buck and took the bundle out of his mouth. “I Rusty, that Synth-E-Uh, and Jack. So you here for…?” He suspected he knew why, but better to hear from the man and know for sure.
“I am here for Angel, as you call her. She will die if I don’t help her.”
Rusty nodded. He thought as much. “Thank you. We not bother you while you here, no stop you from leaving. Food?” he asked, offering the bundle of plants.
The man looked thoughtful for a moment, taking the bundle, and then gave an apologetic smile. “I won’t be able to leave for some time, if ever. Please forgive me.” He turned his attention away from Rusty and touched foreheads with Angel. Until then, she hadn’t even acknowledged his presence, but as soon as he touched her, she grasped his head tightly in both hands and held his forehead against hers. Gabriel tensed to the point of sweating, but several seconds later, both were able to breathe easier and take their attention away from each other.
Angel and Gabriel both looked at Rusty. “Yes, that’s him,” she said. “The sexual dynamo that kept me going. Maybe Zondra will allow us all to share.”
Rusty’s jaw fell open, but the man just laughed. “She’s teasing you. We do not intrude on others unless they wish it.”
“What’s going on up there?” Zondra called up from down below on the ground.
Rusty leaned over the railing and called back. “More sex partner, and we going to need more of you icky plant foods.” Rusty gave a wide grin.
The look on her face was priceless.
