The Crimson Deathbringer

by Sean Robins

  We all had hundreds of hours of MICI-induced flight experience, but we still trained every day to get better. We also had daily competitions and awarded trophies to the pilot with the most kills. Most of the time it was me, and if I wasn’t participating, it was Liz.

  Once I asked Tarq, “Why does the Xortaag fleet mainly consist of single-seat space fighters, as opposed to Galactica-type battlestars?”

  “The Xortaags’ offensive strategy is based on swarming the enemy with their space fighters,” he answered. “They are so good at implementing this strategy that bigger starships are mostly useless against them, which is part of the reason why they defeated our fleet so easily.”

  Liz kept making rash decisions and jeopardizing herself during the simulations. I was worried her attitude might get her killed in an actual battle. One day, after she managed to crash and burn trying to execute yet another impractical maneuver, I decided to have a word with her. I approached her in a very professional manner, eloquently expressed my concerns, and with utmost respect urged her to be more cautious and try to look before she leaped.

  She had none of it. She put her hands on her hips and said, “I take acceptable risks. Playing safe isn’t the characteristic of a great fighter pilot. Plus, I’d never come to you and try to tell you how to pilot your bird, would I?”

  “Have you ever seen me getting shot down?” I asked.

  “No,” answered Liz, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a better pilot. It could simply mean you’re a chicken, playing it safe all the time.”

  Unlike Liz, I didn’t get angry easily, but there were two ways to get under my skin. One was calling me a coward, and the other was questioning my skills as an excellent fighter pilot. “I kick your butt every day during combat practice, don’t I?” I retorted.

  Dark blue veins bulged out of her neck. “In simulation! I’d like to see you try in real combat!”

  Whenever Liz got in one of her moods, arguing with her was pointless. I rubbed my temple and decided to pull rank. “You know what? As your superior officer, I order you to stop taking stupid risks.”

  I shouldn’t have raised my voice.

  She looked me in the eye, executed a perfect salute and said, “Sir, yes, sir!”

  Oh-oh!

  I ended up sleeping alone for the next few days.

  One day, Kurt and I were working out at Winterfell’s gym—a big room full of high-tech, white equipment—when Allen, accompanied by a large Slavic-looking man with a hard face and ridiculously huge biceps, approached us and said, “Kurt, meet one of our new recruits.”

  Kurt raised his eyebrows. “Sergei Molanov, as I live and breathe. How on earth did you end up in here? This is Jim, by the way. Jim, Sergei here used to be Palermo’s head of security.”

  “And lucky for you, apparently not very good at his job,” I blurted out before my brain could catch up with my mouth. I didn’t need this big scary-looking Russian as an enemy.

  Sergei glared at me, then told Kurt, “After Palermo’s assassination, I was court-martialed and accused of negligence of my duties. As if it was my fault he couldn’t keep it in his pants. I ran and later was contacted by the Resistance. I was told my particular set of skills would be appreciated. And here I am now.”

  Kurt shook his hand. “Welcome aboard. We can totally use a man like you. How’s the kidney?”

  “The one you shot? They had to remove it. I got transplant.”

  Kurt smiled. “Did you really have to take a bullet for Palermo, of all people?”

  I couldn’t control myself. “Wow! I don’t mean to be rude, but what kind of an idiot jumps in front of a bullet meant for the Devil himself?”

  Sergei shrugged. “I was just doing my job.”

  “That’s exactly what I said when Allen here insisted I shoot you too when I was eighty-sixing Palermo,” said Kurt.

  “So, you are big boss around here?” Sergei asked.

  I found it amusing that Sergei, like a lot of Russians, didn’t use articles when he talked, despite otherwise speaking perfect English. Kurt smiled. “You’d think that, right? No. Our commander’s a man named Tarq. You might meet him soon enough.”

  I added, “Fair warning: Dude’s super bossy. When he says jump, you can’t even ask how high.”

  “That’s weird. I didn’t picture you as order-following type,” Sergei told Kurt.

  Kurt and I exchanged a look, and I said, “Let’s go. I’ll give you a tour. And after that, I want to show you something.”

  I knocked on Tarq’s office door and with exaggerated politeness asked him, “Have you got a minute, sir?”

  We entered his office, which was big enough to accommodate all of us: Liz, Kurt, Allen, Sergei and me.

  Tarq, sitting behind a huge white desk, looked at us and asked, “What’s up?”

  I pointed at Sergei. “Meet Sergei, a new recruit. He hasn’t been through MICI yet.”

  Sergei approached Tarq, pulled a gun, aimed it at his head and said, “Here’s what’ll happen. We’ll go to this brain-washing device of yours, and you’ll undo whatever the hell you’ve done to my friends so they won’t be your puppets anymore.”

  Tarq paled, but he stood his ground. “Over my dead body. I do not take orders from thugs.”

  Sergei shot his chair, right between his legs.

  Tarq folded like a cheap suit.

  The first person who entered MICI was Allen, who pushed everyone else out of the way. While we were waiting, Tarq, biting his nails, asked, “How did you do it? MICI should have stopped you from telling anyone.”

  “Should we tell him?” I asked Kurt.

  Kurt shrugged. “It was your plan.”

  “I showed MICI to Sergei, emphasizing it can make changes in people’s brains,” I told Tarq. “I also casually let it slip you were very bossy, and we had to follow your orders, then we showed him an old movie called The Demolition Man.”

  Tarq looked confused.

  I continued, “In this movie, some asshole tries to pull the same stunt you pulled, only for his target to bring some of his friends to shoot his ass. Sergei made the connection himself.”

  “It is a bit farfetched; is it not?” Tarq asked.

  I answered, “It is. We tried this with several people, including every single person on whom MICI didn’t work. Sergei’s the only one who made the connection. Everyone else just thought it was weird we were showing them old movies.”

  “I am genius,” said Sergei humbly.

  When Allen walked out of MICI, Liz asked, “Did it work?”

  Allen said, “Only one way to find out.” He approached Tarq and punched him really hard in the belly.

  His fist disappeared inside Tarq’s belly all the way to his wrist before it hit something.

  The small man fell to the floor, coughing and retching.

  I jumped out of my socks. “Wow! Did you guys see that?”

  Astonished, Liz and Sergei answered together, saying “yeah” and “da” respectively.

  I walked towards Tarq in order to touch him but froze in place as soon as I got close to him.

  Elizabeth asked Kurt, “Why you don’t look surprised?”

  “Well, you know, Allen and I knew about this,” answered Kurt.

  “What? How?” I asked.

  “You don’t get to survive in the Resistance without being slightly paranoid,” said Kurt. “You remember he asked us not to touch him the first time we met? We didn’t buy his explanation at all, so one day I invited Barook to have a beer with me and spiked his drink with a sleeping pill.”

  I laughed. “You roofied Barook? How did you know it’d work, alien physiology and all?”

  “I didn’t, but it did work,” answered Kurt. “I touched his skull with a stick after he fell asleep. Two inches of the stick disappeared into his skull before it touched something.”

  “But we were ordered not to touch them,” said Liz.

  Kurt patiently explained, “No, we were ordered not to violate th
eir personal space, as in not to get close. I touched him with a six-foot stick, without getting close myself.”

  Tarq was just beginning to pull himself together. “Care to explain?” I asked him.

  He threw up his hand in despair. “Okay! Okay! I confess. I am not humanoid. What you see is a hologram that reads my emotions and translates them into human facial expressions. You have never seen my true form.”

  “That explains Barook’s beard,” I said.

  “That’s your takeaway from all this? He’s wearing a hologram!” Allen told me.

  “Why do you hide?” Liz asked Tarq.

  “You have to ask?” answered Tarq. “With your racist boyfriend standing right here? Some of you humans do not tolerate different appearances within your own species. God only knows how you would react to non-humanoid aliens.”

  “I’m not a racist!” I shouted.

  Kurt gave me a sideways look.

  That hurt. I mean, that really, really hurt. “Et tu, Kurt?”

  “You know, maybe just a little bit,” answered Kurt. “You remember Alejandra from college?”

  “That had nothing to do with race. I just don’t like fat people.”

  “And our chemistry teacher in high school, Mr. Padishah?”

  I was on the verge of losing it. “He was mean. What’s wrong with you?”

  Allan, enjoying himself way too much, said, “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a freaking racist.”

  Sergei loudly cleared his throat. “I hate to stop this fascinating and educational discussion, but aren’t we forgetting something?”

  We all stared at Tarq, who looked like he was trying to sneak away. He sighed. “We felt it would be easier for you to trust us if we looked human.”

  Allen, touching his sidearm, said, “So on top of brainwashing us to follow your orders, you’ve been lying to us all this time. I want to see what you really look like.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Tarq.

  Allen drew his gun and cocked it dramatically. “My friend here says otherwise. For all we know, you might look like a freaking insect, like those bugs in that old movie, Star Wars Troopers.”

  “Starship Troopers,” I corrected him.

  “Same difference,” said Allen.

  Strangely enough, Tarq stood his ground. “Over my dead body.”

  I noticed I wasn’t curious about how he really looked at all. God damn it!

  I whispered in Liz’s ear, “Do you think he doesn’t want us to see him because he’s so ugly it might gross us out?”

  She shrugged. “Who cares as long as he looks human?”

  I rubbed my temple. We had to find a way to reboot our brains or something.

  We all stood there, looking at each other for a minute, not sure what to say next. Then Tarq asked with a terrified expression, “What will happen now?”

  Kurt placed his hands in his pants’ pocket. “I don’t know. Do you have any orders, Commander?”

  The look on Tarq’s face was priceless. I think he’d thought we—or at least Allen—were going to straight-up murder him.

  “Listen carefully because I am going to say this only once,” Kurt told him. “We like you. In fact, we like you a lot, even if you really do look like a bug. Not to mention we all owe you our lives.”

  “Not that he saved us out of the goodness of his heart,” Allen interjected.

  Kurt ignored him. “But we aren’t your slaves. We’ll follow your orders as commander of Winterfell, but if we disagree with you, we’ll voice our concern and talk about it. And if we feel strongly about an issue, the five of us will vote.”

  “I am honored,” said Sergei.

  Kurt answered, “Not you, genius. The five of us, including Tarq.”

  Tarq let out a huge breath. Allen asked, “Can I punch him one more time, just on principle?”

  “It goes without saying we want you to remove your, eh…” said Kurt.

  I suggested, “Puppet-master program?”

  “Remove your puppet-master program from everyone’s mind.”

  Tarq protested, “We have more than forty thousand people here now.”

  “Then we’d better start as soon as possible.”

  Tarq pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “One more thing: Why did you choose this particular look?” I asked.

  Tarq shrugged. “I just wanted to look different from you people.”

  “You people? And I am the racist around here?” I said.

  We were about to leave when Allen facepalmed and told Tarq, “Shit! I totally forgot. I want you to remove whatever you put in my head that stops me from smoking.”

  Kurt intervened. “Allen, we talked about this. Tarq’s Winterfell’s commander. If he wants you to stop smoking, that’s that.”

  “It’s okay. I guess he has earned it,” said Tarq with a cracking voice, looking down at his feet.

  He sounded so defeated I felt bad for him.

  Allan smiled with a gleam in his eyes and with wide steps walked back into MICI, holding his head up like a conquering hero. Tarq played with the controls for a few seconds. When Allen came out a few minutes later, his expression had completely changed. He looked sort of listless, and he just stood there, staring at us without saying anything

  “Allen, are you okay?” asked Kurt with concern in his voice.

  Allen looked at him with sleepy eyes and said, “Mooooo.”

  Tarq cracked up.

  Kurt approached his old mentor, grabbed his shoulders and shook him, “Allen! What’s wrong?”

  “Mooooo,” Allen repeated eloquently. Tarq was laughing so hard he was bending over and grabbing his sides. He looked like he was about to start rolling on the floor, roaring with laughter like a maniac. I couldn’t help chuckling either.

  Allen thought he was a freaking cow for a whole week. He spent all his time in Winterfell’s parks, chewing on vegetables and hanging out with other imaginary cows. Tarq and Barook took several selfies with Allen when they were feeding him grass or riding him. The images went viral in Winterfell.

  I approached Tarq in his office and told him, “Tarq, old buddy old pal, I want you to help me solve a big problem. Can you please send one of your robots to clean my quarters once a week? Make sure the bed sheets are spotless.”

  Liz had taken care of cleaning our quarters for a few weeks, but she’d gotten fed up and asked me to pull my weight and pitch in, which included horrors like washing the bed sheets and pillowcases. My admittedly weak I-am-the-pants-wearing-head-of-the-household didn’t work, and she gave me two options: clean our quarters once a week or live alone.

  Tarq laughed in my face. “Those robots play a vital role in Winterfell’s smooth operation. Do you really expect me to use them for something as trivial as this?”

  “I expected this answer,” I said, “so I’m gonna give you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  “I’m all ears,” he said.

  I leaned forward and looked directly into his eyes. “You know how many times I’ve seen you shamelessly ogle my girlfriend?”

  Tarq’s brown skin turned into a fiery shade of red. He averted his eyes and mumbled, “What? No. I stopped the first time you told me to.”

  “Relax. I got angry at first but then realized I had no reason to be threatened by you; otherwise, I’d have wrangled your neck by now. You’re three feet shorter than Liz, and fortunately for both of us, she doesn’t have a midget fetish.”

  Tarq looked relieved. I continued, “Lay it on me. What is it? Are you into really tall women?”

  Tarq chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds. “Okay. I tell you the truth. My people have a very strong sexual appetite, and we are seriously into interspecies sex. And humans are ravishing. Barook and I have had to take medication to control our sexual urges since we came here. Still, sometimes it is very difficult.”

  Too much information.

  “I tell you what: You get my quarters cleaned regularly, and I’ll take
you to a place where you can ogle as many women as you want,” I said, “as long as you bring enough cash. We aren’t strapped for cash here, are we?”

  He scoffed. “I can get in and out of any bank account I want. Our financial resources here are limitless.”

  Two days later, Tarq and I—in heavy disguise—walked into an expensive strip club in LA’s suburbs. Unable to contain his excitement, Tarq had the expression of a child discovering ice cream for the first time. I left him there and went to a nearby hotel, after reminding him several times we had a Firefly to catch the next day.

  The day after, around noon, I pulled up my rental car in front of the strip club and called Tarq. I was a bit worried about him, so I was relieved when he slid into the passenger seat a few minutes later, looking safe, sound, and happy.

  And then, the back doors of my car opened and two women got in, talking and laughing loudly, obviously drunk. They were both tall, wearing heavy makeup, skimpy clothes, and very high heels. And both of them were famous porn stars.

  I stared at Tarq, speechless, and blinked several times.

  “Jim, meet Crystal and Amber,” said Tarq. “They have agreed to be my guests at Winterfell for a month.”

  “For a million dollars each,” said one of the girls, wiggling an index finger at Tarq.

  “Oooh, I like this one,” said the other woman, looking at me. “He’s buff. Want to party with us and your friend here, sugar?”

  “Thanks, but I have a girlfriend,” I said politely, ever the gentleman.

  “She can come too,” said the woman.

  Imagine that. Liz would kill the four of us with a broken beer bottle.

  I leaned towards Tarq and whispered, “Dude, what’re you doing? What’ve you told them?”

  “Nothing,” said Tarq. “They think we are a part of a secret government project. They have agreed to stay in my quarters for a month, after that we will wipe their memory with MICI and bring them back here.”

  “Both of them stay with you?” I asked. “I thought one of them was for Barook.”