Forbidden World

by Jeremy Michelson

  “What do you want?” He said, “I don’t know anything else. I already told you everything I know.”

  Which was true. After the thing had taken him out of the room with all the skeletons and brought him to this gold plated whatever room, he had talked and talked and talked.

  And talked.

  He’d confessed everything he’d ever known and ever done. Stuff that even mom had never found out about. Stuff he intended to take to his grave. Like that little incident with Manuel in Ecuador. It was just an experimental thing. Stress under fire. Something.

  Though he did confess to the metal beast that he had, on occasion, pleasured himself to the memory of that night. Imagining the bullets whizzing through the thick jungle and the mortar fire shaking the half-collapsed hut he and Manuel had taken shelter in.

  But it was just that one time.

  Totally.

  “Rancid meat,” the scary metal worm said.

  One of the worm’s pincer arms came up. T&T jerked back. A triangular Don skull was clasped in the metal fingers.

  “Yeah, rancid meat,” T&T said, “Dons smell really bad. Blinkys smell like rotten seaweed. But the Dons…its like they left a bunch of dead skunks out in the sun. Then rolled around on them. And after that, took a bath in a sewer. Know what I mean?”

  The big worm thing leaned its body closer. The red eyes brightened. Its slash of a mouth opened, letting out sulfurous stink out.

  “Know what I mean?”

  No. Not really. Probably not at all, to be perfectly honest.

  “I don’t know what you want,” he said, “Don’t you have some sort of universal translator? I know the Blinkys have something like that. Maybe there’s one back on the ship. If you take me to the ship, I could go look. Then we could sit down, have a beer. Shoot the shit, you know?”

  The nasty creature leaned closer. The heat from the open slash of its mouth washed over him. Which would have been pleasant, considering the chill in the gold plated room. But there was that whole terrifying insane freaking murder machine thing going on.

  “Shoot the shit,” the creature said.

  They really were having a failure to communicate here.

  As a covert ops agent, he was supposed to be fluent in several languages. But those were Earth languages. And he’d skipped those classes, too. Really boring. Besides, most everyone spoke English anyway. And there was always someone to translate.

  Which had led to some problems that one time when the translator turned out to be a drunk wise-ass. He'd almost left that meeting in a body bag, thanks to that asshole.

  And there wasn’t any point in learning the Blinky or Don languages. They had these translator thingies that did everything automatically. That wuss, Chris, had tried to explain them to him on the trip out. Something about computers, mostly. Everything was computers anymore.

  But the ship had one of those translators built in. If he could convince this thing to take him back there…

  “Hey, dude,” T&T said, “Seriously, take me to the ship. You know, ship?”

  He made flying gestures with his hand. Added in some sound effects for good measure. Rocket sounds from his mouth and miming a ship landing on the ground. Then used the first two fingers on his other hand to mime a person walking out of the ship.

  “Ship,” he said.

  He pointed to the ship hand. Then to his mouth.

  “Translate.” He said.

  He raised his hands. Mimed two mouths talking at each other.

  “Talk.”

  The twin tubes atop the metal worm’s body followed the movements. The glowing red eyes at the ends brightened.

  “Talk,” the thing said.

  “Yes!” T&T said, “Talk!”

  He mimed the hands talking some more.

  “Blah, blah, blah…”

  “Blah, blah, blah…” the thing repeated.

  Okay, this was sounding like progress.

  The creature dropped the Don skull. It hit the golden floor with a hollow clunk. The empty eye sockets stared up at him.

  The pincer arms shot out. Grabbed his arms.

  Uh oh.

  Yanked him off his feet and threw him on the creature’s segmented back. Again.

  “Shit!” He shouted.

  The two metal sea cucumbers jumped up and down on their stubby legs.

  “Shit!” Number one shouted.

  “Shit!” Number two shouted.

  Momma creature spun around and sped toward the big double doors at the end of the room. With him flying from her back like a naked man flag.

  He wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or elated.

  Though his bladder had already made its own decision.

  Thirty-Two

  Kawl Tejoh

  The dead world of Dendon lay below the Hojan’s Murder. Kawl Tejoh leaned back in the command chair and studied the image on the screen. And took a discreet sip from his cup. Which contained a generous amount of Tebenian blood wine.

  He justified the indulgence of the tangy, burning liquid by the fact that it soothed his jangled nerves. The tremors in his arms and hands were greatly reduced. The tick in his right eye had almost completely gone away. His mind, while still capable of cognitive function, had a pleasant fog at the edges.

  With a steady drip of blood wine soaking through his system, he had almost completely lost his ability to give a crap about the sorry state of the ship, the crew, and his life in general.

  Dreams of ruling the galaxy with an iron fist were somewhat tempered by the near certainty of his death in the not so distant future.

  Which called for another sip of blood wine.

  A big enough sip to push thoughts of painful, non-glorious death back to the fuzzy regions of his mind. Where they belonged.

  He squinted at the image of Dendon on the view screen. Much of the planet was a reddish-gray color. The oceans were a brackish green. Very unhealthy looking. Obviously, no one was keeping the place up. The planet was quite the fixer-upper. It would take a really handy-being to make something of this particular dump.

  Why were they here again?

  Information trickled out of the fuzzy areas.

  Oh, right. The Dendon Device. That so-called magical piece of technology that had tantalized the Don high command for centuries.

  Well, any Dendon technology, to be perfectly honest. Those Dendons sure had a nifty way with all that techno-crap. Maybe the emperor should have tried making friends with them, instead of killing them all off.

  Seemed a little short-sighted of the good ol' Emperor HeJov.

  The guy should seriously retire.

  “Captain?”

  Kawl jerked out of his reverie. Almost spilling his precious bloodwine.

  Commander Zek stood at his side. Good ol’ Zek. A fine first officer. Ambitious, but loyal. Always a good combination. Probably no need to kill him for almost making him spill his wine. Though if he had…that would be a different thing, wouldn’t it?

  Sure as Mamkok’s tits it would be.

  “What?” Kawl said.

  “Now that we are in orbit,” Zek said, “Shall I arrange a landing party? Sensors have found the Earth ship in the capital city.”

  “Put it on screen,” Kawl said.

  A moment later, the image of the planet faded away to be replaced by a fuzzy picture of an abomination of a ship sitting on a large circular plaza, surrounded by towering…towers. What did they call those types of buildings? Besides towers, that is.

  It seemed a silly question to ask of Zek. Though it was going to bother him if he couldn’t think of it.

  Maybe another sip of blood wine would help.

  Mmmmm, num num wine.

  “As you can see, Captain,” Zek said, “The basis of the ship is of a Class 12 Marauder, clearly of Don manufacture.”

  “Good ships,” Kawl said, “Had a class fourteen before…this ship. Fast. Comfy, too.”

  “Errr, yes Captain,” Zek said, “No doubt you noticed, the ship has bee
n heavily modified. Note the large engine pack at the rear. This is of an unknown design. Which surely must contain the fabled Dendon faster than light drive.”

  Oooo, faster than light. Now that would be nice. It took literally forever to get around the galaxy now. Faster than light, though. That would be important. Whoever got a hold of that would also be important, and…

  Where was he going with this? Somewhere important?

  Maybe he had a little too much blood wine in the old system.

  “Soooooo…I’m thinking we want that engine pack,” Kawl said.

  Zek nodded.

  Good, good, he was on the right track then.

  “And I should send down a landing party to get it.”

  Zek nodded again. This time with a little more vigor.

  Excellent. He was red hot now. With his excellent decision making abilities, he might make captain someday.

  Wait. He already was captain.

  Was that sneaky traitor Zek trying to mutant nanny the ship? No, that wasn’t right. What was a mutant nanny? His own nanny had been a rather severe Blinky. Oh, how he had loathed that old bag.

  Yet…

  His eyes grew misty.

  She was the only one who ever listened to him. Mother and father were always off, getting deep into palace intrigue. Even on the rare occasion they were home, they didn’t pay any attention to him.

  But Bar’joyke always did. Even if she often called him a disgusting smear of Wattlekan poop.

  “Captain?” Zek said.

  Zek leaned closer. Gently tried to take the cup of wine from his hand.

  Ha! Tried to.

  Kawl clung to the cup like a twenty-tentacled zancer. They tugged the cup back and forth. Kawl fumbled in his tunic for the little dart gun. Where had that thing gone?

  “Captain,” Zek said in a low, hissing tone, “Give me the cup. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  Said him. Let’s see him say that with a cluster of poisoned needles between his eyes.

  His fingers dug down toward the belly of his tunic. Found the handle.

  Now Zek was going to get what was coming to him.

  Kawl yanked the dart gun out. Shoved it in Zek’s face and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. Unless Commander Zek looking more annoyed than Bar’joyke when she found Kawl picking his nose. And other places.

  “I removed the darts, Captain,” Zek said–in the exact same patient, somewhat exasperated tone Bar’joyke used when she was trying to explain something to him.

  “Balls,” Kawl said, “Leggo my drinkie-poo.”

  Zek rolled his eyes and relinquished the cup. Kawl took a deep, numbing sip.

  That was a close one. Much longer and he might have started to sober up.

  Zek straightened up. Turned and snapped his fingers.

  Which was quite rude. The captain was the only one supposed to be snapping his fingers on the bridge. Wasn’t there some sort of regulation about it? And if there wasn’t, there definitely should be.

  “Take the captain to his quarters,” Zek said, “Don’t let anyone in. And for Mamkok’s sakes, don’t let him out unless he’s sober.”

  Two rather large security personnel appeared on either side of the command chair.

  “Not much chance of that,” the guard on the left said, “He’s got enough wine in there to drown a bonton.”

  The other guard snickered.

  “Okay captain,” the first guard said, “Are we walking, or are we carrying you?”

  "Mutant nanny!" Kawl shouted, waving his (sadly) empty dart gun at the guards, Zek, and practically everyone.

  “What’s that?” Guard number two asked.

  “I think he means mutiny,” Zek said, “Though, in this case, he’s working on dereliction of duty. Now get him out of here. I have work to do.”

  Kawl gulped down another slug of blood wine. Unfortunately spilling a little down his tunic. The dark red liquid was going to stain his uniform.

  High command was probably going to take that out of his paycheck.

  He pointed the dart gun at Zek and pulled the trigger. Several times. All that happened was the stupid little gun click. And he got a sharp pain in his finger.

  Might have been a sprain.

  The two guards each grabbed an arm and pulled Kawl to his feet. They each stood a full head higher than him. They really were big boys, weren’t they?

  “Okay now Captain,” Guard one said, “We’re going to take a little walk to your cabin so you can take a nap. Doesn’t that sound good?”

  Actually, a nap sounded better than good. It sounded fantastic.

  No, wait. It didn’t sound fantastic. This was mutiny. They were stealing his command from him.

  The guards dragged him off the command deck. Into the wide corridor where the doors to the ready room and executive offices were.

  And something else…

  Kawl–with some difficulty–brought the cup up to his lips and swallowed the last of the blood wine in it.

  Then he turned his head and bit guard number two’s arm.

  “Hey!” Number two shouted.

  Kawl swung the heavy metal cup up and smashed guard number one’s nose. The guard yelped and let go, grabbing his abused nose.

  Kawl swung the cup back around. Right into guard number two’s mating tools. The guard grunted, went cross-eyed and grabbed his crotch and he went to his knees.

  Kawl kicked guard number one in the gut. Then smashed the cup into number two’s head.

  Then he spun around and ran for the emergency escape pod hatch at the end of the corridor.

  He slapped his palm on the keypad by the hatch. The surface lit up. Access granted. Greetings Captain Tejoh.

  The hatch slid aside. He tumbled through and keyed the hatch closed. It clanged shut.

  He jumped into the command seat. Consoles were already lighting up.

  There were a lot of colored buttons and indicators. He squinted at them.

  “Launch!” He shouted.

  Words scrolled in front of him on the narrow view screen.

  Set course for nearest planetary body?

  “Yes! Launch, you stupid thing!”

  Acceleration shoved him back against the seat. Somewhere, metal clanged and thumped. The view screen lit up. Showed him a view of reddish gray Dendon.

  The planet filled the view screen.

  Maybe he should have thought this through a little more.

  Thirty-Three

  Chris

  The deeper we went into the subway system, the less I liked being there. Don’t get me wrong, the Dendon subway system was lovely. Very nicely designed with lots of tasteful touches. Things like artfully designed handrails, lovely tile mosaics, interesting contrasts of metal and glass…stuff like that. Which would have been much more appreciated if there were certain other things present. Like…let’s say electricity. And, perhaps, people.

  So the place wouldn’t feel like the setting from some alien horror movie. The kind where the creature jumps out of the icy darkness and bites someone’s head off.

  “Stop whining already,” Liz said, “Or go back to the ship.

  I had already discussed with her my feelings about this outing. And I wasn’t whining. I was just describing, out loud, several scenarios that might play out.

  So far, none of the scenarios ended with us getting back to the ship alive.

  “Seriously. Shut up,” Liz said, “You’re starting to creep me out.”

  I might have been continually talking about my discomfort with this situation.

  “If you don’t stop–and I mean right now,” Liz said, “I’m going to take off the armor and walk around here stark naked. Do you want me to do that?”

  Yes and no.

  Though, at that particular moment, most emphatically no.

  I might be able to survive an attack by that metal murder worm–well, come back to life after it killed me. But most likely Liz would not.

  Even with her
armor, there was no guarantee of her survival if we came up against that nightmare creature.

  Which was the main reason why I really wanted us to return to the surface.

  “Okay. That’s it buster,” Liz said, “The suit’s coming off.”

  I held up my hands.

  “Wait! Fine! I’ll stop,” I said.

  Liz put one armored hand on one armored hip. The other hand held one of the two plasma cannons we brought from the ship. The other one was slung across her armored back. On her shoulders sat globes of light that she had somehow extruded from the armor. They did a pretty good job of lighting the tunnel we were slowly stalking our way down.

  Lighting a small section of the tunnel anyway. About a hundred feet in either direction. Then the light fell away to solid darkness.

  The tunnel was more like a pipe. Perfectly circular and perfectly smooth and seamless. There were no tracks, no wires, no markings of any sort.

  And eerily silent except for an occasional low moan of air moving through it. Which I attributed to the wind pushing through some of the stations that were open to the elements.

  That’s what I hoped anyway.

  The cold air still had the taste of the strangely spicy Dendon dust. As well as a faint tang of ozone. The sensors in Liz’s suit had confirmed there was still a faint amount of power running through the tunnel.

  I should have been able to confirm that. But my Dendon buddy wasn’t helping me very much at the moment. I could still call up the shield that kept me functional, but the Dendon wasn’t giving me access to the full array of powers I was used to.

  Which was starting to piss me off.

  A little help would have gone a long way towards getting us out of here.

  "It talking to you?" Liz asked.

  I scowled. “No,” I said, “Still as silent as ever.”

  “That sucks,” she said, “Now, you gonna stop whining? Or do I need to get naked?”

  “I don’t think we’re on the right path,” I said, “These tunnels go on forever, and we don’t have any maps.”