Imperatrix of the Galaxy

by Tristan Vick

Danica nodded and reached up with her lavender fingers and pastel pink nails, unhooked the elegant rust-colored dress at the top, and watched the back spread open as she ran the zipper down to the small of Jegra’s back.

  Jegra loved this gown’s metallic shimmer and the fact that it clung to her body like silken mud. It sparked fond memories of the non-lethal mud bouts in the Arena, where the games were about the exploitation of the female combatants and the gratification of the audience. It still may have been demeaning, in a sense, but at least nobody had to die.

  Jegra relaxed her shoulders and let the dress slip to the floor. It puddled beneath her and she elegantly arched her feet, pointing her toes downward so as not to snag them on the delicate fabric, and gracefully stepped out of the discarded garments as though she were stepping out of a cool lake after a scandalous yet refreshing dip.

  With soft steps like that of a panther, she stalked across the bedroom floor and slipped into her satin sheets. “I’m beat,” she mumbled into a pillow. “Wake me when we get there.”

  Danica nodded. “Is there anything else? Do you need me to draw you a bath?” But Danica’s question was met with the soft sound of snoring. She fetched the edge of the bedspread and folded the triangle end across so that it covered Jegra’s naked form as she tucked her into bed.

  A gradual smiled formed on Danica’s lips and she bent down and kissed the side of Jegra’s cheek. “Sleep well, my empress. I will love you, forever and always.”

  After scanning the room once, she determined it was secure and dimmed the lights, then exited Jegra’s quarters and headed back to the bridge.

  In the dark of Jegra’s quarters, underneath a hand carved cherry oak desk, a small box with elaborate rosemaling sat. After a brief moment, the lid rattled and then cracked open; a golden tentacle made of light slipped out.

  3

  Commander Lianica Blackstar greeted Danica with a formal salute across the left breast then relinquished the command chair. “Vice Admiral,” she said, gesturing for Danica to take the seat.

  She was one of the few who knew of Danica’s former identity and had no problems mentioning it freely among close company. Danica knew Lianica did it simply to rub it in, her loss of station, and as a way to torment her that she was no longer a pure blood but now diminished to the life of a loathsome mod.

  And even though becoming a mod was viewed as shameful in her culture, Danica had to do it under royal decree so as to change her biometric readout and keep a low profile. It would, at the very least, make it more difficult for bounty hunters to track her and she could easily pass through any space port using fake I.D.s with her new face.

  It may not have been the path she had imagined her life taking, but Danica understood that Jegra had ordered her to do it because it would save her life. But for how long, she didn’t know. Emperor Dakroth was not the forgiving type. Surely, he’d sentence Danica to death for her failure at the battle of Sector B-13. He would brand her a deserter and a traitor and that’d be the end of it.

  Even though she was no traitor, she knew that this passable fabrication would merely serve as a cover for the real reason he wanted her dead: Danica had stolen Jegra’s heart right out from under him and made a cuckold of him. Undeniably, this was an unforgivable offense, particularly to a man with such massive pride that it was in danger of collapsing in on itself and forming a black hole. Bringing such dishonor to her emperor could mean only one thing–public execution.

  Not that she had any choice in the matter. Being extracted mid-battle by a Knight of Caelum wasn’t exactly something she could have anticipated, let alone defended against. Not in the middle of a ship to ship disruptor exchange. It was a bold move and had the signature stamp of Jegra all over it. Impetuous. Reckless. Fearless. All the things that made Jegra a force to be reckoned with.

  Perhaps the only good to come out of the whole debacle was that the Dagon Imperial High Command had given Danica an honorable discharge, post mortem, assuming she’d been killed in battle. But even so, Lianica was resentful, and all she could see in Danica was a monumental failure, a disgrace to the very meaning of what it meant to be Dagon.

  Commander Lianica Blackstar was headstrong and on a mission to make a name for herself. And one thing was clear: she wanted desperately to please the empress. But no amount of ambition could compete with the Vice Admiral’s thirty-six-years’ experience under Lord Dakroth.

  Danica smiled tersely at Commander Blackstar and sat down in the captain’s chair. Aboard the empress’s ship, according to Imperial Law, the empress held the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, whereas the emperor held the rank of Lord and Commander of all militaries.

  Annoyed by Lianica’s passive aggressiveness, Danica leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and looked straight ahead at a swath of purple nebulae that was spread across a starry dappled expanse. Beyond the bow of the ship, she watched two distant battlecruisers cutting across the cosmic vista as if in slow motion.

  Danica put Lianica’s risky remarks out of her mind, and said, “Report.”

  Her back to the vice admiral, Lianica stood beside the command chair and stared out at the same nebulae that had Danica mesmerized. Without taking her eyes off the vista, she replied, “We’ll arrive at Dakroth’s last known coordinates in about three hours. But we could get there in one, if we activated the slip-stream drive.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Danica said, waving her hand as though she were brushing the suggestion away.

  “As you wish, Vice Admiral,” Blackstar answered. The commander’s voice tightened slightly, revealing the slightest hint of priggishness tucked into her tone. She smiled at Danica in a strained fashion that did little to hide her contempt.

  Danica smiled back in an equally strained fashion that betrayed the fact that she had let Blackstar’s vitriol get under her skin. “You will refer to me as Danica Vallencia of Thessalonica, Head of the Royal Guard and Personal Bodyguard to her majesty, the Empress of Dagon. Now, if there’s anything else you wish to say to me, commander, there’s no better time to get it off your chest.”

  Lianica Blackstar looked sideways at Danica out of the corner of her eye and then swiveled to face her. “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

  “By all means,” Danica said amusedly. She steepled her fingers and leaned forward to listen.

  “Your fall from grace is well known throughout the empire. And now you sit here as though nothing has happened.”

  Danica’s eyes narrowed. She uncrossed her legs and then re-crossed them. “Go on, commander. Don’t let rank and protocol hold you back. Speak your mind.”

  “Very well. If you’re not going to maintain your previous rank of Vice Admiral, I do believe ship protocol requires you to relinquish the command chair to your superior officer. Which would be me.”

  By now, the rest of the bridge crew was watching them with a vested interest in how this little power struggle would pan out, and the sudden absorption in their catty exchange didn’t go unnoticed. Feeling that all eyes were on her, rather than Lianica, Danica vacated the seat and motioned for Lianica to resume command.

  “I serve at the pleasure of the empress,” Danica stated in a regal fashion as she stepped aside. “And it is you, Commander Blackstar, whom she has seen fit to place in command of this vessel.”

  “Some people are just better suited for the job,” Lianica said smugly, rubbing it in.

  After an intense stretch of silence, Danica decided on diplomacy to save face. She cautiously edged up to Lianica and leaned in to whisper, as she didn’t think the rest of the crew needed to hear the rest of their private conversation. “Commander Blackstar, I serve the empress in another capacity now. Since I no longer hold an official rank, I acknowledge you are the commander of this vessel. I apologize if I overstepped.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the commander replied, a subdued smile curling onto one corner of her mouth. “We all make mistakes. Some more than others.”

  The extra dig mere
ly added insult to injury, but Danica let it go. Of course, she wanted to slap the smug grin right off Lianica’s pretty little mouth, but there was nothing more to be said on the matter and dragging it out further would just reflect badly on her. All she could do now was roll with the punches.

  Danica sent the curious faces of the crew a sharp glance which informed them to mind their own business and they quickly snapped back to work, pretending as though nothing of interest had transpired. Even the ones who didn’t have anything particularly pressing to do found busy-work to hold their attention.

  “The bridge is yours, commander,” Danica said with an air of artificial nicety, and she stormed out into the corridor.

  Lianica watched Danica go and the small curl at the corner of her mouth widened into a malicious grin.

  Once Danica made it to the lift, safely out of sight, she mashed the button angrily. The doors slid shut and, in that moment of solitude, she found a volcanic rage bubbling up inside of her and she was unable to hold back her emotions. Letting out a roar, she smashed a fist against the elevator wall and then mumbled a flurry of obscenities. After her flare up, she took a deep breath and tried to compose herself best she could, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the torrent of tears that suddenly burst from her as though a deep well had overflowed.

  The sudden switch in emotions caused her to giggle without intending to, and soon she stood laughing and sobbing simultaneously like a crazy person. With tears streaking her cheeks, she sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand and then brushed down her uniform, soothing herself deliberately until she finally calmed down enough to regain some semblance of sanity.

  It was clear to her that Jegra’s DNA had somehow impacted her with its ability to rewrite other species’ genetic information. It did so through the CRISPR gene altering technology that was built into her genetic code. Prolonged contact with Jegra’s skin, such as during sessions of coitus, meant one’s own DNA would slowly be rewritten. Altered to become more human.

  Consequently, one of many peculiar side-effects of the genetic imprinting was that one developed the human characteristic of empathy–something entirely foreign to the Dagon way of life–and it was currently wreaking havoc on Danica’s ability to keep her emotions in check.

  Everything seemed to have been thrown out of sync. Where she used to be decisive, she kept questioning herself. And, as was Dakroth’s greatest fear, this hesitancy made her weak. It made her question her motives. And it contradicted years of evolutionary theory that taught that only the strong survive–an adage no true Dagon would ever deny being true.

  It was the preeminent Dagon belief that through following one’s self-serving nature, one can become stronger. Only the most selfish and opportunistic can thrive, the weak get taken advantage of, and this had been the Dagon way as long as she could remember. To question this meant her entire worldview was being called into question. All because of the fact that, in so following her selfish desires, she chose to get involved with the only woman who had any true power over her.

  While in the throes of her little breakdown, the lift had gradually slowed and stopped. To her dismay, the doors had spread open to reveal two officers standing before the entrance. They stared at her with profound looks of discomfort.

  The two male Dagon officers had witnessed the back end of her little meltdown and were obviously horrified. She caught herself mid-mumble and gave them the evil eye, letting the silence linger until they both squirmed in their military-issue boots.

  “What?!” she snapped angrily.

  Not wanting to cause a row, they dutifully stepped aside, one of them mumbling, “Nothing ma’am,” and they let her storm past them without saying so much as another word.

  As soon as they boarded the lift and the elevator doors clamped shut, they would almost certainly gossip about her. After all, it was the Dagon way; be polite to one’s face then talk behind their backs the first chance you got. Make yourself strong by belittling others. But she couldn’t blame them. After all, she’d been acting like a lunatic all bloody morning.

  When she finally arrived at her personal quarters she caught a glimpse of the mascara melting down her face like tribalistic war-paint in her reflection on the window that looked out onto space. Letting out a rather depressed sigh, she headed to the food synthesizer to order something that might help her relax after having had such a rotten day. Tapping on the panel, she input her order. “Dagon herbal tea, hot, and one nutrition bar with dehydrated fruit blend.”

  The panel on the wall lit up as the food synthesizer unit hummed. A few seconds later, the light died down and she opened the panel and pulled out her food. The tea steamed, and its sweet aroma filled the room.

  She took her things to a circular glass table and sat down in a navy-blue armchair. Having set her tea to the side, she crossed her legs and began to nibble on the nutrition bar as she stared vacantly out at the middle of the floor. She let out another pent-up sigh then reached for the tea when, without warning, Blackstar’s voice came across the ship’s comm. She pulled her hand back, letting it hover just above the cup’s handle, and waited to hear the full message.

  “Blackstar to all hands, prepare to slipstream acceleration.”

  Danica let out another sigh, this one angry. The commander had blatantly disregarded her orders. Obviously, she was trying to push her buttons even after she’d relinquished the battle. Reacting, Danica knew, would only compound things and make her situation worse. As such, she decided to let it go. She curled her finger around the glass teacup’s handle, brought it to her lips, and took a sip.

  As she was setting her tea back down, everything in the room blurred. There was a low murmur that could be heard throughout the ship, like the pulsing of some vital organ, and everything, including the ship’s hull itself, slowly stretched out as time dilated. Once the brain adjusted to the time dilation, everything snapped back into its proper order and time resumed its normal pace.

  The glass cup of steaming tea clinked down onto the glass table and Danica stood up and headed for the lavatory; if the tea couldn’t calm her, then maybe a nice, cleansing sonic shower would.

  She shed her clothes at the foot of the shower stall, simply a ceiling high cylindrical glass tube with a metallic strip around the center of it that did little to conceal the person’s nudity within.

  Still, it was an elegant design and took up minimal space. She preferred function over comfort anyway, and stepped inside, letting the glass door slide shut behind her. Once she was inside the stall, the glass went from transparent to a frosted white, and the metal band, which wrapped completely around the inside of the stall, began to hum, sending out pleasant vibrations that rippled across her skin.

  The vibrations tickled the skin at first, but as they grew in strength and frequency it felt like being in the path of a massive bass speaker; the stimulation intensified until becoming a full-body massage, only with sound waves.

  Gradually, the frequency increased and the vibrations tightened to the point where they could no longer be felt. Little by little, in patches all across her body, the inorganic particles and dead cells on the surface of her skin began to break apart and flake off.

  White flecks of debris rose off her lavender colored body and hovered in the air briefly, then the tiny vacuum nozzles turned on inside the floor and ceiling of the shower and the organic waste was quickly sucked up into a small vacuum chamber where it was disposed of.

  A moisturizing spray spritzed her from head to toe as the final stage of the shower cycle completed its cleansing procedure.

  Danica pressed her forehead against the glass panel as the stall filled with steam. She remained troubled by her previous interaction with Lianica. It came as no surprise that Commander Lianica Blackstar Van Scarion reminded Danica of her former self. Headstrong. Obsessed with honor and duty and by making a name for herself in the Imperial Guard. She could see why Jegra had picked her as the one to command the Shard.

  Dan
ica sighed and waited as the shower ran through its final cleanse cycle. As the doors opened, another brief spritz of a finishing body perfume atomized in front of her. She walked through the cloud, which smelled like the ocean breeze, emerged from the tidy space and headed to her closet.

  The moisture on her body cooled to a nice chill and caused her purple nipples to stand erect. She rummaged through her clothes, looking for the right outfit before settling on the white, leotard-styled dress. Skin-tight top and flowing skirt with a slit on either side to reveal her long, slender legs.

  The skin-tight dress did little to conceal her erect nipples, and she brushed her fingers quickly across them. She threw on a wide, designer belt made from gold medallions which hung across her hips, forming themselves to her figure’s natural sway and tilt.

  Danica found white leather strap sandals to go with the dress and slipped them on. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she did up the straps and then went over to a large chest at the edge of her room. Opening it, she lifted a dagger and sheath and strapped it to the inside of her thigh. She then pulled out two golden armbands that resembled coiled serpents.

  She grabbed the serpent’s head, squeezed, and then snapped her wrist forward, extending her entire arm as though she was thrusting with a fencing sword. The snap of her wrist caused the serpent armband to uncoil and extend itself to form a long shank. Once she released her thumb from the head, the bracelet recoiled and returned to its previous form.

  Satisfied with her selection, she slipped a serpent over each bicep and secured them on her upper arms.

  Finally, she selected a carved golden cuff. She fitted it to her right wrist and then twisted it. A red laser beam flicked on and, aiming across the room, she deftly cut a leafy protrusion from her bedroom plant, a type of majestic fern, then quickly flicked off the beam again. She watched as the giant leaf fluttered to the floor and landed without so much as a sound.

  “Makeup,” she said, and turned to face the wall mirror that hung on the inside of her door. She closed her eyes and a series of pinpoint blue and green lasers danced around her face, painting her flesh with a coat of semi-permanent makeup. She held perfectly still as the lasers tattooed the color right into her flesh. Of course, it was completely reversible; when she grew tired of her look she would merely have the lasers erase the colors in a reverse process.