Imperatrix of the Galaxy

by Tristan Vick

  Ishtar, a wicked smile spreading clear across her face, was winding up to hit Danica again when Dakroth intervened. “That’s enough, my dear. We don’t want to spoil her before we get her home.”

  Ishtar grabbed Danica by the chin and raised it. Looking into her golden eyes with her green ones, Ishtar leaned in and French kissed Danica. As she pulled away, her spittle stretched from her bottom lip to Danica’s. Once the strand of saliva broke, Ishtar shoved Danica’s face away, mumbling “Banjax,” and then let go of her.

  Danica’s head slumped down in defeat and Ishtar laughed and returned to the co-pilot’s seat next to Dakroth, as commanded. The dutiful little assassin, Danica thought, like a dog. Always willing to do anything to please the master.

  Danica’s head hung between her shoulders and it took everything she had not to scream out in agony as the poisonous creature burrowed into her tender flesh. She couldn’t let Dakroth win. No matter what he did to her. She had to stay strong.

  As she struggled for composure, her thoughts sought out Jegra. As much as she had enjoyed her time with Lianica, it was Jegra that was her true love. Her soulmate. And it would be the thought of being reunited with her that would keep her going. No matter what Dakroth threw at her. At least she had the hope of being with Jegra again.

  A sudden prick inside her pelvis caused her to scream out in agony. The burning sensation was so intense, she wanted to die. Then the creature drilled down into her ovaries and the real pain began. Hot, searing, unbearable pain. Then, only blackness.

  When Danica came too, she felt an insatiable burning in her gut. It felt like the time when she was a little girl and had wandered into a fire-ant’s nest. She’d been stung so badly she thought she was going to die. It felt like that, but on the inside.

  She raised her head, grunting from the effects of the venom which coursed through her entire body, even her neck, and looked around. She was no longer aboard the shuttle but found that she was tied to some kind of stone slab inside a large chamber.

  A table just beyond her held a litany of surgical devices, some of them crude and ancient, some illegal, all meant for the gratification of her torturer.

  Just beyond the shadows, Danica could make out a familiar figure. Stepping into view, the figure, dressed only in a white ceremonial loincloth and nothing else, stepped into the light. It was the empress. It was Jegra.

  “Impossible,” Danica muttered.

  “There’s no time,” Jegra said, grabbing a scalpel from the table. She ran over to Danica and began cutting the leather straps that bound her to the table. “I have to get you out of here before he finds out.”

  “Dakroth?” Danica asked, her voice too weak to say any more. The creature’s venom had practically paralyzed her. When she did try to move, all she could feel was a searing pain coursing through every muscle fiber.

  The leather strap snapped and Danica, using every ounce of strength she had left, began to undo the other wrist strap. Jegra knelt and freed Danica’s ankles and then helped her down off the table.

  With Danica’s arm draped across Jegra’s shoulder, they began hobbling toward the exit. “I snuck away from the ceremony of consummation while the emperor was busy burning his face in the cunt of some Bre’lal servant girl. But he’ll know I’ve stepped out soon enough.”

  “How?” Danica asked. “How’d you know where to find me?”

  “Lianica told me that Dakroth had taken you,” Jegra answered hastily.

  “It’s a miracle she found you at all.” Danica smiled. At least Lianica hadn’t let her down on that front.

  “Tsk, tsk, ladies,” a voice said from beyond the open entrance. Dakroth stepped into view, his finger already glowing. “And here I thought the time for traitorous back-stabbing was over. I must admit, I’m very disappointed in both of you.”

  “Back off, dear husband,” Jegra growled.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Dakroth replied, aiming his glowing finger at them. “You see, you’ve both been very naughty and one of you must be punished.”

  Before either of them could respond, Dakroth let the laser beam go and it hit Jegra right between the eyes. Danica watched in horror as Jegra’s head exploded, her blood and gray matter splattering all over her body.

  “Nooo!” Danica screamed. The demon-worm’s venom surged with the added excitement and caused her to crumple to her knees. Jegra’s body fell to the ground next to her, the gaping neck wound bleeding out before her. And all she could do was watch.

  Danica looked up in time to see the emperor standing over her. She growled, “I’ll kill you. If it’s the last thing I do in this life. I swear by the Gilded Master, I’ll kill you.”

  “Sorry, my dear Vice Admiral, but you’re in no position to be making such threats. Empty as they are.”

  With the bottom of his boot, Dakroth kicked Danica in the temple, knocking her unconscious.

  A few hours later, Danica groaned and opened her eyes. She found herself back on the stone table again, her arms and legs bound. It was as though she’d never made it off the bloody slab in the first place.

  She scanned the room and when her eyes settled upon the crimson pool of blood gelling in the corner of the chamber near the arch of the exit, she began to sob. Her sobbing sent searing pain coursing through her veins, but she fought through it. Jegra was dead and she was back where she started. Almost. Now she had a very singular-minded mission. Avenge Jegra by killing Dakroth.

  13

  Massive jowls filled with razor sharp teeth encircled Jegra. Saliva dripped from between the four-inch teeth of both tyrannosaurs as they eyed their prey hungrily.

  “Don’t you even think about it,” Jegra growled, clutching her blade in her left hand and the spear in her right. She shifted her feet and spun to maintain a steady eye contact with the female, glancing ever so slightly every so often to remind the male that she hadn’t forgotten about him either.

  One of the dinos warbled in a deep, throaty manner that caused Jegra to tense up.

  “I feel I ought to inform you,” she began, addressing the creatures, “that I’ve had myself a rotten two days and I’m not in any kind of mood to play around. So, let’s get this tango over with, shall we?”

  She tossed the spear straight up into the air, got under it, caught it again, and, taking a javelin thrower’s stance, wound the weapon back as far as her arm would go. Just as she was about to launch the spear, however, she caught, like a flash out of the corner of her peripheral vision, the female’s leathery tail slicing through the air like a bullwhip.

  It happened so fast that Jegra hardly had time to process it. The tail slapped so hard it sent her tumbling to the ground. She rolled four times and skidded to a halt in the dirt. In the summersault, she’d lost her spear but managed to hold on to her blade. She raised it up in front of her and sighed disappointedly when it came up bent at a ninety-degree angle.

  “Balls,” she hissed, and tossed the useless piece of scrap metal aside. All that work for nothing.

  The male T-Rex roared, asserting his dominance, but kept his distance. At the same time, the female, being the huntress, darted in for the kill. But Jegra was onto her; she took a lunging step forward and caught the beast by its upper and lower lips mid chomp. Jegra halted its snapping jaws and skidded backward in the hardened sand, the sunbaked ground beneath her feet flaking away like fish scales from a chef’s knife.

  As she plowed backward through the cracked earth, she dug in her heels and brought the female T-Rex to a standstill. Its tongue slithered out of its mouth and licked her forearm; Jegra made a disgusted face as she watched the dinosaur’s drool ooze down her arm and drip off her elbow.

  The great lizard almost seemed surprised that such a tiny creature as Jegra exhibited such great strength and wriggled her head free of Jegra’s grasp, sauntering back a few steps as she re-adjudicated her best course of action.

  Jegra scooped up a rock roughly the size of a basketball and threw it at the female.
It shattered against her side, but was enough of a hit to startle the beast. She hurried back, putting distance between herself and Jegra; it was unusual for dinner to fight back so. The male, on the other hand, grew bolder.

  The male huffed impatiently and the female snapped at him in protest–a curt reprimand that conveyed the sentiment that this particular prey was proving harder to catch than it should be. He snorted again, to stress his impatience with how long this affair seemed to be taking, and they both began circling her again.

  “You two are dizzying,” she said. Then, taking the initiative, she dug her toe into the ground and kicked up a blinding spray of sand. It must have stung, too, because the she-rex yowled and drew back.

  Using what strength she could muster, Jegra charged the male T-Rex and slammed into him with her shoulder. He, too, wasn’t prepared for her impressive strength; his footing went out from under him and he toppled onto his side. Kicking and squirming to get up, he rolled across his back and, with a flick of his tail, sprang back up onto his hind quarters.

  Both tyrannosaurs withdrew a safe distance away from Jegra who squatted, hands on knees, huffing rapidly to catch her breath. Seeing that the pair were about to come at her again, she struck a fierce pose to deter them, if not give them pause. She threw out her firsts and screamed at them with everything she had.

  This seemed to do the trick, as it scared them off. They galloped heavily off into the thick of the dead forest, leaving the feisty hominid for another day.

  Jegra, exhausted and days without sleep, collapsed to her knees and let out yet another sigh. Although she wanted desperately to hold on to consciousness, she could no longer resist the Sandman’s calling. Fatigue had set in and she collapsed onto her back and let the peaceful nothingness of deep sleep overtake her.

  When Jegra awoke it was twilight, and she gazed up at the twin moons slowly rising from the east.

  She spat dirt out past her chapped and peeling lips and pushed herself up off the ground. Once back on her feet, she tottered there for a bit, feeling lightheaded and knew that she needed to find water. And soon.

  It had already been three days, and although she’d found some replenishment with the Pteranodon egg she had drunk right from the shell, it was the only sustenance she’d had since landing. Another day like this, and she feared she wouldn’t make it.

  But, in all this, she had noticed one thing. The dinosaurs kept retreating to the southwest, which gave her an inkling of hope that she’d find water in that direction. So, she followed the trail of the tracks of the tyrannosaurs, confident that they must know exactly where to find water.

  She stalked the beasts for fifteen kilometers from her camp when she finally came upon an oasis of fertile greenery. The verdant jungle growth, including ferns and vines and coconut-like trees, came right up to the edge of the dead forest. It was as though there, at that precise line, the desert of scorched earth met the Garden of Eden.

  Jegra found an alien coconut and cracked it open on a rock. Although its juice was sour and tasted nothing like the tropical fruit she’d loved as a child, it was the only liquid she’d had since she crashed. She gulped it down thirstily, choking on its potent juices a couple of times. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and continued into the lush jungle foliage.

  After hiking for what felt like another five or six kilometers into the jungle, she felt the humidity spike. She also made out the distant sound of running water.

  “A waterfall!” she said out loud, practically startling herself with the sound of her own voice.

  Her pace quickened and she rushed the last four kilometers to a clearing where she found a waterfall feeding into a crystal-clear pool with two streams winding away from it into a fern covered bank. She scanned the trees to make sure the fang-toothed couple weren’t lurking about and then rushed to the water’s edge. She looked around again to spy an albino opossum-kind of creature on the other side of the lake taking a long drink and realized it was safe.

  Jegra slid down onto her belly and dipped her whole face into the water, practically inhaling the liquid.

  She drank until she choked herself and sat up hacking and coughing. Then she cupped her hands and brought up several more water-filled palms to her parched and cracked lips and drank until every ounce of thirst was quenched.

  Finally satisfied, she let out a refreshed sigh and slumped her shoulders. Inside the forest, the air was rich with oxygen and didn’t stink like out in the sulfuric haze of the blistering desert.

  A light breeze picked up and she caught a whiff of her own putrid stench, of sweat, blood, and dinosaur drool, and almost gagged. Dipping her right foot into the water, she wriggled her toes and then slowly waded out into the cool water until she was waist deep in the lagoon. Leaning back, she slipped down and let the water consume her. Coming up for air, she took a deep breath and wiped the water from her face.

  The only light came from the twin moons above her as Jegra climbed out of the water and lay across a spring-side boulder and basked in the moonlight. The cool water and forest breeze felt like a soothing balm against her sunburned skin.

  Jegra did her best to rub the soreness out of her weary muscles and bruised bones, but it wasn’t enough. Sliding off the boulder, she slipped back into the water and waded over to the water fall. She moved under the crushing shower, letting it cascade down her neck and back and moaned in pleasure as the pounding force massaged her body. That’s when she heard the rattling snort of the T-Rex just beyond the cluster of trees.

  The foliage directly opposite her rustled with excited movement and Jegra watched in dead silence as the beast appeared out of the thicket. It was only the male. Alone. He hadn’t yet caught scent of her; he bent down and began to drink without so much as a care in the world.

  Cautiously, Jegra slowly eased back into the waterfall, letting the curtain of water close around her. She slowly receded, slipping into a small alcove formed in the cliff face. Here she was safely hidden and out of sight.

  She waited for several minutes, giving the giant lizard plenty of time to drink, and then slowly edged around the bend of the inlet and pressed her face into the veil of waterfall. As she poked her nose out, her face mashed up against something leathery. She opened her eyes to find the T-Rex’s nose pressed directly upon hers.

  “Balls,” she muttered to herself.

  The dinosaur snorted, sending a spray of water and foul smelling breathe into her face.

  “Behave,” she said in a steady voice, throwing up a hand and easing her way out of the waterfall. The T-Rex slowly moved back, matching her stride for stride, and playfully wagged its tail. She raised an eyebrow as it backed up onto the shoreline. Somehow, it seemed smaller than the previous two she’d encountered, and much more playful and energetic. That’s when she realized she was dealing with an entirely new dinosaur.

  Uncertain as to the creature’s intentions, she cautiously backed away and, with both hands raised defensively, she said, “Good boy. Now, just stay put while I slowly inch away.”

  But as soon as she’d put a safe distance between herself and the creature, he bounded forward and landed directly in front of her. His eyes sparkled and he let out a playful snort.

  “Oh, you’re just a pup, aren’t you?” she said, realizing she was dealing with a youngling. He wagged his tail and snorted excitedly again, then turned in a circle.

  Jegra looked around for a boulder or something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing in sight. So, she continued her backward retreat until she noticed another giant snout appear directly to her right. Her eyes widened as she gazed into the nostril of another T-Rex. It was the female. Mom.

  Slowly, Jegra turned to find the female staring right at her with what Jegra could imagine was a concerned expression, and then she roared, letting Jegra know that she was treading on thin ice.

  The female’s roar excited the young male and it reared up on its hind legs, mimicking its mother, roaring even louder than she h
ad.

  The female had obviously had enough of her males for one day and nipped at the pup’s neck. This irritated him, and he rammed into her, shoving her back in a show of dominance. As she stumbled blindly, Jegra had no recourse but to leap out of the way.

  The ground smashed hard into Jegra’s side, but she rolled with the fall and sprang back up to her feet. She quickly darted away from the tussle and jumped over a tail, which whipped by at such a ferocious velocity it cut down two trees, leaving only splintered stumps in its wake.

  “You two should seriously consider counseling,” Jegra yelled above their mutual grunts of disdain for one another. Before she could clear out of their radius, however, the male’s tail inadvertently clipped her and sent her skipping across the water. She sank into the lagoon and came up choking on a mouthful of fresh water kelp.

  Swimming to the opposite shoreline, she crawled out and panted for a bit as she tried to catch her breath. Just then, a deafening roar shook the trees and Jegra felt the very ground shudder beneath her as mammoth footsteps stormed up to the shoreline.

  The two smaller dinosaurs looked up in time to see dad appear, who let forth a displeased roar. He was, after all, the king of the lizards here. The youngling scampered off into the trees, not wanting to face the wrath of its parent. The mother roared back, as if she were scolding him, and then stalked to the other end of the lagoon.

  Jegra stared in awe at the giant T-Rex, who was easily three times bigger than the largest specimen ever found on Earth. “My God,” she said in a hushed tone. “You’re one big mother fu—”

  “Get down!” a voice called out. Jegra whirled around in time to see two blue plasma bolts scorch past her.

  She lunged to the side, crashed into a fern, and rolled out of the way of the disruptor blasts.

  The two blasts hit the giant T-Rex in his rib cage and the monster roared out in agony and then retreated into the foliage. Startled, the female scampered off, too, and soon enough all the tyrannosaurs had hightailed it out of there.