by Aaron Crash
He loaded up Ugly Betty again, but mostly used his plasma guns to take out wasps.
Cali reached one of the Vespula, tore through the hull, and disappeared inside. Wasps buzzed past Blaze and headed for the Lizzie. She was dodging asteroids as well as theta-particle beams from the Cavaliers. A nuke exploded off her starboard side. The explosion flung her toward an asteroid, but Ling managed to get the Lizzie under control, and she only brushed the rough surface of the spinning rock.
Blaze fired on the wasps heading toward his ship. Got most of them, but two broke through the Lizzie’s shields and slammed down onto her hull. One started for her blue-fire engines at the back of the ship. The other crept out of Blaze’s sight, crawling onto his starship’s belly and heading toward its front guns.
“Give up, Captain!” Denning called to him. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, but you can’t win. Either we take you out now, or the thousands of wasps and the two Paladins will do the job. There is no escape!”
“I’m not a captain,” Blaze insisted. “Gunnery Sergeant Ramon Ramirez, reporting for duty.”
Another dozen wasps fired on the gunny. He grabbed his ax, triggered the hydrogen shell, and caught the plasma blasts on the sparking blades. Most of them. One sizzled across his armor, burning his arm. The nanofiber resealed, saving the rest of his flesh from open space. But that burn hurt like a mother.
Blaze spun his starcycle around and charged the wasps. His fusion ax easily cut through one, then another, then a third, removing guns and wings and opening glowing gashes in their bellies. Back and forth, left and right, he wielded his battle-ax with deadly effect.
The wasps opened fire, but Blaze cranked the throttle and sped away. Friendly fire destroyed a few more wasps. The others wheeled and went for the Lizzie Borden. Until a fusion torpedo exploded in the middle of them, toasting them black and removing their appendages.
Free for a second, Blaze soared down through a canyon in an asteroid as big as a mountain. He glanced into his display and saw that the wasps from the twelve remaining Vespula were racing toward them. He had about five minutes before all those drones joined the battle.
The Paladins were too big to maneuver through the asteroid field, but they could find them easily, outrun them and outgun them. The Lizzie was taking damage from the attack ships and her shields were failing.
Elle had left the ship and was on a starcycle of her own. Ling and Fernando were on board, the Meelah piloting and the Clicker doctor running guns. Bill wasn’t implanted, so Blaze had no idea what the Clicker engineer was doing. Cali was busy disemboweling at least one if not two wasps’ nests, but where was Trina? She wasn’t on the Lizzie Borden.
Blaze winced at the pain of his burn, but he had to get back into battle. He zoomed out of the asteroid’s canyon and streaked across a flat plane of yellow rock.
A Cavalier, the Relentless, broke formation from chasing the Lizzie and fired on him. A missile exploded into the asteroid he was flying over. Dust and shrapnel smacked his armor. Now a particle beam threatened to sizzle him into a sausage link. With no time to evade, Blaze snapped off the starcycle’s nanotech and launched himself over the theta-particle ray. He drifted above the golden stream of energy while his starcycle zoomed under it.
Fifty wasps converged on the gunny.
The attack ships trained their guns on him. Without his bike, Blaze floated in space. He was trapped.
Then Elle pulled away from the Relentless… What had she been doing there?
She rocketed down and stopped next to him. He thought she was there to pick him up, but instead, she leapt from her bike, letting it stall as it floated away from them. She must’ve had a plan. Maybe to buy some time? Both bikes were near enough they could get to them.
The Lizzie flew down to join Elle and Blaze. The wasp going for its blue-fire engines finally reached them and fired into the glowing sapphire light. The engines sputtered and went out. Smoke trailed behind her as she came to a stop.
The other IPC Cavaliers, the Inspiration and the Adamant, came to join the Relentless.
Denning laughed through comms. “Well, Captain, it seems it’s over. You’re without your ridiculous starcycles, and your starship is disabled.”
Blaze glanced at Elle. Her mojo was at eighty percent. She reached into her pouch and pulled out a bit of wax wrapped in thread. She snarled out words in Onyx speak. Her spell components, the physical and the verbal, triggered her telepathy.
He felt their minds connect. Well, Elle, I’m assuming you guys have come up with a brilliant plan to save our asses. Am I right?
You’re not going to like it. An evil smile lit up her face.
“Captain, you have three seconds to surrender or we will destroy you.”
“Where are you at, Denning? You on one of these Cavaliers? Or are you in a Paladin? Or are you working remotely?” Blaze asked.
Good, Elle telepathized. Keep him busy. Just a few more seconds for Trina to get into place.
Blaze had no clue what that meant, but he’d try and keep Denning distracted. “Come on, Denning, tell me where you are. It’s not like I can teleport in. Like with magic or whatever.”
He glanced at Elle. She shook her head.
“If you must know, Captain, I’m in a Paladin, watching you from a distance.” A huge asteroid tumbled away, revealing the IPC blockade in the distance. The twelve hundred wasps continued their mad dash toward them.
“Why did you really quarantine Hutchinson Prime?” Blaze asked.
“The suns are about to collide, and the people in the Americatus Quadrant are too stupid to stay away. Everyone sane on the planet left years ago, but of course, you have the holdouts, who think God will protect them. As if there were a god in this universe who cared a whit about such morons.”
We’re ready, Elle said. Get ready to go for your bike.
Blaze chuckled. “God loves drunks, children, puppies, and stupid people. Which about sums up my family.”
“And cats!” Elle screamed through comms.
“So much for your three seconds,” Blaze quipped. He then dove for his starcycle.
“Open fire!” Denning ordered.
An uncertain voice broke through. “Sir, this is Captain Landau. Katrina O’Reilly boarded our ship. She’s with me now on the bridge of the Relentless.”
Blaze’s heart went cold in his chest as he floated soundlessly toward his starcycle.
The fifty wasps trained their guns on Blaze. The lights in their plasma rifle barrels glowed, and then they went limp. They’d gone dead inside. The cause? Lupercalia Smith. Occupation? Werewolf.
An asteroid rolled away revealing one of the Vespula, its hull scored and scratched. Cali erupted out of the metal, her fusion claws glowing and the blue-fire boots flashing. She sped toward him, snarling soundlessly. Her evil crimson eyes had found him, and, apparently, she remembered his silver spear trick.
She’d be on him before the armada of wasps. But there was little he could do as he continued his slow flight toward his bike. If he shut her bracelets, Cali would be a sitting duck. He’d just have to chance it. He had some time before the werewolf was on him.
Blaze whirled to see how his ship would fare against the three IPC attack ships. Two of the ships opened fire and blew through the last of the Lizzie’s energy shields.
Over comms, he heard Captain Landau’s howl. “Trina, no, what are you? WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU!!!” Then the captain of the Relentless could scream no more. Trina would be at his throat, draining him.
Blaze gritted his teeth. However much of an asshat Landau might’ve been working for Denning and the IPC, he was still Human, and Blaze’s job wasn’t slaughtering Humans. Anyone left on the Relentless would be lucky to make it out alive. After losing an arm during their previous battle, Trina would be one thirsty bloodsucker.
Elle growled out Onyx speak and cast Human teeth into space. She was casting a consume spell. Red demonic energy was pulled from the Adamant and the Ins
piration. During their last encounter with these ships, Blaze had stuck snare spheres into torpedoes and let the ghoulies inside distract the IPC crew long enough for him to get away.
Elle was collecting up the energy, adding it to her mojo. Blaze glanced at her mojo levels. She soared up past ninety percent and crept toward a hundred. Over a hundred and she’d go insane with power.
As the Onyx energy flowed into her, she tossed a pair of handcuffs and cast a stasis spell. The guns on both the Adamant and the Inspiration shut down as both ships lost power. They went sideways, frozen by Elle’s magic.
Elle flung small rectangular magnets wrapped in thread from her pouch and growled some more. Using a telekinesis spell, she pulled her starcycle toward her and threw a leg over it. Meet me on the Lizzie.
But she lost her blue-fire engines, Elle. She can’t leave. And those wasps are about to hit us and hit us hard. Denning isn’t playing. Blaze reached his bike, got on board, and slammed on the throttle.
He buzzed toward the Lizzie as Elle sped toward the Relentless and the screaming crew. She tossed out aragonite crystals to shield herself from incoming fire. She then must’ve scattered slivers of cedar wood dusted with crushed coffee beans and dried blood, because Onyx missiles darted from her hands. The red beams of demonic light destroyed incoming wasps to clear her way. As she used her magic, more of the Onyx energy from the ghouls she was consuming from the two starships filled her. Damn, but his sister was casting spells at the same time as getting reloaded. It was risky. If she overextended herself, and her mojo level went subzero, she’d die from the magic. If she overestimated how much mojo each spell cost her, getting too much Onyx might drive her insane.
She was doing well, however, juggling the energy. Once her mojo got too low, she then cast another consume spell and started to suck energy from the ghosts on the Relentless.
Blaze was slammed back into his current critical situation. Cali’s gnashing and howls filled comms, blocking out all communication as she rocketed toward Blaze. She was right on his tail.
Blaze was caught in a catch-22. If he shut her bracelets, he’d save his own life, but in her Human form, Cali could be killed by the wasps that were about overwhelm them. They would be within range in seconds. If he didn’t turn her Human, most likely, she’d claw him into hamburger meat.
In a split-second decision, he decided to risk death. He couldn’t kill Cali. He just couldn’t.
The Lizzie turned, and a wave of spacetime grew from her aft SWD engine. It knocked asteroids aside as it grew. Blaze’s starship rose with it.
Holy shit, Elle, Bill can’t create a wave from inside an asteroid belt! This is insane. We’ll smash into the asteroids or we’ll disrupt their orbit. If those stones hit the Paladins, all of those people will die!
Elle’s response was icy cold. Sucks to be them. I knew you wouldn’t like our plan.
Cali’s claws swiped down and put four long cuts into the back of Blaze’s starcycle.
The Lizzie rose on the wave and started down, riding it like a surfboard. The cargo bay doors were open. Asteroids were pushed aside, as were the wasps and their guns.
Cali’s snarls knifed through Blaze’s ears. He was going to have to maneuver his starcycle into the cargo bay, lure Cali inside, then slam her bracelets closed. But the Lizzie was gaining speed. His blue-fire engines might not be able to keep up.
The wasps came within range and unloaded on the Lizzie Borden. Without shields, she’d be destroyed.
Yes, the Lizzie didn’t have shields, but Elle did.
Instead of taking on a blue sheen as the plasma bolts struck it, the energy shield glowed red. Their resident Onyx witch had cast a spell and was protecting the Lizzie as she rode the spacetime wave, careening toward maximum speed, which was faster than light.
The cargo bay was ten yards away. He wasn’t going to catch her. And where in the hell was his sister?
Cali blasted into him, her jaws crunching down on Blaze’s shoulder. She’d gotten him, and it hurt. However, the additional boost drove them into the cargo bay. The werewolf’s daggerlike fangs cut through his nanofiber armor and ripped out his left shoulder completely. His arm was hanging by mere muscle and sinew. It might have even fallen off except the nanotech kept his body together and sealed the gash in his armor.
But they were on the Lizzie. Blaze was trying not to let the pain consume him—he was losing consciousness, but not before he shut down Cali. He triggered the Cali Bad Dog command, and her bracelets slammed shut. Her fangs left his flesh as her teeth went from daggers to incisors. She was sent sprawling in her Human form as the nanotech armor covered her and protected her from the lack of atmosphere. The doors were open. Inside the cargo bay, there was no air.
Blaze whirled. Cali was up, encased in her spacesuit, but she tackled him. “You hurt me, Blaze! Why did you hurt me with that spear? I could’ve died. Don’t you care about me, you worthless coldhearted bastard? Don’t you love me?”
As a Human, Cali only weighed about a buck fifteen, so it was nothing to shove her back. “Not now, Cali. We can talk once we get the hell out of here.”
“I hate you!” she screamed from the floor.
“Shit, girl, I hate me too.” He whirled. The space outside the cargo bay was distorted with speed and energy blasts. In the maelstrom of particles and reality being twisted to form the spacetime wave, a starcycle with two riders struggled against the chaos.
Trina and Elle were trying to get into the cargo bay. Their faces, armor, and starcycles were glowing crimson from both the onslaught of the wasps on the Lizzie Borden and Elle’s magic.
Blaze ground his teeth against the agony of his ripped-apart shoulder. Blood, so much blood, gushed from his severed arteries and veins and slickened the entire left side of his body. His boots filled up with gore.
He slumped forward and used his right arm to grab a loop of silver cable, the same cable he’d used that morning. He’d have one chance to get his sister and the vampire on board before they were lost.
He clipped one end onto a hook near the door. Then he whirled cable around his hand and threw it. It was going to come up short.
Trina, in full vampire mode so she didn’t need a spacesuit, sprang from behind Elle and caught both the cable and the starcycle. Damn, but that vamp was fast, and preternaturally strong. Defying physics, Trina threw the bike, Elle, and herself into the cargo bay.
Blaze slammed the cargo bay doors closed. Bill must have been monitoring, because the minute they were safe, the ship lurched forward, going faster than light, leaving behind a wake of asteroids, wasps, and IPC attack ships.
The gunny slumped to the floor and grinned. The pain was gone, and he felt fucking awesome. His natural endorphins were easing him into a nice, clean death. He’d saved the crew and they’d escaped. Life was good.
Well, if it was death he was facing, that was okay. Dying felt amazing. Right before he lost consciousness, he remembered what Ling always said.
“Guess I get to explore death today,” he muttered.
Then he was gone.
FIVE_
╠═╦╬╧╪
Blaze knew he was having another vision. The images were clear, but more than that, they reverberated with some kind of magical energy, a delicate class of dream, like a dream within a dream.
He was in his room, the master suite, but it wasn’t the blackened barbecue pit it was now, but restored and clean. He stood at the window next to his bed, but he wasn’t alone. His father, his real father, stood next to him. Miguel Antonio Ramirez, Ph.D., looked like he had when the video was taken of him standing next to the viewing area of the 0n1x singularity before it exploded on the night Blaze and Elle were born. The future gunnery sergeant was born on December 31, two minutes to midnight. Elle was a 2666 baby, born at exactly 12:00 a.m. on January 1.
Five minutes later, their father was killed, his life’s work gone, and their mother and the other scientists and their families fled along with Arlo and Granny.
That was the night the Onyx Gate opened, spilling the evil energy along with a host of demons into the universe. That fateful night.
In the vision, his father was speaking, but Blaze couldn’t hear what he was saying. A voice filled his head. It was a ragged, whispery sound, elusive. He heard a thin whisper…
The children will welcome you…the butchers will know you…and you will feel their teeth in your flesh. You will hear their lips smack not unlike a father kissing his child.
The words put a knot in Blaze’s belly. Why did evil have to be so freaky and messed up? Through the window, he saw the dragons he’d seen before in dreams emerging from the neutron star dragging the happy yellow light into its orbit. The gleaming rays were being devoured by the corpse that once had been a sun. The dragons were coming for them.
What the hell?
And like before, the dragons twisted into werewolves, running through space, tongues lolling and eyes full of evil. He knew they were his buddies from the Astral Corp, but twisted. As they came into view, he saw that they weren’t simply werewolves—they’d been tortured. They’d become perverted things, pierced with needles, dressed in leather, drenched in blood. One raised a stump that had been turned into a club, jammed full of silver spikes.
And behind them was a woman with no eyes, nose, or mouth. Wait, no, she had a face. It was a face of wounds, gashes weeping with pus and partially scabbed over. When she spoke, the scabs of her mouth wound broke, and blood seeped down. But she was in space, and so there wasn’t anything there to carry her voice.
Even in the vision, Blaze felt vomit scratch at the top of his throat. He had to swallow it down.
His father was on his left side, holding his left hand, and Blaze wasn’t thirty anymore—no, he was ten. On his right side, appearing by his bed, was Arlo. Arlo held his right hand. The men’s fingers couldn’t have been more different. His real father was a scientist whose hands were soft and pink. Blaze’s foster father was a warrior alcoholic jagweed, and his fingers were fat from working on engines, calloused from hours of training, and stained with nicotine, engine grease, and gun oil.
