by Mike Smith
“Turn around, slowly,” Javier barked and for a brief moment I wondered if he was talking to me, but I observed my father slowly shuffle around, still leaning heavily against his desk. One of his eyes was swollen shut, I assumed from the same blow as the still bleeding head wound.
“My how you’ve lead us on a merry chase. I’ve been hunting you for thirty years. My master was most displeased when I informed him that you had survived. He made his displeasure clearly known to me. I think I probably owe you for that—”
Before I could register the movement, he took a sudden step forward, slamming his fist into my father’s stomach. My father crumpled like a paper bag and would have fallen had the man not immediately followed this up with a wicked uppercut that caught my father under the jaw. This time it was just the desk that broke his fall. The only sound in the room was the laboured breathing from my father, as Javier stepped back into the semi-circle of his men.
It took a long time for my father to recover, his hacking coughs a clear indication that he struggled to breathe, but finally he pushed himself off the table, turning once more to face his antagonists. “You look a mite young to have been looking for so long. I don’t remember kicking over a nursery in my wilder years,” my father frowned.
“My Lord is a powerful man and he rewards his most loyal subjects well.” Javier smiled cruelly, exacerbated by the injury to his face. It was a callous look that seemed to belong to an older, more jaded man.
“It’s also against the Rules.” Father leaned across his desk and spat blood into the bin beside the table.
“My master is a God. What does he care about petty rules?” Javier barked with laughter.
“Justice catches up with everyone, eventually. Even me.” My father shrugged. “Although I expected you somewhat…earlier,” he added with a hint of reproach in his voice.
Javier’s face darkened with anger and he took a step forward, but was halted by father’s next words. “After all, I’ve had thirty years to wonder how your master will react when the news becomes common knowledge.”
“What news?”
“The conspiracy to murder a High-Lord’s daughter, what else?”
My breath caught in my throat as Javier stilled for a moment but he finally shook his head. “Yesterday’s news, anyway you have no proof.”
“Proof?” father laughed. “What on Arcturus do I need proof for? Even just the accusation will cause enough scandal that it will echo amongst the High-Lords for decades to come. Coming from me, the very mouth of the assassin? It’ll be incendiary and that doesn’t even take into account the last letter that Lady Jessica Hadley wrote. I suppose you’d call it a Last Will and Testament, but between you and I, some of the accusations that she makes,” he shook his head as if in disbelief. “They’re words stained in her own blood.”
“Letter? Give it to me.”
“You’ve got to be joking. My life will be forfeit the moment that I hand it over to you.”
“Your life ended thirty years ago, since then you’ve been living on borrowed time.”
“Well, we seem to find ourselves at an impasse then,” father shrugged unconcernedly. “Give my regards to your Lord the next time you see him. I don’t think you’ll be receiving many more rewards from him. Not once he’s finished cleaning up your mess.”
“What do you want?” the question came out in a strangled tone of voice.
“A better offer. I’ll transcribe a copy of what Lady Jessica wrote; you take it back to your master and let him decide. We’ll wait here for his response. I’ve got thirty-nine rooms, so you can make yourselves comfortable while you wait.”
“You’re mad.”
“Once in a lifetime offer,” father smirked. “Take it, or kill me. Either way I can’t lose.”
“Write the damn letter.”
*****
I watched, transfixed, as father stumbled back behind his desk, slumping heavily into his chair, sliding a fresh sheet of paper in front of him. As he put pen to paper I wondered what he was going to write. However, barely halfway through the first word, he had to stop, his hand was trembling so badly. Eventually he reached across the desk and drained what little he had left in his wine glass. After this he resumed writing, the room deathly silent, nothing but the scratching of his pen and the occasional popping from the fire. He stopped writing once again and this time shook the pen, as it seemed to have run dry.
“By the High-Lords, somebody get him a pen, before I stab him with it,” Javier ranted angrily.
“I’ve got it,” father drawled, raising his hand to halt their advance. Sliding open a desk draw he withdrew a new pen, raising it high for all to see, demonstrating that the pen was indeed mightier than the sword—or gun. A few more words and he abruptly stopped, looking up, as if suddenly recalling the half dozen of them, arrayed around the desk, guns all pointing directly at him, fingers resting on triggers.
“Excuse my manners, can I get anybody a drink, while you wait?”
The roar of fury from Javier was enough to shake the bookshelves. “The next time you put down that pen, you’d better have finished, otherwise I will kill you myself.” Raising his own heavy pistol, his finger depressing the trigger slightly.
“Fine, whatever,” father shrugged, resuming his writing. “I was just trying to be a courteous host. You know, for so long I’ve lived in fear of you finding me, as I eventually knew that you would—”
“You’re right to fear my master, as his reach is boundless and as you will soon find out, utterly merciless.”
“—but the thing is, that after living with fear for so long, you start to just take it for granted and I hardly feared your Lord’s retribution. There are far worse things in life than death, I should certainly know.” With that my father put his pen down and pushed the letter forward a couple of inches, clearly demonstrating that he had finished.
Javier took a step forward to retrieve it, but was stopped from doing so by the palm of my father’s hand, coming down, to rest atop the letter.
Leaning forward, my father looked up at the disfigured man leaning across from him. “I didn't kill her you know,” he stated in a firm voice. “Your man did that and would have done the same to me, had I not fired first.”
My breath caught in my throat, as I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but instinctively knew that it was the truth. Somehow I knew that these words were really intended for me.
“He was our insurance policy,” Javier shrugged indifferently. “While we could have dispatched her at any time, it would have been messy. My Lord wanted no loose strings attached. You kill the girl, the heroic guard slays the lone, crazed assassin. All nice and neat, it’s a timeless classic.”
My father lifted his hand from the letter, allowing Javier to retrieve it, turning back towards the large decanter of wine resting on the side of his desk. Removing the stopper, he prepared to pour the contents into his empty glass. “I never cared about my life,” my father carried on regardless, interrupting Javier whose eyes had drifted down to the document, having finally lowered his pistol. “But I cared a lot about hers. She didn’t deserve that fate, but something, better. She had her whole life in front of her. I was holding her in my arms, at the very end. As I watched her life drain away I swore to myself that I would find those responsible—”
“Seems we did that for you,” Javier smirked, motioning to the half-dozen men around him.
“—and watch as you all burn,” my father hissed, venomously.
For the full decanter of wine was no longer in his hand, but instead whirling through the air in their direction. Shocked at the unexpected action the men automatically reacted—stepping aside, watching the spiralling bottle go end-over-end, but by doing so they all momentarily took their eyes off my father.
I was the only one to realise that his hands were no longer empty, but now grasping the fusion pistol that he had withdrawn from the desk, at the same time he had reached for a new pen.
The beam
from the pistol instantly reached temperatures of well over one million degrees centigrade, striking the crystal decanter dead-centre, its contents instantly ignited, sending shards of glass and burning liquid spraying in all directions. The resulting fireball engulfed the room, consuming the men arrayed around it. Even muffled behind the door their screams of pain, as the flames consumed them, were clearly audible. The fireball didn’t stop there however, but ignited the carpet and then the ancient books. In the space of a few heartbeats the room turned into a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
And into this picture, through smoke and fire, stepped my father—the devil reincarnated, with his fusion pistol glowing, the white light piercing the blaze, reaching out towards his victims, time and time again.
The armour they wore was useless against such a thing, the beam piercing the entire way through them. Between the smoke, flames and speed of the assault they were blinded; two dead before the others even had time to react. Javier only saved himself at the very last moment, from the unerring accuracy of father’s pistol, when he jerked Lucas in front of him, absorbing the blast. Discarding the now dead body, with a curse, Javier frantically tried to bring his own weapon to bear, having holstered it prior to picking up the letter.
He would never have made it in time, as already my father was adjusting his aim to fire again, were it not for with a cry, another stepped from the flames. His dark body armour smoking, with small patches of flames clearly visible, still burning, where the flaming liquid had engulfed him. He towered over my father, a veritable giant of a man, possibly forty years younger and over a hundred pounds heavier. Swinging his assault rifle as if a club, directly at my father’s head—
My father caught the weapon with his free hand, brushing it away from him, like a bothersome gnat. He literally tore it from the man’s grasp, negligently discarding it like a broken toy. The man had no time to reach for another, as the fusion beam swung back around in his direction, literally decapitating him.
Father was still turning around when the sound of another gunshot echoed around the room.
He stood frozen in place, seemingly stunned, raising his free hand where it had instinctively covered his chest. He stared in disbelief at the hand that came away bloodied. Taking a faltering step back, the fusion pistol fell from his nerveless fingers, landing with a thud on the floor. Everything was still for a moment, dark shadows dancing everywhere, cast by the flames that were now climbing the bookshelves. Taking another step back my father collided with the desk, only then did his legs finally give out, and he slid to the floor, head resting against the side of his desk.
Javier and the two other remaining men, took a cautious step forward, but lowered their weapons after a moment’s hesitation, when it became obvious that the wound was fatal.
“I win,” father gurgled, with a faint smile.
“No, now you finally die. You conceited old fool. What you should have done thirty years ago and saved us all the time and effort,” Javier spat.
“Time well spent, a precious gift bequeathed to me by Lady Jessica. Sadly, I was only able to partly repay her,” as he cast his gaze around the room, now littered with the bodies of the dead. “But why?” he coughed, blood bubbling from between his lips. “She was innocent, not deserving—who would go to so much trouble?”
“Something that you can ponder together, when you see her next. Pass on my regards.” Javier once again raised his pistol to finally finish the task that he was meant to accomplish thirty years before.
For a second time, in the span of a few minutes, the sound of a single gunshot echoed throughout the room and then everything went still.
My father was dead.
*****
I couldn’t believe it. For so long he’d been a fixture in my life, a giant of a man, larger than life, always striding along besides me, now gone, forever. A cry of pain, anguish and despair rang out. As if the heavenly angels were crying out at his loss. A man, who with my final words I cursed, disparaged and vilified—for a crime he didn’t even commit.
It was only when three pairs of eyes swung in my direction, surprise evident in their faces that I realised that the scream had come from my own throat. In blind panic I stumbled away from the concealed door, half running, half falling down the steps in the direction of the ship and safety. I hadn’t waited a moment too soon, as behind me the door exploded inwards in a cloud of wooden shards, burning pages, smoke and flames. I glanced back wildly to see the three of them, hurrying through the gaping hole. Paying more attention to them than the steps, I missed one, tripped, and went flying head over heels down the stairs.
That fall saved my life.
The hail of gunfire went straight over my head, where I had been standing only moments before with stone fragments and bullets flying all around me. Coming to a halt in a pile of battered and bruised limbs at the bottom of the stairs, I didn’t even hesitate, sprinting in the direction of the ship as if my very life depended upon it, which of course, it did.
I finally made it to the ship and frantically hammered on the panel to close the door, which thankfully it did with seconds to spare. The bullets pinged against the door, like hail during a thunderstorm. Gasping for breath, I made my way to the flight deck, slumping into one of the pilot’s seats.
Looking through the cockpit windows, I soon realised that I had made a fatal mistake. I thought that I was safe because their guns couldn’t penetrate the ship and they didn’t have the access codes to enter, but they didn’t need either, because from pouches in their dark armour, they withdrew a number of small, squat, oblong devices. I had no idea what they might be, until one-by-one they drew pins from them, before tossing the devices towards the ship. I could hear them bounce against the hull, coming to a rest above, and below, the ship.
While I had never seen a grenade before, I instinctively knew that is what they must be. I had no idea what sort of damage they could inflict on the ship, and had no plans to hang around to find out. One glance at the flight instruments was enough to show that all pre-flight checks had already been carried out and the engines were simply in standby. The ship was ready to depart at a moment’s notice. Suddenly my father’s earlier words rang out through my head, how he had been expecting these men, for over thirty years. No wonder he never left his study, he had his escape route long planned out, ready and waiting.
One that I had no hesitation in using.
Activating the pre-programmed launch sequence, the ship immediately came to life. The thrusters glowed an incandescent white and with a noticeable tremble the ship slowly rose into the air, the nose swinging around as soon as the ship was clear of the ground. I could feel the vibrations as the landing pads retracted, along with the ominous sound of the grenades grating across the length of the ship. My worries about the grenades were cut short when, with an ominous rumble, the main engines came to life and the ship started to edge forward—directly towards a rock wall! It was only then that I remembered the cavern didn’t have any entrances, or exits, large enough to fit the ship.
Another scream was torn from my lips, as the ship suddenly leapt forward, like a stallion from the starting gate. The ship was immediately buffeted by multiple explosions and, for a horrifying instant, I thought it was caused by the ship colliding with the wall, but the explosions were coming from behind the ship. For at the same time a massive hanger door had revealed itself, as black as the surrounding rock, obviously being pre-programmed along with the launch sequence, as the ship slipped through it with inches to spare on either side. Behind the door, on both sides of the ship, was cave after cave, full of stalagmites and massive tree roots.
All raced past in the blink of an eye, as the ship continued to accelerate, until eventually I was pressed back into the seat. Like some great invisible hand was pushing against my chest. Ahead I could just make out a spot of light, which grew and grew, until before I’d even realised what was happening the ship was out of the caves and flying through a massive waterfall. I could h
ear the sudden pounding of the water against the hull and then everything went white, as the ship abruptly climbed into the sky. Droplets of water fell from the hull and in the bright sunlight everything seemed to glow like a kaleidoscope, a brilliant prism of colours—and then I was free. Climbing higher and higher into the sky, most obviously on some sort of pre-programmed flight path.
Somehow I had made it out alive or, so I had thought, but my mad-dash escape was far from being over.
The ship had barely broken atmosphere, struggling against the incessant pull of gravity, trying to pull us back to Arcturus, when a whole new panel of the ship’s flight-display suddenly lit up, showing an intricate, three-dimensional hologram, of another ship.
Earlier when I was discussing the ranking of ships, well, this new one was fairly high up on that list. Although, it was totally incapable of landing on a planet or even entering the atmosphere, as that would have interfered with all the guns, missiles and laser emplacements protruding from the ship.
A warship; heavy destroyer class, and it was gaining, rapidly.
My first instinct was to call for help, before common sense overrode that idea. After all this was Arcturus and all we had was the SPC Orion. Having patched that ship up myself, I was fully aware of its capabilities—and it wouldn’t last five seconds against this monster.
My next idea was simply to outrun it, after all the Celeste was far smaller and appeared to have more powerful engines than one would have imagined. I idly wondered what Professor Alcubierre might have done to improve them? Possibly they generated artificial wormholes to allow instantaneous Galaxy spanning travel? My musings were rudely interrupted by a shrill alarm. As I wondered how things could get any worse, the image of the warship vanished, to be replaced with what seemed like a map of the surrounding space, with the Celeste in the middle. Visible on this a dozen or so blinking red dots fast approaching the ship, it didn’t appear as if I would be outrunning them after all…
