The Only Game in the Galaxy

by Paul Collins

  Esprin remembered his training.

  Though a poor pupil, he had absorbed was that the best way to carry out a mission such as this was with boldness, confidence and doing everything in plain sight as if he had a right to do it.

  And it worked. No one questioned him, no one stopped him, no one averted the disaster to come.

  Esprin had taken advantage of Black’s absence to familiarise himself with the ship’s systems. He was as far advanced as anyone else, the old empire dreadnoughts being an unknown quantity. Esprin marvelled that he had lived to see one, to board one of the great myths of his time!

  Pity he was going to destroy it.

  In his wanderings he had discovered the ship’s stockpile of nuclear warheads. So far, Black had refrained from using them, probably because Se’atma Minor was more useful to him intact and radiation-free, but also because he would never be forgiven for such a transgression.

  Empire building was one thing, Esprin mused, but politics was politics.

  Esprin moved aft, nodding cheerfully to all he met. He tried not to think of all the lives that could be lost. It was war, and not one that his side had started. Nevertheless, he intended to provide a warning. He had satisfied himself that there were sufficient lifeboats to get everybody off.

  Just not Black.

  Maintaining his course, Esprin entered engineering territory, veering off before he hit the power room. He navigated a maze of access corridors and disused companionways, coming finally to the door he wanted. There he stopped, taking several gasping gulps, like a fish suddenly beached.

  He seized the manual door clamp, feeling the cold metal in his fist. Sweat dripped from his brow into his eyes, dripped from the end of his nose.

  ‘You can do it,’ he whispered to himself. ‘You can do this …’

  He rotated the clamp, stepped inside, and locked the door behind him.

  Maximus woke suddenly and leapt to his feet. He felt refreshed, and amazed he’d slept – actually slept. An old emperor – Nero? – had played an archaic string instrument while his empire burned. And Maximus got some shuteye while men and women on Se’atma died.

  He almost felt guilty as he sent a coded message to Anneke Longshadow, offering terms for peace. At the same time he ordered his forces down on the planet – those that would respond – to be recalled.

  He’d made his decision.

  Excited, he hurried to Jeera’s apartment and knocked. He’d meant to see her as soon as he’d returned, but he’d felt so confused, so torn … Now he was clear. He could answer the question she had put to him (that seemed so long ago).

  They would go away together. They would have children. He would make a family, like a normal person. And maybe the ghosts of his past would leave him alone.

  There was no answer. Jeera must be sleeping. He quietly pushed open the door and entered. The room was in shadow. His eyes didn’t adjust at once.

  He moved awkwardly to her bedside, and gingerly patted the blankets. She wasn’t in the bed. He called out softly, ‘Jeera? It’s me – Maxim.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Jeera.’ Louder this time.

  Still nothing.

  He ordered lights, and stood blinking in the sudden radiance. The room was empty – bare. He ran to the closet, yanking open the doors. And staggered back. All Jeera’s clothes were gone. He turned, and the room seemed to spin around him. Where had she gone? Why?

  On her dresser sat an e-pad.

  Licking his lips, he picked it up. A message was waiting for him. He hit ‘accept’.

  Jeera’s face appeared on screen: ‘By the time you get this, Maxim, I’ll be long gone. Seems you’ve chosen to abandon me. So be it. I was planning on leaving anyway, this just makes it easier. Please don’t try to follow me. I never loved you – I was just … toying with the idea of love. Trust me, it’s better this way. I was only an exotic piece of property to you anyway …’

  The screen went dead, and so did Maximus’ heart.

  Esprin finished wiring the bombs. Should be quite an explosion. Might take out some of the dreadnoughts in the neighbourhood. It would certainly damage them.

  Esprin checked his watch, synching it with the countdown. He intended detonating the bombs personally, but if something should happen, if courage failed him, then his mission would still succeed.

  He carefully closed and re-clamped the door, using a field-coagulator to weld the door shut.

  Whistling tunelessly, he made his way forward.

  Maximus was in a rage. How could he have been so stupid? Soft? No! He hadn’t grown soft, he’d gone insane! Well, he was about to put that right.

  Feeling intense hatred, the first thing he did was reverse the recall order. Then he committed more Omegans to the ground assault. He almost repudiated the peace overture he’d made to Anneke, but at the last second he let it stand. If it confused them, if it slowed them down or made them hesitate, so much the better.

  Maximus possessed a cold fury; he had his focus back. He would crush them that very day. By nightfall, he would be emperor of the galaxy.

  The captain buzzed him outside his ready room. ‘The assault team is assembled, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ said Maximus. ‘I’m heading there now.’

  He half opened the door to the ready room but, instead of entering, he closed it, and turned. And stopped. He’d heard the tiniest click when he’d shut the door, a sound out of the ordinary. He tried the door again. It was locked. His field generator was picking up an intense beta-field. A quick scan showed that the entire ready room was gripped by an almost impregnable field.

  He stared at the door, a chill crawling up his spine. Someone had laid a trap for him, and he had nearly walked into it. Well, well, well. We have an assassin on board.

  Maximus put distance between himself and the ready room and took a roundabout route to the bay where the assault team waited, contacting the captain on the way on a secure channel.

  ‘Run a scan for intruders, but keep it hush-hush. Oh, and something else.’ He told her how to create a fake field-signature for him and project it into his ready room, using the room’s existing field hub. If anyone scanned his room from the outside, they would believe he was trapped inside. If his would-be assassin became overconfident, there was a better chance of nabbing them.

  He found the assault team ready and waiting. The leader, Palk, was a battle-hardened veteran. She saluted Maximus and at his command, moved her team onto a small stealth craft.

  Ten minutes later they pulled away from the ship.

  Esprin was shaking. He couldn’t help it.

  As he neared Black’s ready room, the shaking worsened, but the moment his scan showed Black inside, imprisoned in the unbreakable beta-field, his nerves vanished and a strange calm came over him.

  He had trapped the most dangerous psychopath in the galaxy! And in a little while, he’d be dead.

  Esprin initiated a communications shut down. No messages could get on or off the ship. He then set off the pre-recorded message announcing that the ship would self-destruct in six minutes.

  He felt rather than heard the pounding of desperate feet. Then he broadcast a message into the ready room.

  ‘Black, this is me, Esprin,’ he said. ‘I just wanted you to know it was me who did this. In less than two minutes, we’ll both be dead.’ He laughed, just like one of his heroes in an old film. ‘Even you can’t get out of a locked beta-field in that time! And if you did, where would you go? I disabled the portable Dyson gate.’ Esprin took a deep breath. He debated whether to tell Black the next bit, and decided he would. He wanted Black to be sorry he’d ever tangled with Esprin Harbage. He wanted Black to die cursing Esprin’s name.

  ‘It’s about your girlfriend. She didn’t leave. I made her go. I had my gun pointed at her when she made that recording. And I put her on her ship, pre-programmed it, and put it into a communications lock-down for a week. She’ll be fine, by the way. She’s on her way home.’ He laughed agai
n. ‘Just like you – if you can call Hell home …’

  Still chuckling, he cut the connection, then sent a secure data burst down to the planet, informing Anneke or whoever picked it up of the actions he’d taken.

  Esprin looked at his watch. Thirty seconds to go.

  He licked his lips. They were dry.

  Maximus stared back at the Saviour.

  What the hell was going on? Every lifeboat and shuttle was being launched.

  He tried contacting the ship, but there was no signal, interference was blocking local communications. Dammit, what was happening there? He almost turned the ship around. He didn’t like surprises …

  Then the ship exploded.

  ‘I’M going,’ said Anneke. ‘Deal with it.’

  Arvakur nodded, and buckled on his field-generator. Fat Fraddo did likewise.

  Anneke put her hands on her hips. ‘What do you two think you’re doing?’

  ‘You’re not going alone,’ said Arvakur.

  Fat Fraddo added, ‘Deal with it.’

  Anneke snorted. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Take me with you,’ said a voice.

  Anneke turned, regarding the Envoy, still shackled and ominously silent since his arrival.

  ‘Anneke –’ started Arvakur.

  Anneke ignored him. She addressed the alien. ‘Why do you want to come?’

  ‘I can protect you.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘You are il kedra.’

  ‘One of them.’

  ‘The time of Kadros is come.’

  ‘Maybe this ain’t a good idea, girl,’ Fat Fraddo said.

  ‘I don’t know …’ said Anneke, eyeing the alien. On sudden impulse, she said, ‘Release him.’ Her sense of certainty had reappeared. ‘He’s coming with us.’

  A short time later, they were on the move. Their sector was quiet, but Anneke knew that Omegan forces were heading in their general direction. Despite Black’s sudden request for peace terms and the commencement of withdrawal, he had reversed his recall and grounded even more Omegans.

  Anneke had no idea what was going on. Black had suddenly become schizophrenic. Or he just wanted to confuse the hell out of them.

  They were halfway to the consulate when Anneke received a redirected signal from the war room, using her personal ID as an encryption tag. She took receipt, decrypted the message, and listened with growing sadness – and admiration – to Esprin as he outlined his intention to destroy Black and blow up the ship.

  When the message ended, she blinked back tears. ‘Idiot,’ she said softly.

  Esprin should never have been an agent. He wasn’t cut out for it. And now he had to go and be a hero.

  Minutes later, she took another call, this time from her tactical officer. Three minutes ago, she heard, the Saviour had detonated in a nuclear explosion. Five dreadnoughts had been damaged and two had been destroyed.

  According to intel, the commanders of Black’s fleet had either been on board the Saviour or on approach when the explosion occurred. So unless they had miraculously abandoned ship in time …

  Anneke couldn’t believe it. Single-handedly, Esprin had reversed the naval battle, evening the playing field. She ordered her entire fleet to attack, including back-ups.

  See what Black thought of that. If he wasn’t in a zillion pieces.

  Deema bolted inside the consulate, ducking behind a counter, and went still, listening hard. She heard nothing except the far-off muffled sounds of fighting.

  She lifted her head and peered over the counter.

  Suddenly, half a dozen Omegans came into view, skidding to a stop outside the consulate entrance. They stared in at her, but made no move to enter.

  After a long tense moment, they moved away.

  Deema breathed a sigh of relief.

  Now to find her mother.

  They were six blocks from the consulate when two things happened. Shells began to fall in the sector ahead of them, and they were attacked by a band of at least a hundred Omegans.

  Anneke’s team dropped many creatures with blaster hits while she heaved a handful of tiny Omegan-tailored shredders at the oncoming monsters, reducing their numbers greatly, but the remaining creatures did not falter in their charge.

  Anneke ramped up her deflector field, drew out an expandable vibroblade, and lunged at the lead creature, decapitating it and moving on to the next, and the next. Like Lob Lotang, she’d guessed that the vibroblade was the handiest close-combat weapon against the Omegans, slicing through their armoured hide and limbs like a hot wire through butter.

  The others took the hint, whipping out their own blades. The Envoy, however, used cold hard steel, doing more damage than all the others put together. Watching him fight was awe-inspiring. He was the most lethal creature Anneke had ever seen.

  She was glad he was on her side. If he was.

  The Omegan ranks swelled as others joined the fray. The fighting became fierce – it also became a lost cause. More and more Omegans appeared from side streets. If these were the forerunners of the general surge into this sector, Anneke and her team were doomed.

  The Envoy was suddenly beside her. ‘This position is untenable.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘We should leave.’

  ‘Lead the way.’

  The Envoy drew out a device, flicked a stud, and threw it into the heaviest concentration of Omegans. ‘Shut your eyes,’ the Envoy said.

  ‘Close your eyes!’ Anneke yelled to her team.

  She covered her own with her hands. Even so, when it came, the intensely brilliant noiseless blast was painful. When the Envoy said it was safe to look again, black specks danced before her eyes and it took some time before the scene came into focus.

  When it did, she recoiled in shock. The Omegans closest to the blast were – gone. Little heaps of dust dotted the ground where they had been. The Omegans furthest away were stumbling around mindlessly, blinded by the flash.

  Anneke swallowed. ‘We’re out of here.’

  A shell struck the consulate, shaking building and raising a cloud of dust. Deema heard walls and floors crashing down.

  ‘Hello? Hello?!’ she yelled.

  Deema raced through room after room, down corridors, up stairs to the next floor and the next, all the time calling out. She was frantic. What if her mother was hurt, buried beneath rubble or hit by shrapnel?

  Pushing open a door, she dashed inside. Something grabbed her. She screamed and kicked, and a hand clamped over her mouth while a lowered voice hissed in her ear. ‘Be quiet, child. I won’t hurt you. We’re not alone!’

  Deema relaxed and the hand was removed. She twisted round, peering at the shadow figure.

  It was a woman, with streaks of grey in her hair, her face lined. She held out her hand. ‘Come with me, I know a place that’s safe.’

  Deema gave her her hand. She went with the woman through a series of rooms and up a spiral staircase to the topmost floor. Here they entered a strange circular room, in the centre of which was a shivering darkness, like a black flame, if that were possible.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Deema, her eyes wide.

  ‘I don’t know, but they won’t come in here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those others – the ghosts.’

  Deema gulped. ‘Ghosts?’

  ‘That’s what I call ’em,’ said the woman, chuckling at the girl’s wide-eyed awe. ‘They’re something to do with the Sentinels. If you stand still long enough they talk to you.’

  Deema nervously glanced around the room. Her lower lip quivered.

  The woman clucked, hugging the child to her. ‘Oh, honey, I didn’t mean to scare you. They’re not real ghosts – that’s just a word …’

  Deema stood back, brushing at her eyes. ‘Are you Mirella?’

  The woman’s face registered shock. ‘How do you know my name?’

  Deema started to cry.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing, whatever’s wrong?’ Using the sleeve of h
er jacket, she dabbed at the girl’s tears.

  Deema felt her throat constrict. Every fearful feeling she’d ever had welled up inside her. ‘I’m – I’m Deema …’

  ‘Well, that’s a nice –’ Mirella began, but then her face froze. Her hand flew to her mouth and she began to shake.

  ‘Not – not – not my Deema –?’ She stiffened, as if she’d stepped off the edge of a cliff.

  Deema nodded, her lip quivering. ‘Are you – my mother?’

  Mirella uttered a moan that came up from great depth, like a continent rising from beneath the sea. Sweeping up the girl in her arms, she pressed her face against hers, and wept.

  Deema held her mother and they cried together.

  They did not notice the black flame shrinking, did not see it disappear. And they did not hear the rush of clawed feet pounding into the lobby four floors below.

  Anneke found the bodies of Lob Lotang and Alisk, wrapped in each other’s arms. She removed her tunic, covering their faces. Fat Fraddo called to her quietly, pointing down the street where Omegans were streaming into the consulate. Whatever had kept them out was no longer doing so.

  Anneke extruded sticky fields and swarmed up the side of the nearest building. The others followed suit. How the Envoy accomplished the climb without the use of field technology, Anneke did not know.

  Once on the rooftop, they made their way to the consulate roof where Anneke left Fat Fraddo as lookout (she knew that Omegans could climb) and headed, grim-faced, down the central stairwell, running a scan of the building’s interior as she went. There was a lot of interference but she detected a human signature on the upper floor.