by S. K. Benton
Jennie then asked their host, “So Draagh, are lycans the only surviving subspecies on Azul, or did any of the others also emigrate? And further, why do we not know about this? Is there anyone who does know? I mean, I find it impossible to believe that no one would know, if it were true.”
“My dear Jennie,” Draagh continued, “There are those who suspect, but none who really know. You both suspected that you were different, but simply chalked it up to each being a unique individual - which you are - but much more so than any other normal. This is all-important for you to learn and understand, because yes, those who crave death, the ghouls, also made it to Azul, but in lesser numbers than your kind. Still, they exist. In fact, that traitorous imbecile flying around looking for something is of that subspecies.”
“Lieutenant Johnsons is a… ghoul?” asked Jennie.
Draagh took another sip of scotch and said, “Yes, I am afraid to say. That is probably why he was capable of committing such a horrendous act aboard your ship. His father, I am afraid, is even worse.”
Jennie felt sick to her stomach. Not only had she been used and betrayed by Ryder Johnson, but he was also somehow a genetic deviant whose ancestors reveled in death and mayhem. Bagatelle also found a bit of reason in what Draagh was saying, and crinkled his nose in a look of disgust
“Councilman Johnson. He’s been a thorn in the side of the military for years. I never trusted him, and now it looks like I wasn’t without reason.”
Draagh knew he was getting through to Bagatelle and Jennie. He also knew that he had to get going, but he needed to convince them that what he was doing was absolutely necessary. Feeling his new friends were ready for a bit more information, Draagh waved his hand down and in the direction of Bagatelle’s portable console.
“Luigi my friend, please check your device. It has detailed logs and vids of the Vrol invasion of Earth, as well as Max’s analysis of the amoeba that was used to decimate the population.”
Bagatelle went through his console, reading data and watching videos for the next fifteen minutes, with Jennie looking over his shoulder, when finally Draagh spoke again.
“You will need to return to Azul and prepare forces to engage the Vrol. I will take Max and Jennie with me to—”
“What? I‘m not going anywhere with you – or… that!” yelled Jennie, interrupting the old man and pointing at Max.
At the very moment, Draagh casually waved his hand out toward the two officers from The Revolution, causing them to immediately stop in mid-sentence as they instantly grew glassy-eyed expressions. Max looked at them, astounded, and then turned to Draagh.
“Um, Draagh, what did you just do?”
“I needed to stop them for a moment. Jennie was about ready to go ballistic, as they say, and Luigi was not far behind, my son.”
“So… you are controlling them?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“Oh… cool.” (*8*)
Draagh made another little waving gesture with his hand, and although they maintained their dumfounded expressions, he began to give them instructions.
“My friends, although it pains me to do this, I must guide you into making the correct decision. Luigi, you are going to leave this place and return to your ship, where you will make every effort possible to apprehend Lt. Johnson. Max is no longer a consideration for you.”
Bagatelle continued staring and nodded his head slowly in agreement. Then Draagh spoke to Jennie, giving her different, but equally important instructions.
“Jennie, you are going to willingly accompany us, as you will need to keep an eye on Max. Also, you are due for shore-leave and this is a perfect opportunity for you to get out and do something different.”
Just as Bagatelle had done so did Jennie, slowly nodding her head.
“Hey! It’s like they’re mind-wiped or something. Is she going to stay that way?”
“No, my son - I shall release them soon, but they will believe that everything that is to transpire is perfectly normal.”
“Oh, bummer. Um… I have an idea then. Can you make her… nice? I mean… she really wants to kill me.”
“No Max, no, no, no. I shall not do that. She needs to keep her wits about her. It is a precarious thing I do, and if I delve further into their minds I could do irreparable harm.”
“Seriously? You can’t just make her a little bit less of a bitch? I mean, she’s super-hot and all, but man – she comes with some serious baggage, although her surname is cool. Es Caliente. Haw!”
Max laughed at his own little joke, making a play on words from the girl’s last name.
Draagh continued to survey his two subjects as they sat staring into space, their eyes completely lacking focus.
“Jennie was to come with us in the first place. I believe we have accomplished a great deal by visiting with them, but they needed just a bit of prodding at the end. Luigi would never have willingly allowed the girl to accompany us, for more reasons than are apparent.”
“You mean, I have to travel with her? Oh God, for how long? This going to suck – I can see it now. She’ll be making me do pushups and wash the dishes. The chick’s a tyrant!”
Draagh turned to Max and smiled,putting a hand on his shoulder as he said, “My boy, she will be with us – with you, for quite a long time. She will eventually warm to us both, but it must happen without my tinkering or mental manipulations to make it truly…”
“Truly what?”
Then Max stopped and his face brightened up, as if he had a great idea. “No! It’s ok. You see, I’m her superior officer, so she can’t tell me to do anything. Ha! This is gonna be great.”
Draagh grinned, but turned away, saying nothing. The old man then waved his hand out and released Bagatelle and Jennie from his grip.
“Yes! I need to make sure that Gunnarsson doesn’t try to escape, and that these two aren’t pulling a scam.” Jennie turned and continued by straightening her shoulders and looking to her commanding office. “Sir, I request permission to go with these two and make sure everything is on the up and up.”
Bagatelle nodded his head slowly. Then, looking at Max and Draagh, then down at his console and then back at the two he said, “I agree completely. This will allow me to concentrate on tracking down Lt. Johnson, as his crimes shall not go unpunished. Plus, I think there is a deeper plot to this, with Johnson’s father most probably having a hand in it all.”
Nodding to Jennie, he continued, “Jennie, I am going to go one step further, as I don’t want your efforts hampered by military protocols. I am temporarily relieving you of your duties and placing you on leave. This can be justified because you have accrued months of paid vacation time. Go, be safe and do what you need to do. I’ll take care of the Council back home. Our new friend here has given me enough information to justify retrofitting the fleet.”
Jennie nodded to the admiral, and then both looked over at Draagh, as well as a very perplexed Max, who was slightly miffed, not having been able to convince Draagh to basically do the equivalent of a mind-wipe on the very pretty, but unkind dega. Still, he was looking forward to being in charge of her.
Bagatelle started flicking through his portable console some more, while Jennie just glared at Max, and then suddenly stood up to extend her long, femininely muscular legs. Raising her arms above her head and yawning, she further stretched out luxuriously, with her curvaceous figure accentuated by her pose, with Max looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Ok, Draagh, then what are we doing?” asked Max. “You said we are going somewhere, so spit it out.”
“Spit it – out? My dear boy, I shall do no such thing. Spitting is a practice best done in private,” exclaimed the old mage.
“I think what the idiot means is that he wants an explanation about where we are going,” said Jennie, which made Max look at her with an unusually perturbed expression.
“Look Lieutenant, you may not like me, but I am a superior officer. Show some respect.”
Jennie rolled her eyes and made a sound out of disdain in response to Max’s comment.
Bagatelle then interrupted the three-way conversation and said, “I’ll have to make up a story about how we never found Gunnarsson or his ship, and why one of my junior officers didn’t return with us. I can’t very well lie and say she perished when the airlock was blown because there are logs showing her activity afterwards.”
“Why don’t you say she took a transport down to Sienna once you reached Azul system? She could have been traumatized by the sabotage and was… in need of a sabbatical?” suggested Max with an inquisitive tone to his voice, while simultaneously receiving a hateful glare from Jennie.
“Excellent idea! Excellent!” exclaimed Draagh. “Very well then. To answer your question - we are going to the Black Forest in what was known as Bavaria, in the European continent. In fact, this is from where your kind originated.”
“Hey, I thought my ancestors were from South America,” stated Jennie.
“Oh my dear, not originally. You will see, as all will be revealed quite soon. Yes, quite soon indeed.”
“Are there humans in the Black Forest? Was it left untouched during the Vrol invasion? Or were they all killed?” asked Max.
“Oh, there are many humans, and lycans - even some ghouls and a few cannibals… but no, it was not left untouched. It was destroyed. However, after millennia it grew back quite nicely. In fact, we retuned that energy I was speaking of earlier, so you will both have a chance to - how should I put it – grow?”
“Draagh, I did a scan on the planet and detected no life. How could I have missed it? Do all humans live in caves or something?” asked Max.
“Oh, right now they do, yes, right now. That is why you could not detect them, but where we are going people live in lovely little homes, in quaint villages. It is quite beautiful. One of my favorite periods.”
Jennie and Max gave him an odd look as he reached his arm out, causing his ornate, mahogany staff to come flying into his grip. Bagatelle’s jaw dropped as Draagh gave him a wink and said, “Come, let us begin. Max, put on some fresh clothes. Oh, and you might want to bring a toothbrush. Dental hygiene is not on the top of everyone’s list where we are going.”
“Or should I also say, to when we are going.” (*9*)
In a dark office in the Azul Security Council headquarters, Councilman Len Johnson looked at the readout on his private console. As communication between the two parties had a delay of hours for each message sent, plus a few minutes for the translator to run its course, he had collected them all into a page, making it easier to read.
Johnson: My agent reaches Earth soon. Are you sure that there is no further danger of infection?
X’than’dor: No imminent threat
Johnson: What is your ETA?
X’than’dor: 5.317 of your standard years
Johnson: And you will not approach Earth?
X’than’dor: We have no interest in Earth
Johnson: Excellent. I get Earth, and I will give you Azul
X’than’dor: We shall take it anyway
Johnson: That is fine. My agent reached Earth. Planet is intact
X’than’dor: Explain what means word "fine". It is logic. It is reality. Earth died. We continue. Azul dies. We continue
Johnson read the script over and over again, and, being completely amoral and borderline sociopathic, had no regrets. Once Ryder got Gunnarsson’s transport and brought it back, they would reverse-engineer the craft and outfit three of the barges left over from the Exodus, returning to Earth to yet again create a brave, new world.
How fortunate, he thought, that the Vrol didn’t have faster-than-light travel capabilities.
Chapter 10 – Packing
Max finished gathering a gear bag, and made sure he didn’t forget his toothbrush. He was unsure of where they were going, but as he had travelled to Los Angeles with Draagh in less than a second, he knew he was going somewhere, and that this was all real. An extra change of clothing, his Stinger, a portable console and other assorted sundries and he was ready. Exiting from his cabin, he saw Draagh standing in galley, so he set his bag down, kneeling to go through it.
“Max, you can leave your weapon and computing device. They fail to work where we are going.”
“What?!?” exclaimed Max. “They won’t work? You mean I’ll be defenseless?”
Draagh chuckled, being quite amused at the lad’s dismay, and said, “My boy, you most certainly will not be defenseless. Oh no. You will be quite formidable. In fact, there are some particulars regarding you that I left out of our discussion, as my intention was to convince our friends out there that we needed to leave, and that Jennie needed to come with us. It was an incredibly burdensome decision for the commander to make. After all, sending one’s own blood to whereabouts unknown is always difficult.”
Max’s eyes practically bulged out of his head as he blurted, “She’s his—”
“Shhhhhh!!” hissed Draagh, cutting Max off. “Quiet my boy. As of this time, she is unaware of their relationship, but he well knows, and that is why he has always kept her under his command since locating her. However, he was never one to overly-protect the girl. He simply expects more out of her, and pushes her harder to be at her best. He now merely sees this as another opportunity to help her to reach the next level, as they say.”
Max lilted his head to the side, pondering what Draagh had said, and then popped back up, saying, “Ok, I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Max and Draagh walked out of The Machu Picchu, the loading ramp and bay doors gently closing behind them as they approached Bagatelle and Jennie, who were still by the fire pit. It seemed that Bagatelle was giving Jennie some last minute instructions, so Max tried to look busy, picking some stuff up and screwing the cap back on the Glenfiddich bottle, which Draagh eyed appraisingly. He wanted to listen to what they were saying, but Draagh casually strolled up and commented on the woman’s belongings.
“Jennie, you may as well leave your weapon with your superior officer. It will be of no use to you where we are going.”
“Hey, just a minute,” exclaimed Bagatelle, “she will need to be able to protect herself.”
Draagh put up his hand as if it were a motion to stop and said, “Luigi, where we are going there is that energy I spoke of. No modern technology will work there, so the weapon will be useless.”
Jennie looked at Draagh with pleading eyes. “Can I bring it anyway, even If it doesn’t work?”
Draagh considered for a moment, and then said, “I guess that would be fine.”
With that, Max went running back to The Machu Picchu, and hitting a button on a fob in his hand, caused the loading bay ramp to drop. Once the bay doors opened, he bounded inside and grabbed his own equipment. Exiting, he gave everyone an expectant look.
“Well? If she gets to bring hers along, then so do I.”
Jennie rolled her eyes back, and turned, making an audible gawd, while heading for the open area outside where The Machu Picchu was docked.
Looking back she found the location quite lovely, and wished she had come here on a friendlier mission. Now, as it was, she was basically stuck with this Max, whom she still considered a traitor - and a geek - and an old Viking with some seriously impressive parlor tricks - but she knew in her heart that it was all real.
Draagh called everyone together to explain what they were all going to do. He was going to use his staff to transport himself, Max and Jennie, to the Black Forest, but when he started the power accumulation sequence on his staff, Bagatelle’s ship would be visible, so the rear admiral had to lift off either before or after they had ported out. Bagatelle chose to stay and watch, wanting to make sure that this wasn’t a bunch of hooey.
“Draagh, what about my ship? Will it be safe here?” asked Max.
“Yes, my son,” he replied, “I shall conjure a light-bending wall that should hold until we return. Anyone who comes here will only see an empty, naturally-occurring cave in
the jungle.”
Max felt a bit more relieved and then walked over to Bagatelle and spoke.
“Sir. I know that you came here to get me, and I appreciate that you were following orders. I broke the rules, and for that I am sorry - but there is something much bigger than either of us here, and I think we both know that the Vrol should be our main concern. I know I’m tooting my own horn, but thanks to what I did, you were able to travel through side space and prove that military vessels can, and should have SSCC technology installed. I only hope that you can convince the Council of this.”
He looked over at Jennie, and then back to Bagatelle and continued in a low whisper, “And I know you may not believe it, Sir, but I’ll take care of her… with my life.”
Bagatelle’s eyes slightly widened in surprise, but he immediately returned a dull stare. Max stepped back, and gave Bagatelle a smart salute, which the commanding officer returned in sharp fashion.
“So, are we ready?” asked Draagh.
Jennie then stepped forward and said, “Sir, am I officially relieved of duty?”
Bagatelle nodded in the affirmative.
“So, Sir. I am no longer bound by rank, and Gunnarsson is no longer my superior officer?”
“Hey! Wait a minute!” said Max, while Bagatelle again nodded to her in the affirmative.
“Shut up, Gunnarsson. You’re not my superior. This isn’t a military operation.”
Draagh snickered, quite enjoying the antagonistic banter between his two young charges. Max gave a look of slight resignation, muttering under his breath, and then turned to Draagh, who said, “Very well then! Let us begin. Commander, you will need to be at least 300 meters away from us, as the energy field produced by my staff for such a far-off port is quite immense. May I suggest you wait up in your transport?”
Bagatelle looked up toward the ruins, which were not visible from where they stood and said, “Well, it will take me a while to get up there, so give me a bit,” not looking forward to the hike up the switchbacks that led to the top.
