Death Returns

by J. C. Diem

  ·~·

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gregor set his sly scheme into motion by lying to Sanderson. He advised the general that the ship was heading northward to offload its cargo of droids this time. Sanderson immediately ordered his people into action. In truth, the ship was descending towards the southern end of the strip but I was the only one who would be waiting for it when it touched down.

  Zapping myself into the fancy lobby of a casino, I peeked out through the door and watched the ship descend. The ramp lowered and neat ranks of shiny metal men disembarked. I waited for the tail end of the droids to appear before I went on the move.

  Materializing beside an abandoned van, I used it for cover as I moved in closer to observe the robots. They marched in orderly rows of five abreast as they exited from the spaceship. They were going to have to hunt far and wide to find humans to turn into clones. As ordered by the soldiers, most of the townsfolk were stampeding towards the eastern and western suburbs. Gregor would shortly advise Sanderson that the ship had changed course. The soldiers would then be redirected to the strip to battle the droids. If Gregor’s plan worked, the mother ship wouldn’t be returning to pick them up when dawn next rolled around.

  When the last droid stepped onto the road, the ramp immediately began to close. I teleported myself inside just before it snapped shut. Just like in my dream, the hold was dark and the walls were a uniform black. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the gloom then I trotted silently down a hallway.

  I couldn’t feel the ship moving but I knew it had taken off when I sensed my friends and allies rapidly receding. My senses picked up most of the Viltarans gathered together in a small clump. The rest were spread throughout the gigantic vessel, performing tasks that I neither knew nor cared about. Picking one of the aliens at random, I willed myself to appear a few feet away from him. Surprise briefly registered on his misshapen, familiar face. I recognized him to be the runt of the litter, the weakest link in the Viltaran chain of command that had a beak for a nose. He was the perfect subject for an experiment that Gregor suggested I should try.

  Snarling, he leaped at me and I allowed myself to be caught in his crushing grip. He lifted me up to his level and his head reared back as he readied himself to bite my face off. Our eyes met and his rage slowly turned to puzzlement as my vampire mojo went to work. Caught in my dark snare, he lacked the will to free himself and became mine. I hadn’t been sure that my hypnotism would work on our distant ancestors but Gregor had been confident that I would succeed. I was glad he was right because my task had just become a lot easier.

  “Put me down,” I ordered my new slave. He did so then waited for further instructions. “Are there any escape pods on this ship?” I spoke fluent Viltaran and I was almost grateful to have been shot with the nanobot darts. It’d hurt like hell but they’d given me a couple of cool new abilities, one of which meant that we wouldn’t need a robot to translate our conversation.

  “Yes,” he intoned. His scarlet eyes stared blankly over my head.

  “Do you know how to disable them?” He nodded again. “Where can this be done?”

  “In the engine room or in the command centre.”

  “Is anyone in the engine room at the moment?”

  Turning jerkily, he touched a small monitor. A picture of a room full of high tech equipment appeared. A lone Viltaran female was tinkering with something. Concentrating on her, I took my captive by the wrist and willed us both to her side. She started back at our sudden arrival and I didn’t give her time to react. “Kill her,” I ordered my slave.

  Obeying me instantly, he calmly took out his death ray and shot his colleague. She disappeared in a whirl of particles. “Disable the escape pods so no one can leave the ship,” I ordered. Several minutes later, he completed the job and went still again. “Can you control the direction of the ship from here?”

  “No,” he said with a shake of his head. His grey scalp shone through his light fuzz of hair. “The ship can only be controlled from the command centre.”

  I had one final question for the alien. “What is the Third Protocol?”

  “Any accidentally cloned unintelligent species must be destroyed,” he replied by rote.

  “Why?”

  “Because their intellect is not advanced enough to accept our nanobot technology. Without a certain level of intelligence, clones become uncontrollable, mindless monsters.” That had certainly described the doberclone fairly accurately. “They will attack any creature that is not of their species, including their creators.” That explained why the dog imp had turned on the droids but I was still at a loss as to why it hadn’t attacked me.

  I had no further use for my lackey and held out my hand for his death ray. He handed it to me and became another small pile of particles on the smooth black floor. I pocketed the extra weapon instead of discarding it.

  Uldar was somewhere on this vessel and I was willing to bet he would be in the command centre. I could have hunted each alien down one by one but destroying them all in one fell swoop would be much quicker. Gregor had advised me to do my best to make sure the ship couldn’t be salvaged by the humans. He’d made a suggestion how to destroy both the ship and its crew and it involved leaving Earth’s atmosphere. I only hoped the vessel had enough fuel to reach the destination I had in mind.

  Flying a spaceship was far beyond my capabilities, and that meant one of the Viltarans would have to do it for me. Zeroing in on the cluster of extra-terrestrials several levels above me, I teleported closer then walked the rest of the way. Soft lights lit the hallways that were most frequently used by the aliens. The black walls, ceiling and floor seemed to absorb the light, as if it were perpetually hungry.

  Glad I’d had the foresight to keep the extra death ray, I held one in each hand and stepped up to the command centre door. It whooshed aside to reveal an array of monitors and consoles from my dream. The Viltarans were clustered around the largest monitor, discussing the war that raged far below. I simultaneously zapped two of them to get the attention of the others.

  Uldar whirled around and his scarlet eyes came to rest on me. “You!” he spat in disbelief.

  “Me,” I agreed in his native language.

  He didn’t waste time on asking me stupid questions such as ‘how the hell did you get onto my ship’ and reached for his death ray. I eradicated two more of his people in warning. The heavily pregnant female took a shot at me but I teleported to safety before the bar of light could reach me.

  Using Uldar as a shield, I pressed one of the death rays into his back. He stiffened in shock to find me standing right behind him. “Tell everyone to leave the room,” I commanded. “You and I are going to have a private chat.”

  Breathing hard, enraged at being captured so easily by a creature that he considered to be far inferior to him, Uldar tried to spin around but I jammed the other death ray into his side. “I don’t need to keep you alive,” I warned him. “I’m sure one of your minions here will be only too happy to answer my questions.”

  Debating about his chances of besting me, he reached his decision. “Get out!” he snarled at his kin. They fled but only as far as the next hallway. I didn’t really care where they went, just as long as they didn’t try to interfere with my plan.

  Taking a few steps back, I allowed Uldar to turn around. Fully eleven feet tall, he towered over me, bristling with an almost uncontrollable rage. I silently marvelled at just how hideous he was. The fangs in his upper and lower jaws were almost thick enough to be tusks. His nose wasn’t quite as flat as a bat’s but the nostrils were like small caverns in his face. Long, filthy black hair fell to his waist. Chunks of Kveet meat were still tangled up in the strands. Not only was he far from pretty, he also stank very badly. He could almost have used his stench to render his enemies unconscious.

  I caught his gaze and we had a staring match that lasted far longer than any other I’d ever instigated. It took several minutes before his hands unclenched and his
shoulders slumped as he finally fell beneath my spell. I didn’t waste any time and got straight to business. “I want you to change course,” I told him.

  With a faint hint of unhappiness, Uldar trudged over to the largest console and waited for my command. He stiffened when I told him where I wanted him to point the ship. “We will all die,” he told me woodenly, as if I couldn’t figure that out for myself. Uldar’s will was far stronger than the runty Viltaran I’d bamboozled. He’d retained enough control to argue with me.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much the plan. Do it anyway.” I ordered. He keyed in the new coordinates but I had no way of knowing if they were correct or not. I’d hoped to strip him of his will, get him to set the course that Gregor had suggested then leave. Now I was going to have to ride along to make sure he didn’t regain his senses in time to save the ship.

  I’d only get one shot at this and I wanted to get it right. Even if I failed, the vessel would shortly run out of fuel. The crew wouldn’t be able to return the relatively short distance to Earth let alone make their way back to Viltar. The possibility that they might be discovered and rescued by yet another alien species was too great a risk to take, now that I knew aliens really did exist. One way or another, the ship and its crew had to be destroyed.

  Grey fingers flew over the alien console, hesitated then pushed a final button. This time I felt the ship move slightly as it changed course and presumably picked up speed. “I have done as you ordered,” Uldar said with heavy reluctance.

  “Good. Now back away.” I wasn’t going to make the mistake of ending his life until I knew without a doubt that he’d followed my orders. He backed away until he reached the far wall and crossed his arms. His biceps bulged as he clenched his fists again. I had a feeling the hypnotism wasn’t going to last for much longer, unless I remained vigilant. I could almost feel him prying at the mental hands that I’d clasped around his brain. Every now and then, I caught his eye to reinforce my hold over him.

  We’d travelled for over three hours before a voice blared through a set of unseen speakers. “Warning! The current trajectory will result in complete destruction of this ship. The emergency fuel tanks are now dangerously low. I suggest an immediate course correction.” The voice was robotic, male and sounded like Robert the treacherous droid. Uldar flinched slightly at the message and clenched his fists even tighter.

  The warning came again about half an hour later. Bright red lights began to flash, accompanying the message. “Warning! The emergency fuel has now been depleted and the ship will reach the point of no return in fifteen minutes. I suggest immediate evacuation.” The robot voice didn’t actually use the word ‘minutes’, but that was how my mind translated it.

  Waiting for the countdown to end was agony. Each minute seemed more like an hour. Uldar’s top lip drew back to reveal his fangs as he fought against the hold I had over his mind. Relief came as the final warning sounded. “The ship has now passed the point of no return. Escape may still be possible if the pods are activated within the next sixty seconds.”

  While I was momentarily distracted by the message, Uldar broke free from the hypnotism and lunged towards me with a bellow of rage. My own battle lust took control, pushing aside my common sense as his hands closed around my throat. My neck dissolved into particles, leaving my head floating in mid-air for a brief moment. Uldar shifted his grip to my arms and tried to pull them off like the wings of a fly. At my mental command, both arms became a whirling mass of molecules. Clasping air, the leader of the all but extinct Viltaran race gaped at my empty sleeves.

  Concentrating, I ordered Lefty and Righty to remain apart while the rest of my cells returned to my body. Uldar caught sight of the swirling molecules and tried to bat them out of the air. Rightly reformed and tapped him on the shoulder. The alien whirled around with a belligerent roar and lunged at thin air as my hand became minute particles again.

  My hands tormented him, whipping him into a frenzy until the robot voice broke into my amusement. “Warning! Thirty seconds remain until the ship will be destroyed.”

  Alarmed by the reminder, I’d almost forgotten that I’d ordered Uldar to fly his ship towards the sun. I became aware of an immense heat enveloping the vessel. The ship might have run out of fuel but it was moving at an extremely high rate of speed and it wasn’t slowing down. I only had seconds to reach safety but I had one final task to perform first.

  Uldar had managed to capture both of my hands while I’d been distracted once again by the robot voice. His hands sprang open when Lefty and Righty disappeared. He didn’t see them reform on either side of his face and stared at his empty palms incomprehensively. His scarlet eyes shifted to mine when my hands settled on his cheeks.

  I didn’t have enough time to make a smartass speech. In fact, I was almost completely out of time if I wanted to avoid being burned to a crisp. Far more rapidly than ever before, the power of the holy marks built up inside me. I released it through my hands, feeling the rush of dark magic passing through my palms. Uldar’s eyes bulged then burst in a scarlet splatter. His head and body swelled rapidly, like a balloon being filled with helium. I teleported to the far side of the room as he exploded, raining body parts all over the consoles and monitors.

  “Warning! Five seconds remain until the ship is destroyed,” the urgent yet almost bored robot voice informed me.

  I’d distantly heard and sensed the rest of the Viltarans fleeing towards the escape pods but they were several levels below us and they’d never reach them in time. They wouldn’t have been able to escape from the ship anyway, since all but one of the pods had been disabled. With a final smirk at the remains of my nemesis, I recalled my hands then teleported myself directly inside the only still functioning pod.

  My runty Viltaran minion had given me a tutorial on how to operate the escape pods before I’d evaporated him. He’d already prepped the pod for me so all I had to do was push a button on the console. Doing so, I was thrown off my feet as the craft was violently ejected away from the mother ship. It trembled as powerful engines propelled it away from the much larger doomed spacecraft.

  Built for an emergency getaway, the pod was almost simple compared to the two other alien ships that I’d ridden inside. A single long window stretched along the wall above the console. A thick shutter kept the sun out but it couldn’t block the overwhelming heat that was slowly beginning to fade as I zoomed to safety. The hull was softly glowing red and the floor was hot even through the soles of my boots.

  There was only enough room for four seats, two on each side of the rectangular vessel. Choosing one, I climbed up and buckled myself in with the oversized harness. I sent out my senses and latched onto the remaining Viltarans as their ship was unavoidably sucked towards the sun. It would burn up long before it could crash land. One by one, the evil alien overlords fizzed out of existence. I could almost hear them screaming in agony as the walls of their ship melted and they were instantly evaporated.

  My escape pod was small but fast and followed the coordinates my slave had keyed in via the console in the engine room. All had gone according to Gregor’s carefully thought out plan and I believed he was going to be proud of me when I returned. They all would, except for Luc. Once we finished mopping up the killbots and the new imps that had undoubtedly been created during my absence, I wasn’t sure what would happen. It would be awkward to stay with the others with the constant tension that would be between Luc and me.

  First things first, I had to make it back to Earth safely. I’d instructed the Viltaran to take the pod close to my home planet. It would slow down briefly, allowing me to exit before zooming off into space again. It was going to take some serious concentration to make my way back safely. If I missed the chance to escape while I was close to home, I wasn’t sure what would happen to me. I didn’t know what my teleporting limits were but I doubted I’d be able to shift myself across hundreds of thousands of miles.

  Sending out my senses in a wide net, I knew I was drawing
close to home when I detected the presence of billions of human lives. When I felt the faint sensation of the pod slowing down, I teleported myself outside. I was close enough to Earth that it seemed to fill the entire universe. A mixture of green and brown earth, blue water and white clouds, it was the most beautiful sight I’d ever beheld. Then I was caught in its atmosphere and began to fall.

  Zooming downwards at a terrific speed, the ground was hurtling at me in a dizzying rush. Breaking my body down into microscopic cells, I came to a sudden and almost shocking halt. My clothes and weapons continued to fall, since they no longer had anything to support their weight. Walking around naked until I could steal some more clothes held zero appeal for me so I sent my particles after my belongings. I formed my eyes and hands to catch the items before they could scatter far and wide.

  Just as I’d planned, the U.S. was spread out beneath me. I knew the geography well enough to know roughly where Las Vegas was located. Teleporting closer in fits and spurts, I finally spied the gas cloud that was already beginning to look tattered and would soon dissipate and become harmless. Behind it were the sparkling lights of the strip.

  I drifted high above the noxious vapour to avoid the smell then angled downwards. By the time my feet hit the ground, I was whole and fully dressed again. I had to admit that being Mortis wasn’t all bad. At times like this, it was pretty freaking awesome.

  My first order of business was to track my friends down. I sensed them deep in battle with several units of Murderbots. Geordie started so hard he almost fell over when I suddenly appeared beside him. I pushed him out of the way of a death ray blast and decapitated the offending droid. The teen sent me a quick grin of thanks then concentrated on killing the enemy.