by Tristan Vick
“Hey,” Jegra said, drawing Cassera back to her. She gave her a quick peck on the lips. “I just wanted to say thanks for last night. Thanks for opening up your feelings to me.”
Cassera blushed and brushed her platinum hair out of her golden eyes. “We really should get going,” she said with a sense of urgency. When she tried to pull away, Jegra held her firm. She looked into Jegra’s brown eyes and smiled. “What is it now?”
Jegra pulled Cassera into her by the back of her neck and kissed her with the sultriest kiss she’d ever given anyone in her whole life. It was so good, in fact, that Cassera, in an uncharacteristic move, grabbed Jegra’s ass and kissed her back.
Another jolt shook the room and reminded them that they had other things they needed to be doing.
A chime came on over the comm and it was promptly followed by Raven’s voice. “To battle stations, everyone! We have company.”
It only took them a couple of minutes to arrive at the bridge. When they did, they saw the green and tan swirls of Cordova out the window. In the foreground, three Nyctan battlecruisers were concentrating all of their firepower onto Zira Ha’ppek’s frigate. Yellow plumes exploded outward all along the hull as venting gas was ignited by the disrupter blasts.
“What’s going on?” Cassera asked, as she strode onto the bridge.
“We jumped out of hyperspace to find three Nyctan battle cruisers waiting for us. Your friend’s ship was already taking heavy fire when we arrived.”
Emperor Dakroth stepped onto the bridge and peered out the window with a stern gaze but said nothing. His red eyes hung on a fixed point in the middle of empty space as he found himself deep in thought, his mind calculating every possible scenario they might encounter.
“We’re getting a hail,” Raven informed them.
“Put it through,” Dakroth ordered.
The cockpit’s heads up display switched to a live video feed. Ha’ppek stood on his bridge, wires dangling over him as sparks rained down onto his majestic religious garb.
“You were right, my lord,” he said, bowing his head and showing his respect to the emperor. “The moment a Dagon ship entered orbit they de-cloaked and began their assault.”
“Wait,” Jegra said, puzzled. “You used Ha’ppek’s ship as bait to lure them out?”
“I suspected the Nyctan’s would be monitoring the outer rim. Ha’ppek agreed to draw them out.”
“Can you get the Skywend close enough to transport him off that thing?” Cassera asked Raven.
“I’ll try,” she said, taking the ship in. More stray disrupter blasts grazed the bow of the Skywend and shook the ship.
“Come along, my dear,” Cassera said, taking Jegra’s hand in hers. “We have a wedding to prepare for.”
“Right here and now?” Jegra asked. Admittedly, she knew she’d be married eventually. But not in the middle of a starship battle above the moon of a gas giant.
“I’ll meet the high priest in the transporter room,” the emperor informed. Raven merely nodded her head but kept her focus on evading the more dangerous laser blasts.
Kregor came onto the bridge and strapped himself into a chair. “All weapons are go, captain.”
“Your timing couldn’t be better, Kregor.”
“Come,” Cassera urged, leading Jegra by her hand.
Not more than ten minutes later Cassera was putting the final touches on Jegra’s hair.
“Do you think I’ll need makeup?” Jegra asked.
“Right,” Cassera said, embarrassed that she’d almost forgot. She reached over and grabbed a long slender device that looked like a vape pen. But when she waved it in front of Jegra’s face a spread of light imprinted makeup into Jegra’s flesh. “That’s better,” she said, placing her hands on Jegra’s shoulders and gently turning her toward the vanity mirror so she could see her reflection.
Jegra admired her glammed-up look, but somehow it didn’t seem like her. Gazing at her face, she felt a strange disconnect. As if a different woman was staring back at her.
“Hide mirror,” Jegra said, and the screen showing her reflection turned off.
“Are you ready?” Cassera asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Jegra answered with a sigh. Then looking down at herself, she said, “What about a dress?”
“I’m afraid there’s not a single wedding dress aboard. I scoured everywhere, but nothing remotely formal.”
“That’s alright,” she replied. “I found out this smart suit can change colors. Jegra tapped the green dot on her cuff and spoke into her wrist, “White.”
Her black jumpsuit swiftly changed from black with yellow stripes to white with blue stripes. She held up her wrist and added, “No stripes.”
Dressed in all white, Jegra unzipped the top of her suit a little to allow her cleavage to rise out, like a couple of loaves of baked bread.
“You look hot,” Cassera teased.
“Maybe for my honeymoon I’ll ditch Dakroth and bed you instead.”
“No more threesomes?” Cassera asked.
“That last one ended in a street brawl, so…”
They both started laughing. After their fit of giggles died down, Jegra looked at Cassera and took a deep breath.
“You’ll be fine. I’ll see to it personally.”
“I know,” Jegra replied. “Well, I’d better not keep the emperor waiting.”
As Jegra turned to leave, she felt a firm swat on her butt. She looked back at Cassera who, after all these weeks, had finally found the perfect time to get her back. Jegra laughed out loud and then marched out of her room and to the transporter.
When she entered the transporter room, she was surprised to see Skuld, Gyllek, Kregor, and Raven all standing along the wall in their formal clothes.
“What’s all this?” Jegra asked, stunned to see everyone in one spot together.
“It wouldn’t be a proper wedding without guests,” Skuld informed her.
“Or a bridesmaid,” Cassera said, stepping up beside her.
Jegra scanned all the smiling faces. “Thank you, everyone. Just one small question though … if you’re all here, who is flying the ship?”
“It’s on autopilot,” Raven said.
“In the middle of a firefight?” gasped Jegra.
“Don’t worry,” Kregor chuckled. “We’re cloaked.”
Jegra paused. Then she repeated herself. “In the middle of a firefight?”
“I parked her the last place in the galaxy the Nyctans would ever suspect us.”
The emperor raised an eyebrow.
“You should have seen it,” Kregor said. “It was genius. She parked us right under their hull.”
The emperor pointed a finger over at Raven and said, “Now.”
Happy to oblige, Raven went over to the controls and with a push of a lever and the twisting of some nobs, the transporter hummed to life.
The room flooded with yellow light and then, standing on the pad, was Ha’ppek.
“Are you unharmed?” Dakroth asked.
“I’m a little shaken, but quite all right.
“Good, good. Then let the ceremony begin.” The emperor turned to Jegra and took her hands in his. Then he waited for Ha’ppek to begin.
“We are gathered here, amongst friends, to witness the union of his royal majesty, Lord Rhadamanthus Dakroth of the Dagon Empire, son of Helios, and his betrothed, Jegra Alakandra, daughter of Sol.”
Turning toward Jegra, Ha’ppek took her hand in his and then placed it on Dakroth’s. He repeated the procedure and stacked Dakroth’s other hand on hers, so that her hand was sandwiched in between his.
“Do you, Jegra, daughter of Sol, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” replied Jegra.
“And do you, Emperor Rhadamanthus Dakroth, son of Helios, take Jegra to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” Dakroth replied with an enthusiastic grin.
“Then, with the power invested in me by the
great lord Hastur, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”
Dakroth pulled Jegra into his chest, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. After that, he nodded at everyone and thanked them. “I appreciate you all being witness to this happy moment. I know it meant a lot to Jegra that you all came.”
“It did,” Jegra said, smiling at all the faces that smiled back at her in return. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Emperor Dakroth then dragged Jegra out of the room. “Come, my dear, we must consummate our union, otherwise you cannot carry the title of Empress of Dagon.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but Jegra felt bad that Cassera and Kregor had to watch her paraded off like the emperor’s trophy wife. His infatuation was nothing compared to their love and affection. But when she saw Raven giving her that look, she recalled her words and how imperative it was to have a just and compassionate empress on the throne that could balance Dakroth’s cruelty and darkness.
That night, Jegra fucked emperor Dakroth into a veritable comma. As he lay asleep in his bed, she quietly dressed and returned to her quarters. When she got there, she was expecting to find Cassera waiting for her. Instead, to her surprise, she found Raven Nightguard.
Raven dropped to her knee and knelt before her empress. “Your majesty,” she said.
“Raven?” Jegra asked, confounded. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I would say my goodbyes. It seems that this is where we part ways.”
“I don’t blame you,” Jegra said. “We’ve been bad luck since the get go.”
“Let’s just say that conducting business is much easier without having a target on your back.”
They both laughed. Then fell silent again.
“Where will you go next?”
“I was thinking of cracking down on some sex traffickers. Blow off some steam. Then maybe head back to the Zargora system and collect on some old debts.”
“I wish you the best of luck,” Jegra said.
Raven, still kneeling, took Jegra’s hand and kissed it. “If you should ever need me, your majesty.”
Jegra gestured for Raven to rise, and she gave her a big hug. “Til we meet again.”
Raven winked at her and then left her to her own thoughts. As the doors hissed shut, Jegra turned and walked over to her bedroom window. The Skywend was already making its final approach to Cordova. They’d be on the ground in no time.
Her thoughts shifted to Cassera. Where was her lover, she wondered? That’s when she heard her door open again. Smiling, she turned around and said, “It’s about time you got here.”
Jegra’s face dropped when she saw Abethca standing in the doorway. She slowly backed away.
The mysterious figure entered her room and the doors shut again.
“Stay back,” Jegra said.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” the voice said. Then Abethca reached up and touched her forearm. Without provocation, her image flickered and dissolved, leaving only Gyllek. “It’s only me.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jegra barked angrily. If this was a prank, it wasn’t the least bit amusing.
“Calm your tits, hot stuff,” Gyllek said, sliding off her bracelet and handing it to Jegra.
“I made it for you. I think you’ll find it will come in handy. Consider it a wedding gift.”
Jegra took it from her and nodded thankfully. Gyllek then turned and left without so much as uttering a formal word goodbye. She actually found it kind of refreshing that Gyllek couldn’t care less that she was the official empress.
As Jegra stood in the entrance to her room, Cassera appeared in the doorway. She looked back as Gyllek as she left Jegra’s quarters. “What did she want?”
“Nothing,” Jegra replied, her grin growing wide at the sight of Cassera. Then, unable to restrain herself any further, she reached out of her room, clutched Cassera by her collar, and pulled her inside.
“I missed you,” Jegra said, nudging Cassera’s shoulder with hers.
“Jegra, I just wanted to say…”
“Yes?” Jegra asked in a sensual voice, her brown eyes fixing themselves on Cassera’s deep blue lips.
“Never mind. It’s not important.” She lied. Of course, it was important. It involved Jegra’s very life. But if she told her what she knew, the emperor might have them both killed.
18
Clamoring down the ramp of the Skywend, Jegra found Cassera, Emperor Dakroth, and Ha’ppek waiting for her outside the ship. Once she stepped onto the ground, she turned and looked up to find Raven and the rest of the crew standing in the cargo bay waiting to see her off. She smiled at them and they smiled back. “Thanks again. For everything.”
Raven nodded, keeping her trademark stoic look, and then reached up and hit the red button on the side of the cargo hold. As the ramp slowly closed, Skuld waved at her like an excited child. She wove back and blew him a kiss. Before the ramp clamped shut completely, she shot a quick glance at Kregor. They stared into each other’s eyes and just moments before the ramp slammed shut, he winked at her.
Dakroth cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to their current mission, and said, “Best not stay out in the open for too long. The Nyctans are bound to run frequent scans of the surface.”
Although Cordova was a much lusher moon than Thessalonica, they happened to be in the most barren part. Giant rock formations, which resembled the Coyote Buttes of Utah and Arizona back home, surrounded them for several miles in every direction.
Although the orange and tan striated landscape was certainly pretty, Jegra was growing rather tired of seeing deserts. She just wanted a beautiful beach with a cool blue ocean and a nice palm tree with ample shade to lie under.
“I know the way to the temple from here,” Ha’ppek said, gesturing for them to follow him in the direction of some nearby rock formations. “But it will be a two-hour hike yet, so we’d best be going if we want to make it there before nightfall.”
Before they could get too far along, the Skywend’s thrusters turned on and the ship rose up, kicking up a sandstorm in the process.
Sand blasted, Jegra shielded her eyes and looked up, watching the ship climb into the sky. About a hundred and fifty feet up, the ship cloaked, fading away until all that was left was a vast swath of blue sky.
As soon as the ship had cloaked, an abrupt blast of hot wind ruffled everyone’s clothes and hair as the Skywend’s main thrusters kicked on and the ship tore away from them as it left Cordova. A sonic boom signaled that it had breached the atmosphere and then everything settled back down.
“I’m going to miss them,” Jegra said, wiping some sweat from her forehead.
“Time’s a wasting,” Dakroth urged, gesturing for Jegra to stop lingering about and hurry up with a wave of his hand.
She huffed at his impatience and reluctantly followed after him. She didn’t like being second fiddle in any scenario let alone the one involving their honeymoon, if that is what one could even call it.
The emperor, enthusiastic to get the show on the road, marched on up ahead. Once he was out of earshot, Cassera shuffled up to Jegra and whispered to her. “You have to get out of here. It’s a trap.”
“What?” Jegra asked, shooting Cassera a bewildered look. It wasn’t like Cassera to pull her leg. She wasn’t the type. But her warning came out of nowhere and seemed so outlandish as not to be believable.
“You need to run,” Cassera urged. “There’s no time to explain. Just go.”
But Jegra just laughed off her warning. Even if she wasn’t joking, which she rarely ever did, where could Jegra go? She had no contacts on Cordova. No way to get off the planet. And nobody knew she was the Empress. No official announcements had been made and, besides all this, she half assumed that Dakroth’s plot was to abandon her here.
“What are you trying to say?” Jegra asked. “Is there something I should know about?”
They emerged from the orange an
d tan striped rock bed and stepped into a large clearing. Only a few multicolored pillars of sandstone stood off in the distance when a faint warbling sound broke out into a shrill whine.
“What’s that?” Ha’ppek asked, spinning around as he tried to locate where the peculiar sound was emanating from.
Several red beams of light fell from the sky and dotted the ground all around them like an army of laser pointers coming down from the heavens.
Jegra instantly recognized the bands of light as transporter beams. They resembled the yellow transporter beams the Dagons used except in color. And there were a lot of them. At first glance, she counted twelve. Maybe more.
“Shit,” Cassera whispered. “It’s too late.”
Manifesting all around them were two rings of Nyctan soldiers, all of them wearing their high-tech, gothic styled armor. All black. All lavishly detailed. At the center of the squad was a single Knight of Caelum.
To Jegra’s surprise, Emperor Dakroth casually strode up to the Knight and said, “You’re just in time.”
The Knight didn’t respond verbally. He merely scanned the unfamiliar faces until his sights settled on Jegra.
Apparently, Ha’ppek wasn’t the only one who Dakroth had sent a communique to. That’s when Jegra realized that Dakroth had planned to double cross her. But why? Why marry her only to hand her over to the enemy? Did being the empress give her more clout as a ransom than just a warrior celebrity? Was it some kind of ploy to create an excuse to continue to war with the Nyctans? Something else perhaps? None of it made any sense.
“Hand over the human female,” the Knight said in a low, gravelly voice. Its visor flared red as it kept its gaze fixed on her. Jegra stood frozen, not knowing what to do.
“Jegra, my love,” the emperor said, gesturing for her to come closer to him. “Would you be so kind as to join me?”
Cassera shook her head subtly, warning Jegra not to do it. Jegra winked, letting her know she had no intention of listening to her back-stabbing husband. Emperor or not, she wasn’t going to forfeit her life for him.
