by Tristan Vick
“Shit,” cursed Jegra. They hadn’t even made it more than a couple of steps outside of their cell before they’d been made by one of the guards–and with her recent spout of bad-luck more were probably already on the way.
As hard as it was for her to admit it, Jegra was beginning to think that this place really was inescapable.
33
Before the guard could square in on them and contain them, a large, horned alien the size and look of a rhinoceros flew out of a nearby cell and tackled the guard.
Bones crunched and the guard immediately crumpled into a pile of pulp beneath the mass of the powerful creature. The rhino man stood up, looked over at Jegra, and then throwing his arms into the air, shouted, “Long live the Empress!”
Immediately after he had alerted the rest of the prison that Jegra Alakandra, Empress of Dagon, was making a grand escape, all pandemonium broke loose on every level of the prison. Papers, bedding, clothes, you name it–even some unfortunate security guards–were tossed over the edges of each level. One Wilhelm scream after another went whooshing by as guards plummeted down the empty center of the facility to their imminent demise.
Raven ran over to the barred railing and looked over. “The skiff is coming up now. We’re going to have to jump.”
“Jump?” Danica asked, nervously edging away from the railing. “Nobody said anything about having to jump.”
“Are you scared of heights?” Jegra asked in an amused tone. She chortled lightly and smiled at Danica who scowled back at her.
“What? Like you’re so perfect?” she fired back defensively. “Jegra the Almighty! But don’t let your fans’ endless praise blind you to the truth. You’re broken, Jegra. You always place your unquestioning trust in others. You keep forgiving those who repeatedly hurt and walk all over you, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’ll somehow change. Grow, up, Jegra! The galaxy is a cruel place. It doesn’t have any room for your naïve optimism. And you’re so dangerously unaware of it you actually put others in danger. The only invulnerable one here is you, Jegra. And that’s not fair to any of us!”
Taken aback by the sudden chastising, Jegra gulped down the urge to get into a row with Dani. She didn’t know where all of this pent-up anger was coming from but she could tell that Danica was on the verge of tears.
And as painful as it was for Jegra to hear the cold hard truth about her character flaw, Danica had a penchant for speaking the truth. In fact, it was one of Danica’s most endearing qualities. She always called it like it was.
As usual, she wasn’t wrong about Jegra. She did tend to let people walk over her so that they might pay attention to her. A lingering insecurity of not ever having felt welcome in a crowd, or even wanted, for that matter. An insecurity she hadn’t quite gotten over yet, having gone from an unassuming nobody to Gladiatrix of the Galaxy almost overnight.
Her rapid rise to prominence in the arena, however, had given her great power and fame, though she wasn’t always responsible with them. And, yes. Sometimes, people got hurt along the way.
She fought back tears as each name of someone she’d lost came back to her. Abethca, Jennica, Ellia, and now Galahad. Even Azra’il Nun had died in a hail Mary plan that Jegra herself had devised. It seemed wherever she went, her friends paid the ultimate price. And this weighed heavily on her.
“I know I’m not perfect,” she said in a sullen tone. “And, I’m sorry. It was insensitive of me to highlight your fears and laugh. We’re all afraid of losing something. I’ve lost a lot over this past year. And, at this very moment, I’m afraid of losing you. I promise you this … I’ll try to do better. I’ll do my best to do right by you, Dani.”
“I know you will,” Danica apologized, looking down at the ground. “And I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that I really, really hate heights.”
“We can continue this discussion later,” Raven cut in. “But if you want to get your cute lady butts out of this place, the time to act is … right … now.” With that, Raven hopped up onto the railing and leapt off.
“By Hastur!” Sanakar gasped. “She jumped.”
“Go!” Jegra said, helping Sanakar over the railing. Hanging onto the railing, Sanakar looked down over her shoulder to see that Raven had landed safely on the platform. Taking in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and let go.
Jegra rushed to the railing and looked over. “She made it!” she exclaimed, informing the others.
Not wasting another moment, Jegra turned and stretched her hand out, offering it to Danica.
She vigorously shook her head in protest and backed up against the wall. Her chest grew tight as she grew more anxious and fresh beads of sweat bloomed across her balmy skin. The palms of her hands grew sweaty and cold simultaneously and a frightful shiver shot down her spine.
“Come on, Dani! We don’t have any more time to lose.”
She shook her head again and wheezed as she began to hyperventilate. Walking up to Danica with intimidating strides, Jegra picked her up and slung her over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Danica cried out, her voice in a tizzy.
“I’m saving your hot piece of ass,” Jegra barked. She swatted Danica’s ass, her hand leaving its imprint in the form of a rosy welt on Danica’s perfectly round butt cheek. Danica yelped out in pain, but it helped to get her mind off the situation and get her breathing normally again.
Without another second to spare, Jegra took off running. Full speed, she leapt up onto the railing just as the elevator skiff was rising past them. Using her superior strength, she kicked off the bars and the railing bent under her foot from the force. Launching into the air, she and Danica flew across the expanse.
It seemed too close to call as the skiff climbed away from them but, suddenly, her fingers met the edge and Jegra clamped on with one hand. In her other arm, she held Danica close to her.
Gradually, Jegra’s fingers began to lose their grip. “I’m slipping!” she called out, hoping Raven or Sanakar would hear her.
In the blink of an eye, Raven’s dark blue hand reached down from above and clutched Jegra’s wrist just as Jegra couldn’t hold on any longer and relinquished her grip.
“I’ve got you!” she shouted. The vein-like circuitry in her arm pulsed bright pink as her nano-tech enhancements compensated for the exertion of pulling both women back up to the platform.
With Sanakar holding Raven’s other arm, she helped Raven drag Jegra and Danica onto the hover skiff.
Out of breath, Jegra rolled onto her back and panted heavily. Danica lay beside her, her chest heaving with equal vigor. “Don’t ever go and pull a stunt like that again!” she growled.
“Sorry,” Jegra apologized with a light chortle. “But I wasn’t going to just leave you there.”
Danica groaned and rolled onto her side. Pulling down the elastic waist of her shorts, she examined the bright pink welt on her lavender butt cheek. “Did you have to go and slap me so hard? That stung.”
Raven helped Jegra up and Sanakar did the same for Danica who was still rubbing her sore buttocks.
“What now?” Jegra asked, turning her gaze to Raven.
“Now we get up into the air vents before the laser grid comes back on.”
“What happens when the laser grid comes back on?” asked Jegra in a credulous manner, although she fully suspected that she already knew the answer.
“Let’s just say if you want to keep your body in one piece, it’s best to be clear of the air vents before the laser grid turns back on.”
It only took a few minutes for them to reach the top of the facility. Once the skiff came to a halt, Raven walked over to the edge, reached out, and grabbed ahold of a maintenance walkway off to the side. She pulled herself on to it and then helped Sanakar and the others across. All four women clamored down the walkway until they found an access panel to the ventilation system. Raven tried to pull the panel off but it was stuck tight.
“Let me try,” Jegra said.
She pushed her fingers through the grate and yanked off the panel in one hefty jerk. The screws tore through the plating as if it were melted butter and she discarded the covering.
Raven pursed her lips in a pleased fashion and nodded her head approvingly. “Well done.”
“I’ll go first,” Sanakar said.
Raven squatted and had Sanakar place her foot on her bent thigh and then gave her a boost up. She then helped Danica and Raven up too. Jegra was tall enough that she could simply pull herself up into the ventilation duct and motioned for Raven to go on ahead of her.
Once everybody was inside the ventilation duct, Raven said, “Make your way toward the roof. When you see the fan, that means we’re almost there.”
They inched their way through the ventilation system like a train of caterpillars. Going up was the hard part, but with some elbow skin and a bit of effort, they finally made it to the fan. Just then, there was a clunk and the power came back on.
Jegra looked down and the laser grid turned on at the bottom of the ventilation shaft and slowly began rising up toward them. It combed the ventilation duct, burning up anything inside with a tartan of deadly red lasers.
“Um, ladies,” Jegra said. “We have a problem.”
“We have a problem up here too,” Sanakar added.
The giant fan above them began to spin. As it menacingly chopped the air, it seemed there was no way to stop it. At the same time the laser grid slowly closed in on them from below.
“Jegra!” Danika shouted. “We need you up here.”
Jegra tried to squeeze past Raven, but it was no use. There wasn’t enough wiggle room to get by. “I’m sort of stuck down here at the moment. Are you sure there’s nothing you can do?”
Sanakar looked down at everyone. Realizing they were running out of time and there weren’t any good options, she took a deep breath and then threw her arm up into the fan. She screamed out in pain as the fan cut into her arm, but her bone was enough to stop it.
“Go!” she growled through gritted teeth. “Go!”
Danica scurried through the opening, quickly followed by Raven. By the time Jegra got to Sanakar she was already feeling light headed. Blue blood trickled down her arm.
Jegra reached up and grabbed the blade and bent it in on itself, wedging it so it couldn’t start spinning again. Then, reaching around Sanakar’s waist, she looked at her arm. It was mangled and broken, and there was no way they could save it. Not in the limited amount of time they had.
“This is going to hurt,” Jegra said.
Sanakar nodded and then looked away as Jegra took her trapped arm in her hands.
Jegra pulled hard and Sanakar’s arm tore free from where it was pinched by the fan blade. She yelped out in agony as her mangled arm dropped down and dangled limply by her side. But the pain was too much and she quickly fell silent as the shock of it caused her to black out. Holding on tight to Sanakar, Jegra pulled them both up in time to avoid getting diced by the laser grid.
The vent of the air duct on the rooftop flew off and Danica clamored out. Soon enough, all four women had made their way onto the top of the prison complex. It was a soaring tower, as tall as anything on Earth, but set in the middle of Nyctan’s largest ocean. There was nothing for miles in every direction except for sky and the pterodactyl like birds which circled the platform.
“I sure hope those things aren’t carrion birds,” Danica said, craning her neck and looking up toward the sky and eyeing the flying creatures with suspicion.
“I doubt they pose much of a threat,” Raven said, reaching into her pants and fiddling with herself.
Danica looked over at her in shock. “What are you doing? We don’t have time for that right now,” she reprimanded.
Raven ignored Danica’s upbraiding and pulled her hand out of her shorts and withdrew a glistening communication device. Wiping it off on her shirt, she held it to her lips and spoke into it. “Skywend, this is Raven, do you read me?”
A garbled reply came almost immediately. Jegra recognized Skuld’s voice.
“We hear you, captain. We’re already en route.”
“Good,” Raven said, glancing at everyone’s faces. “Get us out of here.”
Golden beams of light came down from the sky and all four women’s bodies disassembled, piece by piece, in a swirl of hexagonal energy packets made of the same golden light. The whirlwind of hexagonal energy rose into the sky and, then, after another few seconds, they found themselves standing aboard the transporter platform of the Skywend. Whole again.
Skuld, Gyllek, and Estriel stood behind the transporter control panel which sat along the back wall and greeted them with a smile. At least Skuld and Estriel did. Gyllek, on the other hand, was her typical poker-faced, anti-social self.
“Glad you could make it,” Skuld said.
“We almost didn’t,” Danica informed him.
“Get us out of here,” Raven said, marching off to the bridge. Nodding her head at Sanakar’s unconscious body, cradled in Jegra’s arms like a newborn infant, she added, “And see to it that she gets medical treatment, ASAP.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Skuld replied.
Estriel rushed over to Jegra and helped hoist up Sanakar’s sleeping body. “What happened to her?” he asked, slipping his arm under hers and propping her up on his shoulder while Jegra did the same with the other shoulder.
“She saved our lives,” Jegra answered.
He gave her a sympathetic look that hit her emotional heart strings. Like Sanakar, she saw that Estriel still believed in her. Believed in the prophecy. He had faith and would continue to stand by her side, even if it meant becoming a fugitive.
“Come,” Skuld said, leading the way out of the transport room and into the corridor. “The medical bay is this way.”
“I’ll be on the bridge if you need me,” Danica said, addressing Jegra who followed after Skuld.
Jegra looked over her shoulder and nodded. They shared a short glance and seemingly read each other’s minds. Then, they parted ways and headed in opposite directions to attend to their separate duties.
34
“Two bogies on our six,” Kregor informed the captain.
“I see them. I see them.” Raven mashed the controls and sent all available power to the rear deflector shields. The ship shook as lasers bent off the shields, jarring everyone inside.
Danica stumbled onto the bridge, bracing herself against a bulkhead as the ship shuddered and swayed beneath her feet, her new chest bouncing annoyingly in her face. Wrapping her arms under her new tits, she held them in place and looked out at the two Nyctan ships chasing them.
“Those are Seyfferian corvettes,” she informed. “There’s no way we’ll outrun them in an atmosphere like this. We need to make a jump.”
“Are you out of your pretty little blue head?” Kregor asked. He shot her a look that said, no way sister. “An FTL jump through a rich atmosphere would tear us apart. Only battle cruisers have enough shielding to pull off such a maneuver. And even then, it’s not advisable.”
“We’ll discuss it later. Right now, let’s just stay focused on getting out of this mess,” Raven ordered. “Now, sit down and strap in. Things are going to get bumpy.”
A thunderous crack shook the ship and Raven took evasive action and flipped the Skywend upside down and pulled back and to starboard with all her might to avoid the battle cruiser that had just appeared above them.
Raven immediately took evasive action, the Skywend’s hull screeching as its bottom scraped along the hull of the enemy vessel.
Their brush with the cruiser spat up a trail of sparks that extended behind them like a jet stream and the screeching of metal grinding on metal rang throughout every deck of the ship. Finally breaking free of the near collision, Raven sent the Skywend into a nosedive and quickly distanced the ship from the Nyctan battle cruiser.
Elated to be alive, Kregor cheered on the captain’s flying. “That’s what I’m talking about!” Kregor shout
ed, as he brought the stabilizers back online.
“I appreciate your confidence, but that was close. Too close,” Raven said, shaking her head in disbelief at the recklessness of the Nyctan cruiser. Obviously, they were desperate to catch them.
“Who the hell would be insane enough to jump a cruiser into low orbit?” Danica asked.
“Besides you, you mean?”
She shot Kregor an ice-cold look. “Yeah, besides me,” she snapped. Her suggestion was meant to save their necks. She’d never jump into an atmosphere to claim a single ship. She’d set up a blockade in space and then send boots down to the ground to smoke the enemy out of hiding.
“I think you know the answer to that. It’s clearly the Queen Bitch of the Galaxy, Annie.”
Danica began to giggle and then caught herself and gulped down her amusement at Kregor calling Anaïs Nin by the Terran nickname, Annie.
“That Nyctan bitch slaughtered many Dragonians at the battle of Kalex 5. My seven brothers and three of my sisters were among the casualties.” Kregor hissed after the mere mention of her name, as though the very thought of the Nyctan Administratrix was offensive to him.
“I’m sorry,” Danica said.
He nodded his head, accepting her apology, and then turned his attention back to co-piloting the ship.
“Watch your twelve,” Kregor said, pointing out the window. “That thing is going to drop like a lead weight and smash into the planet. And we don’t want to be underneath it when it does.”
“Not if it jumps away first,” Raven said.
“That would tear us apart, though,” he realized as soon as he’d said it and shook his head. Destroying them was the whole point, “Which would be bad. Very, very bad.”
“That’s why we’ll just have to make the jump first.”
“I see how it is,” he said, glancing between both women. “You all team up on the poor ole lizard man.”
“Don’t worry, at least you’ll die a hero.” Danica’s voice trailed off as the gravity of the situation hit her like, well, a starship falling out of the sky. That’s when they noticed the shadow of the cruiser bearing down on them.
