by Aaron Crash
“It’s gone,” Blaze soothed. “We didn’t beat it, but it didn’t beat us. We survived. The crew is alive. And Trina, here, she fought like a mad dog. We’re here. We’re okay.”
Still, the panic tore at his sister, and he wondered if she’d snapped. Had trying to exorcise Xerxes finally shattered her soul?
“Elle, I’m here. I’m your brother, and I’m here. Can you see me, Elle? Can you see me?” He was yelling at her now, his panic rising. If he lost Elle…well, he couldn’t lose her. That was all there was to that.
“Elle, can you see me!”
Elle’s eyes shifted to his face. “Yes, I can see you, Ramon. I can see you.”
Blaze let out a sigh. “Nombre de Dios, I thought I lost you there.” He sat back. Yeah, she’d called him by his real name, which he didn’t like, but it had felt right.
Elle lifted herself wearily. “You did lose me. The power in him, in Xerxes, he’s beyond what we can fight. He’s beyond anything we’ve ever faced. It wasn’t just the creatures he made, but inside him. I felt it. He’s primal. He’s ancient. And he is seething. He hates us, but I think he hates his father more, his lord and his master.”
“And if we can’t fight him, no way can we fight the big daddy.” Blaze sighed. “That was close. Every step of the way.”
“So, what do we do now?” Elle asked.
Trina groaned. She’d passed out from the sheer demonic power of Xerxes, but now the auditor was coming around.
Blaze considered their options, none of them good. He winced. “We have to go after him, Elle. If he knows about Granny, Arlo, and the Onyx Gate, he’s the best lead we’ve ever had.”
Elle winced right along with him.
EIGHT_
╠═╦╬╧╪
Trina hung from Blaze’s and Elle’s shoulders as they started up the steps out of Pearl’s Pleasure Room, which was glowing from the exposed magma below the glass floor. Blaze would have to tell Pearl about Stacy, the poor girl.
Trina was walking, but her head still wasn’t right. Blaze could relate. He couldn’t shake the image of the demon’s horrific visage from his head. And on a more biological level, his VHI was below fifty percent, and he was bleeding…from somewhere. He’d have to take care of his wounds with good old-fashioned medicine and not Onyx energy because Elle was in no shape to cast spells.
Blaze couldn’t help but feel Trina’s curves touch him and smell her perfume, and he remembered how she’d looked at him during the fight. Back at Weirdo Phil’s, she’d said he never had a chance with her. But he was betting he could turn things around.
Having been in a battle together would help. All the adrenaline and violence could maybe, definitely, possibly get her engines going. He always felt randy after warring with the demonic.
The three emerged in the main hallway of the brothel. Women in various levels of nudity crept out of their cubby holes. Their johns had fled long ago.
Pearl stomped up, pissed. “Where’s my rifle, Blaze?” she demanded.
Trina’s eyelids fluttered. “The demon ate it.”
Blaze grinned. “Yeah, Pearl, you saw that pinche robot. It didn’t eat it exactly, but it did use it to fix its face.”
Pearl slapped him. “That was a gift from my mother! She turned a hundred and ten the other day.”
He kept hold of Trina but rubbed his cheek. “Ow, Pearl, I’m sorry, okay?”
“Did you at least kill the thing?” the madam demanded.
Elle fielded that question. “No, and I don’t think we can. We did drive it off though. And it won’t be back. It was here for us.”
“And you chased it into my establishment.” Pearl’s mouth curled into a pucker. She was not at all pleased.
“It knew about Granny,” Elle said, her voice thick.
Pearl changed abruptly. “Oh, shit.” She snapped her fingers. “Girls, someone help Elle clean up. And help this other woman. Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Granny.”
“And it knew Arlo,” Blaze added, hoping to get a little love.
“I heard that fucker was dead. Hopefully I can find out where that bastard is buried so I can piss on his grave,” Pearl said, blue eyes narrowed.
Blaze was pretty sure Arlo was too mean to die. He’d heard similar rumors but didn’t believe them. Arlo liked to fake his death every six months or so. Kept the bad guys off him, or so he said.
Women eased Trina off their shoulders and settled her on a divan in a sitting room.
“We can’t find Stacy,” a woman whispered tearfully.
Blaze gave Pearl a telling glance and lowered his eyes.
The old woman nodded. “Stacy didn’t make it. I’m assuming she’s in the pleasure room. We’ll give her a hero’s burial. And her daughter will want for nothing. We take care of our own out here.”
A few brave women descended the stairs to get the remains of their friend.
Other girls helped wipe the blood off of Elle’s face. Elle flashed him a smile. She loved the attention of beautiful women.
Blaze ripped his shirt off and dropped it. He then glanced into his combat display and saw that Ling and Fernando were conscious, binding their wounds, and moving about the Lizzie. He triggered comms. “Ling, Fernando, we need you to pick us up. We’re pretty deep, but I think we can get to Suresh’s junkyard.”
Fernando clicked, and the translation software kicked in. “If we leave, we’ll be breaking impound laws. The IPC attack ships will fire on us.”
“At this stage, they are going to be focused on the impound tower and at least twelve dead security guards. I don’t imagine they’ll care much about us. And we have Trina, who can vouch for us. We’ll leave her at Pearl’s, and she can figure all that IPC shit out.”
“No!” Trina said suddenly. “I’m coming with you. I can’t let that thing continue to live in my universe. It needs to be destroyed.”
“Not sure how we’re going to manage that,” Blaze muttered.
Elle didn’t respond. She was relaxing into the arms of two women who were taking care of her.
Blaze sighed. “Okay, Trina, you’ll join us, but you aren’t going to be able to report in to Denning. In essence, you’ll be AWOL. You sure you want to risk your job?”
She nodded, and her eyes showed a determination he hadn’t seen before. But then, she’d joined in the fight like she’d been born to it. She wasn’t joking about demons, ghosts, or magic now.
Pearl’s floating buffet table hovered in on anti-gravity feet and sat there. While a whorehouse buffet was full of risks, Blaze couldn’t help but grab some sushi, a Meelah wrap, and some skewers of mystery meat, heavily spiced. Elle was too busy enjoying her massage to stop, and Trina was still too shaken to eat.
He was eating when soft, warm hands touched his back. A dark-skinned woman smiled at him; gently, she used a damp wipe to clean the blood from the wounds in his chest and side. The towel must’ve had an anesthetic agent because it didn’t hurt. Another Asian woman joined him, and Blaze wanted to give in to their nursing, but they couldn’t spare a second.
Xerxes was getting away. He eased the women off him, thanked them, and then turned on Pearl. “Can you return those hoverbikes, uh, what’s left to them, to the guy in the marketplace? I forget his name.”
Pearl rolled her eyes. “Big surprise there. Yeah, I know where they came from. Alfonso is a good customer, though he is, like, freaky crazy.”
“Don’t need to know more.” Blaze turned to his sister. “Come on, Elle. Back to work.”
She sighed, kissed her fingers, and touched the face of a woman tending to her. “I’ll be back. You guys are the best.”
“Come on, Elle!” Blaze said with creeping frustration. “We have to go hunt something we can’t kill. That should be all kinds of fun.”
Even though she was still angry, Pearl had her driver take them in a hoverlimo up through the main streets to Suresh’s junkyard on the other side of the moon from the impound tower.
The Lizzie Borden was there,
docked. Suresh, his forehead painted with the markings of Shiva, escorted them out of the hoverlimo. “I heard about your fight. The IPC is super pissed off. Is this the auditor they are looking for?”
Trina’s color had returned to her cheeks. “That would be me. I’ll send my superiors a message once I get on board. Don’t tell anyone you saw me, okay?”
Suresh nodded. “I keep very quiet. If I can count on you during my next audit. Maybe you can help me?”
Trina looked thoughtful…and a little scared. “I’m not sure I’ll have a job with the IPC after all of this is over. I can’t believe demons are real. I can’t believe all of the shit I just saw.”
The hoverlimo rushed off, and Blaze promised himself he would replace Pearl’s plasma rifle with something special. Suresh led them through piles of scrap metal, old hoverbikes, a Dodge Ram truck from earth, several lunar Mack trucks, and an old spacer sailsack. What if Xerxes had made it to the junkyard? What kind of monstrosity could he have built using all the scrap and tech?
Blaze imagined hulking kaiju-type monsters wreaking havoc and literally eating through the moon. Well, the IPC would have to recognize Onyx energy then. Or maybe not. They were so quick to explain away paranormal activity with their science when what they saw defied all reason.
Fernando met them at the front hatch, the stairs lowered. “Weirdo Phil managed to take care of your hotel bill, and your effects have been delivered.”
That made Blaze feel better. He’d get his ax and shotgun back. They climbed in, passing the library/guest room and Cali’s room. Cali…what were they going to do about her?
They all hustled down the hall, up the spiral staircase, and into the bridge. Bill was nowhere to be seen, and the remnants of the battle with Xerxes still littered the floor. Huge slashes of torn metal marred the walls. The gear from the hotel rooms was there. Blaze moved his ax and shotgun to get to his clothes. He grabbed a Huaxia red silk shirt with a black dragon embroidered on the back and slipped it on.
Ling was in a chair, the blue science holographic controls around him. Fernando sat with golden drive controls around him. The Lizzie rose from Suresh’s junkyard and moved off with blue-fire engines blasting them away from the moon and toward the red gasses swirling on Decatur V.
External comms buzzed them, and an IPC attack ship appeared on the horizon. “This is Captain Oliver Bain of the IPC Cavalier-class attack ship, the Relentless, and you are still required in impound. You will follow us back to the impound lot. If you refuse, we will take that as an act of aggression, and you will either be boarded or destroyed.”
Trina hurried over to Blaze. “Give me comms. I can tell them you passed the audit. I mean, you would’ve, if Denning’s robot hadn’t been possessed by that…thing.”
Blaze nodded. “If you are going to fighting with us, you’ll need implants. Fernando can take care of that. Damn, but I wish Bill was up. My ship needs repairs, and that Clicker is the best of the best.”
“He’s resting comfortably in the sick bay,” Fernando clicked.
Elle hit a control and opened comms to the entire bridge. “Go, Trina. See what you can do.”
Trina took over. “This is Senior Auditor Katrina O’Reilly. I am on board the Lizzie Borden, and I plan on giving her a pass. You can fall back, Relentless.”
Alvin Denning’s voice broke through. “Goddammit, Trina, you need to get your ass off that ship. That goddamn jarhead destroyed the impound tower and terrorized all of New Oberlin. You were seen with them, exchanging fire with the P13rce unit, obviously defective.”
“It wasn’t defective,” Trina insisted.
“Oh, really. Then how can you explain it malfunctioning like it did?”
Trina went pale. She was speechless.
Blaze muted comms. “Trina, we have an escape pod if you want to leave. This is your chance.”
She shook her head.
He unmuted their communication systems. “Goddamn, Denning, didn’t you see the octopus thing inside the impound tower? There must’ve been video cameras capturing—”
“Most of the video feeds were shut off. Convenient, is it not?”
“Not when you’re dealing with a demon who can control technology,” Blaze said.
Denning laughed at that.
Blaze, pissed, growled at the IPC officer, “Okay, Denning, we’re done. Try and catch us, you limp-dicked bastard.”
The laughter turned into an angry cry. “I will not tolerate—”
Blaze cut him right the hell off.
“Lizzie, do you have a read on Xerxes?” Blaze asked his ship.
“Affirmative.” A holographic map filled the room, three dimensional. Xerxes was moving into the Sargasso Expanse. The Sargasso Expanse was a no-man’s land separating the Americatus Quadrant from the Huaxia Quadrant. Below it was the Terran Quadrant, and at the center, Earth.
Early space travelers had given up on trying to cross the dead space of the Sargasso Expanse. The anomalies damaged SWD engines, leaving countless ships stranded with no way out.
“We obviously can’t follow him there,” Fernando clicked.
Ling laughed. “Of course we will. It’s just an incredibly dangerous part of deep space where we could get stranded and, hence, die once we run out of food, water, and oxygen. However, I can’t imagine our gunny giving up on the chase now.”
“It’s suicide,” Trina said. “And you won’t be able to outrun the Relentless. It’s a Cavalier-class attack ship. We have to go back to impound.”
Elle sat, her eyes focused. She was gazing into data on her implants. “Xerxes stole a ship, a small freighter, but it has an SWD engine. If we don’t get after him, we’ll lose his Onyx signature.”
She shared her feed, and Blaze saw what she was seeing. News articles of the theft were interspersed with live video feed of them chasing the P13rce unit through the bowels of Fleabugger. And then he saw the specs of the Relentless. It would blow the crap out of his already damaged starship.
“Lizzie, into the gas giant!” he called. “Hit the upper atmosphere. And, uh, try to avoid any storms.”
Trina looked like she might start spasming as she sputtered, “But, but, but they’ll find you. They have sensors. And it won’t be just the Relentless. The Inspiration will be on her way. And if you go too deep, the pressure inside Decatur V will crush us like a can.”
Blaze ignored her. “Lizzie! Now!”
The Lizzie Borden shuddered as the blue-fire engines geared up, sending them streaking toward the gas giant and then into the swirling scarlet gases.
Ling gave them a report. “It’s not good, Gunny. There is no way to avoid the storms. I see hydrogen and helium in roughly solar proportions. Other chemical compounds include methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and water.”
Droplets like blood sprinkled the windows.
An explosion rocked their ship.
“That was a warning shot,” Trina whispered. “They will only give us one.”
“Deeper,” Blaze said.
Storm winds and particles rocked them, and the superstructure of the starship complained in treacherous creaks of metal.
“Full shields,” Blaze said. “We’ll ghost it and then go deep. Elle, is the spell ready?”
She nodded wearily. “You trying to kill me, Blaze?”
Blaze sighed and stared at her. “If you can’t do it, you can’t. But I thought the ghosting mostly relied on Lizzie’s tech.”
“It does. But I have to trigger it. And I’m…oh, screw it.” Elle stood and went to a wall. From her pouch, she took an eyelash encased in chewed bubble gum. She pressed the gum to the metal and growled her spell.
All power winked out. Elle collapsed in a heap.
Blaze went to her. Her VHI was below ten percent. He scooped her up in his arms. “Fernando, come with me to sick bay. Ling, you have control. Try and use the winds to steer us away. I’m hoping we can outmaneuver those IPC attack ships and tear out of here without them seeing us.”
“We will be hidden from the Relentless for forty-five minutes,” Ling said. “I have set a timer. We will have life support and minimal power. I think I can use the air currents to move us. It will be like floating down a river made of deadly gases in a hurricane. How fun!” The damn Meelah grinned out of joy and excitement.
In the corner of his display, Blaze saw the countdown.
“I don’t understand anything,” Trina said. She seemed so lost, pale and small. Tears filled her emerald eyes.
“I’ll explain it all,” Blaze said. “But we need to see to Elle.”
NINE_
╠═╦╬╧╪
Both of the sick bay’s beds were full, one with Bill and one with Elle.
Fernando carefully laid a pillow under Elle’s head. He then inserted an IV into her right arm. His touch was gentle. Blaze and Trina stood nearby.
Elle had decorated the sick bay, and while it did have some compartments made from Clicker spit, it was one of the more comfortable places on the ship. The walls were painted a light auburn, and the floor was a light brown. A tapestry on the wall showed an autumn scene from Earth, and several candles were burning.
“Elle will live,” Fernando clicked, “but she is weak. She will not be able to cast spells for at least twenty-four hours.” The stick insect moved her hair from her face.
“Don’t get creepy on her,” Blaze said, feeling protective.
“I will never forget that one night we shared. True, she was in a state of extreme inebriation, and while I insisted that what we were doing was unwise, she insisted. She said she was feeling … I believe the word was…kinky—”
Blaze had to stop Fernando’s oversharing. “Uh, that’s enough.”
Trina laughed a little. “So your sister and a Clicker? I thought she was gay.”
“Oh, she is,” Fernando answered. “And while I’m male, it is in name only. I am not fertile, and I care nothing for the mating rituals of my people. However, Human sexual activity I find fascinating.”
Blaze just might have to shoot the Clicker. “I don’t think this is the time for—”
