“What’s gotten into her, Uncle Jon?” cried Slapgren. The kid was frightened half to death.
“I have no clue. Let’s take her into the other room and see if we can figure this out.”
When Mirraya awoke two hours later, she was on her side and drooling. She blinked her eyes, clearly disoriented. She tried to raise her head, but it collapsed back to her bedding. After ten minutes, countless groans, and a few choice curses, she was sitting up on the cot.
“Where am I?” she asked, scanning the room like she’d never seen it before.
“You here with us, honey. You’re okay. No one’s going to hurt you,” I said.
She staggered to her feet and began walking toward me.
“No, honey. Sit back down. You’ll hit the membrane if you keep walking.”
She stopped and jerked her head back like I’d punched her in the face.
“What membrane?”
“The one I put you in after you went ballistic.”
She looked to the floor and wrinkled her brow.
“Ballistic? Membrane?”
“You tried to kill me, Mirraya,” whined Slapgren. “Why did you do that? I’m your friend.”
“What?” She was totally confused.
“Sit back down, and we’ll figure this out.”
I had Stingray produce a cup of lukewarm tea inside the membrane. Mirraya was quiet until she polished it off.
“What did I do?” she asked. She was fully awake.
“I went to get you, and you were wild. You said terrible things you even attacked Slapgren when he came to your aid. Honey, do you know why you did that?”
“I do,” came a self-satisfied voice from the other side of the room. It was Garustfulous, and he had the most smug look on his face a dog could have.
I was instantly enraged. I jumped at him. “Why? You tell me or I’ll—”
“Oh, I’ll tell you without any coaxing, stupid robot. What’s wrong with her is the very reason we had to exterminate her species. We did so for the good of the galaxy and our own safety.”
I picked up the nearest heavy object. “Al, lower the membrane. I’m going to beat his brains out myself.”
“Captain, wait. There’s a slight malfunction in the membrane generators. I can have that down for you shortly.”
Was Al protecting me from making a stupid mistake? Man, such a brave new world.
“Let me know the second it’s fixed. I have some dog to pulverize because the dog speaks in riddles. Not, fortunately, for much longer.”
“Killing me won’t change the facts, robot,” responded Garustfulous.
“I don’t think we'll know until after I’ve tried.”
Garustfulous knew I wasn’t bluffing. Panic was in his expression. “You used the girl to enter my mind. She did what they call zar-not, didn’t she?”
I looked to the kids, then back to him. “Yes. What’s that got—”
“We needed to kill the Deft because zar-not is sacrilege, and it is too powerful a weapon to let exist. You see the results, however.”
“Do either of you know what he’s talking about?” I asked the teens.
Slapgren spoke. “It is said zar-not is both a blessing and a curse. Without proper training, it can go very wrong.”
“Define very wrong,” I snapped.
“The user of zar-not cannot separate themselves from the one they copied,” Mirraya finished the thought.
“Your child bitch is becoming me, robot. I hate you more than it should be possible. Hence, she hates you with an all-consuming passion. Do I need to add you’ve made my day?”
“C … can it be stopped? Controlled?”
“No, it cannot,” shouted Garustfulous.
“Form, if I might,” interrupted Stingray, “there is a ninety-nine percent probability the Adamant is lying.”
“Is there now?” I replied. “Why do you suspect that?”
“I suspect nothing. I simple have noted that when blustering, lying, or groveling, the Adamant exhibits certain physiological manifestations. He was doing so when last he spoke.”
“I have never groveled in my—”
I slammed the wrench I’d picked up against the membrane. That drew his full attention. “Remember I’m the one who wants to brain you. Speak out of turn and even this membrane won’t stop me.”
The smug smile departed his face.
“Mirraya,” I said, “you are the strongest person I know. You can handle this thing. Be strong, know you will dominate it, and it won’t dominate you. Can you do that for me, honey?” I stopped talking a second. “I need you too much to lose you.”
“I need you too,” added Slapgren. “We’ll get through this together. You and I, we’ll sing the old songs and ask our ancestors to help. You’ll see.”
She smiled back at us both.
“Al, drop her membrane,” I said softly.
“Done.”
“Funny how that circuit works but the dog’s doesn’t,” I observed.
“Machines are like that nowadays, Pilot. I’m still working on the other membrane. Ah, there. We have control again.”
I did a group hug with the kids. “So do I, Al. Thanks.”
TWENTY
I mentioned before that I was traveling with quite the menagerie. I had done that before, and I’d flown solo for decades. Both had their pluses and minuses. The company was nice, except for the sour-puss Adamant. One thing was they all ate like sumo wrestlers, including the dog. I carried a lot of food for Mirraya, but my supply was taxed. Especially by that sour-puss dog. He ate raw meat like it grew on—no—well, like it was easy to come by. He complained endlessly about the quality of the meat too. I gave him mostly vegetable protein made to look like red meat, but it didn’t taste like the Kobe beef he was apparently accustomed to.
“That slop again,” he snapped one day as I slid him a tray of food. I had resisted the powerful temptation to feed him in a stainless-steel bowl, by the way and to my credit.
“You should go on a hunger strike. Don’t eat it and starve. Once the press gets wind of your perils, they’ll start writing harsh words about me.”
“Laugh now, tin man. I won’t be trapped by these bars forever,” he pointed to the metal walls. “When I’m free, you will wish you were never born. Never born, robot. Do you hear me?”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking of what it must be like to be a spherical asshole. What’d you say?”
“You heard me.”
“Okay, you outed me. I did. I think you’re confused about the robot thing. Ah, I was never born. I was hammered together by the finest European craftsmen.” I thumped my skull with my knuckles. “Fine craftsmanship, if I do say so myself.”
“You are beyond the shadow of a doubt the most infuriating being in all of creation.”
I pointed the knife I was using to carve his dessert with at him. “You know who told me that too?”
“I couldn’t care less. If I cared less, it would imply I cared the slightest, and I don’t. Please do not tell me who said it. I order you not to tell me who said it.”
“Thanks for asking. It was my first wife, Gloria.” I looked toward heaven. “Now, she was quite the looker, if you take my meaning.” I outlined a violin in the air. “Do you like big breasted dogs? Wait, forget I asked. We’re talking about me now, I don’t want to get off topic.”
“Please stop speaking. I hate you more with every syllable.”
“No, not Sybil, Gloria. Sybil, I dated in college. Well,” I rolled my eyes as I swung me head in a circle, “if you can call a three-day weekend in Cancún with a case of tequila and plenty of air conditioning a date.”
“Please shoot me. I know your finger contains a laser.” He rested his forehead on the bars. Reaching around the bars he tapped the center of his brow. “Right here. Fire right here.”
“So, Gloria and I, we weren’t married all that long. What there was consisted of a lot of fighting and make-up sex.” I wagged my eyebrows. “Not co
mplaining about the sex part, mind you. Arf, arf.”
“If you hold anything sacred, by his or her name, kill me now,” he slapped viciously at his forehead.
“But she was too selfish for a guy like me. She wanted this and she wanted that. Mostly, the this was expensive and the that was married himself. But toward the end—oh, and let me know if I’ve told you this story before or if I’m boring you—she got real nasty.”
“Yes, you’ve told me about Gloria before and you are boring me. I might actually die from the trauma of the boredom, it’s so all-consuming.”
“One of the last things she said to me, other than through her lawyer, was 'Jonathan Craig Ryan, you are beyond the shadow of a doubt the most infuriating being in all of creation.’ Imagine that. Two billion years ago and her a completely different species, yet you both use those exact same words. What are the …”
I stopped talking because no one was listening. Garustfulous had pounded his head against the bars repeatedly and so hard that he’d knocked himself unconscious. There was blood everywhere, and he was going to have to clean it up, not me. Funny though. He felt about Gloria the same way I did. Go figure.
I gave Mirraya a few days to regain her confidence. I also wanted to see if the she-demon resurfaced. But she was fine, a real trooper. Slapgren and her did chant a lot. Maybe that helped. Maybe it just made them both feel better. There was one curious aspect of the chanting. Neither Stingray nor Al could translate it. That was beyond weird. I asked Slapgren to provide some hints, but he said he couldn’t. He said they knew the lyrics but not the meaning. It was the whole Beatles Magical Mystery Tour album all over again.
I finally asked her about Azsuram. “I don’t want to pressure you. If there’s a problem or a flashback, let me know. Did you learn anything about my old home Azsuram from G-dog?”
She took a series of deep, ragged breaths. “I don’t think so, but let me concentrate.”
Mirraya closed her eyes and held Slapgren’s hand. They began one of those mysterious chants. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and blinked a few times.
“No, nothing specific. When I think of Azsuram, I see a planet with many races, lots of commerce, but nothing clear.”
“Do you think the Adamant invaded it?”
She thought a moment. “Yes. Yes, I’m certain they did.”
My heart sank.
“But there was a problem. I recall they … they were stopped. It stunned the entire empire. I see the word magic. It’s associated with the trouble they encountered.”
“What do you mean magic?” asked Slapgren.
“I … I don’t know. I just see that word in Garustfulous’s head. The Adamant attacked Azsuram with the intention of conquest. But magic stopped … no slowed their progress.” She shook her head violently. “That’s it, Uncle Jon. I can’t—”
I hugged her tight. “That’s okay, baby. You did good. That helps a lot. Now you go rest.”
“What does she mean by magic?” asked a thoroughly confused Slapgren.
“No idea, really. When I first met Mercutcio, the commander of the extermination ship, I told him that magic was real. He basically told me I was nuts. The Adamant don’t believe in magic.”
“It seems they do now,” he replied.
“No idea. That was very recent. Unless Mercutcio hadn’t heard about the setbacks on Azsuram yet.” I rubbed my scalp. “Not to worry. We’ll figure this out when we’re there.”
We left for Azsuram the next day. I stocked up, on supplies, or rather the kids did. I sent them to town, changed to look like locals. They did the pay with flesh thing because I didn’t want them flashing gold. It was too suspicious. But they pyramided a little into enough and came back with a goodly amount. The food replicators could transmute some of it into more palatable food stuffs, as well as phony meat for you know who.
Stingray and Al did what had become my typical slow approach to a potential tinderbox planet. Stop ten light-years out and survey, then five light-years, etcetera. It took a day to determine we were safe to orbit Azsuram as long as we kept the membrane up. It made us almost undetectable. I knew that almost when speaking in terms of the Adamant was the key point. They were good and they were dogged. Using microsecond pulse holes in the membrane, my ship’s AIs slowly accumulated intel about what was going on down below. It wasn’t pretty.
Hell, I don’t know what I expected, two billion years down the line. Starting a civilization was like having kids. Pushing them out involved great sacrifice, pain, and investment of time. Then it was a crap shoot as to the outcome. The child could be good or bad, smart or stupid, or, worse yet, boring. The very first time I saw Azsuram, it was verdant to beat the band. Luscious vegetation, statuesque forests, and abundant fresh water. It was paradise. It was also the fleeing human worldship fleet’s main target for resettlement. And Sapale and I had seeded a society there from her home world of Kaljax. It was to be a utopia, and I was to guard it. It had been, I did, and then I went to sleep.
Below me was an unrecognizable mess complicated by a devastating war. The entire planet was one continuous city, like ancient LA. There was a token tree every four or five kilometers, but otherwise it was nothing but over-built with a massive highway system. The polar ice caps were gone, as were most of the once-expansive oceans. Al told me that long ago some idiot bean counter decided the inhabitants needed the water more than mother nature. A pox upon all bureaucrats.
Then there were the unmistakable scars of war, serious war. Entire sections of the landscape were nothing more than a confluents of blast craters. Smoke rose and fires burned everywhere. Population centers in the megalopolis had been clearly targeted for complete destruction. Only rubble and debris remained where skyscrapers had once reigned. And the air was so foul that I doubted it could sustain life as it had. It wasn’t just the industrial pollution and the smoke, but there was significant amounts of radioactivity from fission bombs.
In orbit above the planet was a stunning amount of wreckage and bashed spacecraft. The space combat, the engagements above the planet, must have been incredible, apocalyptic. There were Adamant ships of various design, others I sort of recognized, and many I couldn’t even have dreamed up. One pattern of ship design was a stack of semi-metallic spider webs joined at the angles with transparent orbs. Unbelievable. I couldn’t image where the crew lived, if there even was a crew.
I did have to concede that there existed one positive aspect to the carnage and destruction. There had been one hell of a fight here. The Adamant hadn’t just rolled into town and taken over. That part stirred pride in my chest. To put up a good fight when the odds of success were long was the mark of a great people.
It became clear to us that the war was still on. It wasn’t on the cataclysmic scale it had been earlier, but raged on in spots. Adamant forces had formed a notched battle line that stretched for hundreds of kilometers. It was a phalanx, much like the ancient Roman formations. Someone was fighting them from north of their lines. There was very little air activity, which was odd. Air superiority was the key to any modern war. Either that strategy was no longer effective or both sides had simply run out of ships. One alternative was counterintuitive and the other inconceivable. Then again, there were no active reinforcements or resupplies apparently coming from space. If the Adamant forces were cut off, I guess they could run out of ships and resort to fighting hand-to-hand on the ground. Good old-fashioned warfare, which had nothing good about it at all.
But who and what could cut off Adamant reinforcements? These guys had swept across the galaxy with a disconcerting ease. Why here and not elsewhere? Why now and not before? Coincidence and chance? Hardly believable. In warfare, there was but one constant. Superior forces won. But those questions weren’t going to bug me very long. I knew I was going down to see what was going on.
I immediately collided with a dilemma. I would be going, for sure. But what about the kids? I could leave them safely aboard Stingray. But if I was killed or deta
ined for a significant period, they couldn’t escape. The food would run out eventually. If I landed on Azsuram, I still couldn’t leave them. If I sealed them in, they faced the same starvation. If I left the door open, they really wouldn’t be safe. As much as I hated to face the fact, they had to come with me. Dragging innocent children, even if they were teenagers, into harm’s way was morally suspect on my part. But there was no point pussy-footing around. I was joining the battle.
Garustfulous was another case altogether. Him, I could stash on Stingray with a clear conscience. He was a war criminal of the highest magnitude. If he starved, it would be a better death than he deserved. I could rig Al to feed and provide water while I was away. But there would be no walks, no tummy rubs, and absolutely no cookies. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.
Since there was no apparent air threat, I landed Stingray well to the north of the action on the ground. I would come up from behind on the one side and ascertain if they were friendly or not. Just because they fought the Adamant didn’t place us on their side. Hell, it could’a been the Berrillians putting up the resistance, if they didn’t happen to be extinct. They enjoyed shooting us as much as they’d enjoy killing Adamant.
“Look, guys,” I told the kids as we deployed, “this is crazy dangerous but I don’t see a better alternative. It’s better that we stick together than me leaving you here. It might not be any more secure here than nearer the front.”
“We understand,” Mirraya said for them both. “We want to go with you. We’re family now.”
“Plus, I bet you need our help,” added Slapgren. “War is hell.”
Tell me about it, boy, I thought to myself.
“Okay, you both have guns and supplies. You have headset coms linked to me and the ship. If we get separated, don’t hesitate to use them. And if anyone shoots at you, shoot back, no questions asked. You got that?” I pointed at their faces for effect.
They nodded nervously.
“Okay, let’s move out. I’m on point. Slapgren, you bring up the rear. Remember the hand signals I taught you.”
Embers: The Galaxy On Fire Series, Book 1 Page 20
