Destroyer of Planets
Neon Octopus Overlord Series Book One
LA Johnson
Chemical Zombie Press
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Chemical Zombie Press LLC
Copyright © 2017 by L.A. Johnson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Artwork by Venkatesh Sekar
Editing by Kerry J. Donovan
For Mom & Dad
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Drexyl woke the same way he had since the start of his captivity—with a tentacle wrapped around his ankle and in a fit of high pitched screaming.
"I'm awake. Stars. Why don't you just kill me already and get it over with?" he muttered it and meant it at first. Then he regretted it.
The Neon Blue Octopus Overlord slithered closer.
"Boundaries, you," Drexyl said, "we've talked about this."
"Yes," the Overlord hissed as she squirmed closer, "we have."
Living in the cushy lair of the Octopus Overlord wasn't all it was cracked up to be. She was known by different titles such as Overseer of the galaxy, Neon Octopus Overlord, and officially as the appointed Most Efficient Being in the galaxy.
“Stop it, you.” Drexyl held up a hand against her advance. She had a name of course. Everything had a name. Drexyl just couldn't pronounce it. And now, thanks to a gambling debt the size of a small planet's GDP, he was in bondage to her, forever. As usual, he hoped to make it past breakfast.
"Tut, tut," she said in her echoing metallic voice. "How many times have I asked you to call me by name? Ttszooodjdeaaaarrr. How hard is that?"
Actually, it was really hard. Between the metallic echo and her thick otherworld accent, Drexyl could never quite make out the exact pronunciation. "Fine," he said, "Soda it is."
It was awkward calling her "you" all the time, and he didn't want to offend her, so he picked something easy and decided to go with it. He watched her physical reaction, which was not immediately homicidal. He exhaled in relief.
"Soda. Hmmm, I shall consider this name." The creature drew even closer, and Drexyl was enveloped in neon blue tentacles. He cringed and emitted a small scream. In the center of all the tentacles, her head was oval, and altogether too big for the neck that came with it.
Drexyl shuddered. He tried to reach his happy place—a hammock on the beach with a breeze. His happy place was getting harder and harder to reach.
Living with a neon alien octopus always threatening to asphyxiate you wore on the subconscious. This was not how he expected his life to play out.
He didn't want to die. He was too attractive, for one thing. And fun. There was that time at that party where he had done that thing that made everybody laugh. He couldn't remember what it was, but he remembered the look on everyone’s face. And their howls of laughter.
A few minutes later, Soda slid away and sat on her throne in front of the console to watch television.
Drexyl was proud of the nickname he’d given her. Soda. Thankfully, she seemed okay with it. The whole living arrangement was awkward enough without tripping over names.
That settled in his mind, he slumped into a nearby chair to watch television with her, there being a distinct lack of anything else to do in the room. On the plus side, she had a giant, flat, high definition screen. On the minus side, her taste in shows sucked.
"You know, for somebody who's in charge of the entire galaxy, you have an awful lot of free time."
This caused what Drexyl guessed was amused sputtering on her part. "I am the most powerful being in the galaxy," she cooed. "In fact, I'm immortal. Why not enjoy my time? This pitiful galaxy's leaders are always inviting me to go to their stupid, boring meetings. They demand reports and input and answers, but it's tedious," she wheezed at him through rubbery lips. "I don't do the things other beings consider important because I don't have to. That's the meaning of real power."
She sighed and ran a sucker-encrusted tentacle across his face. He gritted his teeth.
"Immortality's a funny thing, Drexyl. What nobody tells you is that after millennia to reflect, you realize there are far worse things in the universe than death. Endless monotony. Finding out your favorite restaurant went out of business. Budget meetings.”
Drexyl wondered what she was going on about. He scooted backward, away from the wobbly head, but the tentacles were always with him. The ooze sloughing off them made his ankles itch.
Suddenly, the picture on the television screen turned fuzzy and pixilated.
Soda whacked it with a tentacle.
"Remind me to call the stupid cable company," she told him. Whack. "I'm only the Supreme Overseer of the whole galaxy." Whack. "Just how important do you have to be to get a signal around here?"
The picture reappeared in crystal sharp focus.
"At least the commercial is still on," Drexyl said, "you didn't miss anything." A blur of neon movement caught his eye. "Hey, are you alright?"
Soda had jumped off of her throne and backed up. Her eyes bulged, and she pointed at the screen. "You didn't see that just then? The message on the screen? When the commercial disappeared?"
Drexyl shook his head. "I only saw static. There was a message? Was it from the cable company?"
She grabbed an old coffee cup and threw it against the wall. It fell to the floor in tiny pieces.
Drexyl jumped up and retreated across the room.
She scratched the side of her head with a tentacle. This was the most upset Drexyl had seen her in almost two years of captivity. He guessed it probably was the cable company. It usually had this effect on people.
"What did the message say?" Drexyl asked. "Did it tell you to restart your cable box? That’s what my messages always say."
"No. It didn't tell me to restart the cable box." She squinted her bulging eyes at him. "Are you familiar with the word Thaaraa?"
He thought about it. "No."
"It's a message in an ancient language. And it's not good news."
"Is something wrong with our cable service?"
Soda turned to him and raged. "It has nothing to do with the blasted cable company! I've got to move up the end of Celestial. Do you have any idea how long it took me to kidnap and train them?" Her whole body slumped. "It means I'm running out of time to cover my tracks."
Kirian blinked. She was standing over a screaming guy in an expensive suit, her curved blade in hand. They were in a cubicle. She had no idea how she got there. Also, her watch alarm was going off.
"Who are you?" s
he asked him. "And what am I doing here?"
Her mind raced. She couldn't remember anything. Not entering the office, not pulling out the weapon, nothing. She re-sheathed her sword.
The cubicle dweller stopped screaming and blinked at her, watching her put away her weapon. He hyperventilated for a moment and then appeared to recover slightly.
"I-I’m Carl. A-And apparently, you're stealing my signed photo of the Star Slug." He pointed at it in her other hand.
Kirian looked at the shiny, signed photo and slumped her shoulders.
"Nice," she told him, glancing at it for a moment. She tossed it on his desk.
"I bought it at Galaxy Con last month," he replied. "Cost me a fortune."
"I'll bet. Sorry about that. I haven't been myself lately."
She ran her fingers through her dark hair, wondering what to do next. She glanced at her watch. In fact, she couldn't remember anything from the previous half hour or so. I'm a brawler, but I've never been a thief. Kirian was confused. When did I start blacking out and plundering locals?
The man sat up and looked at her. In fact, he was staring. "Hey," he said, "you're Kiriell, Wrecker of Worlds, the legendary Celestial, right?"
She knelt next to him, smiling in an attempt to put him at ease. "Actually, it's Kirian, Destroyer of Planets. Thank you so much for noticing. Spending quality time on the dark net, are we?" She raised an eyebrow at him.
Kirian had spent time fostering a fun alter ego of herself on the dark net. One of the only perks of working involuntarily in Celestial for the Octopus Overlord in charge of the galaxy was getting to choose your own title. She decided to be Kirian, Destroyer of Planets and have fun with it. Life in captivity could grow boring.
"You get that the whole Planet Destroying thing is ironic, right?" she continued.
"Er, I guess so."
Her watch alarm was still buzzing. "But seriously, your planet is about to be deleted. I'm very sorry; it's not my decision. Apparently, I'm just a lackey running around doing as I'm told until I lose my mind and start unconsciously robbing people."
She sighed. Then she showed him her bracelets. "I have no choice. I'm a prisoner of the Octopus Overlord."
"The Most Efficient Being in the Galaxy?"
"That's the one. Yeah."
"Why would she delete my planet?"
"No idea," said Kirian, standing and shaking the fuzz from her head. "Good luck. I gotta go, there's somebody I still have to kill."
Chapter 2
Ari rounded the corner and stopped outside the door of her boss's office. Her heart was pounding. She clutched a stack of paperwork in her hand.
As nervous as she was, she had never been more certain about anything in her life. The numbers her boss had given her were wrong, immeasurably wrong.
It wasn’t just the numbers, either, there was something more to it. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She shook her head, this being one of several hundred daily moments that she wished she had taken the job on Horath instead.
A level-three intelligence like herself was obviously wasted on this planet and this company. And furthermore, the boss, Mr. Brake, had been blocking her transfer requests for over a year.
Ari steeled herself, took a deep breath and threw the door open without knocking.
Mr. Brake looked up from his desk and rolled his eyes at her. “What is it now, Ari?"
"These numbers," Ari said, "they don't add up the way you said they would." Ari shook the papers at him.
Both the terror of the situation and the excitement of finally acting on her instincts combined to pump adrenaline through her system. Ari’s mind raced, and she gulped down more oxygen. This is what confronting authority feels like.
"You're paid to crunch the numbers," he said coolly, "not to think."
Ari’s cheeks got hot. She gritted her teeth into a forced smile. "What I think is that you cut every corner imaginable, and now we are the subject of several lawsuits."
His face tightened. "And that's what we pay the lawyers for."
"Then there's the matter of the several million Galactic Credits in missing funds." Ari blurted it out. She meant to say it, but now she’d crossed the line, there was no going back. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she started working on her resume.
Her boss stood, sizing her up as if seeing her for the first time. A vein on his forehead pulsed to imaginary electronica music. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he said in barely measured tones.
"On the contrary, I have all the proof right here." She waved the papers at him again. What part of this was he not getting?
Mr. Brake sat back down at his desk, grabbed his phone and dialed. "That does it. You're fired. Security," he bellowed, "I need you on the thirteenth floor. A very recently fired employee just assaulted me. Call the police as well, would you?"
“Assaulted? You lying pig!”
Was this actually happening? A finger tapped Ari's shoulder from behind. Ari couldn't risk breaking eye contact with the lying son of a wormhole since she was stuck in some sort of primal bureaucratic standoff. And losing.
"I'm a little busy," said Ari, not turning around. "You'll just have to wait your turn."
Ari was tingling with horror at the recent developments. It didn’t feel real. Did he really just contact security and police? He was the real criminal here.
She sucked in a breath. This was spiraling well past her worst nightmare. The room started to spin. Get a grip, Ari.
Another tap on her shoulder brought a sense of relief. At least there was a witness to the non-assault.
"Hang on," Ari said, turning to face the shoulder-tapper and holding up an index finger.
Behind her stood an athletic looking girl with long dark hair and a curved sword.
Ari took a step back. How fast is security in this building? The sword felt like overkill in this particular situation. Was she going to jail before all of this got sorted out? Would her entire career be ruined by this idiot? She decided to try to convince Sword Girl to arrest him instead.
“Look, you were here when he said I assaulted him. You tapped me on the shoulder, remember? You’re a witness that he lied. Arrest him, not me.”
Ari searched Sword Girl’s face for signs she was getting through. Sword Girl looked conflicted. No, disinterested. Maybe even a strange combination of the two. Ari pressed on. “These papers, I have proof that this man is a criminal.”
"Enjoy jail." Mr. Brake smirked when she made no move to arrest him.
Ari looked to Mr. Brake, then back to Sword Girl, who now had a gun pointed at Ari’s head.
Ari took another step back. She threw her hands in the air wondering where the gun had come from. “Hey, if you’re security, then where’s your uniform?” Sword Girl was wearing jeans and a hoodie. Under normal circumstances, Ari would have caught on sooner. She bit her lip.
Sword-Girl stepped forward and waved the gun from Ari to Mr. Brake and then back again, seemingly unable to make up her mind.
Then she pointed it back at Mr. Brake and fired. He slumped over his desk.
Ari gasped. "Who are you?"
"I'm not security, Ari," she said.
"I figured that out. How do you know my name?"
Sword Girl blinked at her. She was taller than Ari, and her long dark hair had luminescent tips. Ari would have been fascinated if she weren’t so terrified.
"Look, I know your name because I studied you to kill you," she said, stashing the weapons in her hoodie. "It’s my job. Long story. I have an evil boss too." She tilted her head in Mr. Brake's direction. "I'll fill you in some time. Anyway, I've changed my mind about killing you, but it's a limited time offer."
"If you're not security, then what did you do to Mr. Brake?"
"What do you care? And he's fine. It's just experimental sleep-ray technology. Very fun. And it slays at parties."
"Parties?" Ari asked. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, this planet is pretty upti
ght, so probably not at these parties, but at fun parties, on other planets, it slays, trust me. Ari, we have to go. This planet is about to be deleted."
Ari's mind raced. Deleted? What was she talking about? Who could delete an entire planet?
"Look," she said, “I'm Kirian, Destroyer of Planets."
She said it as if that would clear everything up. It didn't.
"Your planet is being deleted. Soon." She raised an eyebrow and pointed at her watch. "I was sent to kill you, but according to your profile you're a level-two intelligence, and I need your help. So, I need you to come with me."
Ari was fully prepared to ask follow-up questions about Kirian's title, but those were washed away by the level-two intelligence designation.
"I'm sorry, did you say level-two intelligence?"
"Of course," Kirian answered, raising an eyebrow. Then she smirked. "Oh, he didn't tell you, did he? Saved a lot of money on your salary by lying about your test scores." Kirian shook her head. "I should have shot him with a real gun.”
Kirian ran to the elevator. Ari stood her ground. What was going on? She replayed the previous few minutes in her head, and something about Kirian looking at her watch and the alarm was starting to worry her. There were only two possibilities. Kirian was crazy, or Kirian was right. Even the thought of that made the room spin again. Was the planet really about to be deleted?
Kirian held the elevator doors open and yelled. "You're making this more complicated than it needs to be, Ari. We have to hurry."
She'd just been fired for the first time. A new wave of wooziness washed over her as she remembered Mr. Brake and his threats. Even if Kirian weren't right about the imminent deletion of the planet, actual security would likely arrive soon, and that was bad too.
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