Short Stories from the Star Kingdom

by Lindsay Buroker

  Footsteps clanged on the steps, and Rache dropped his load. “Now what?”

  This time, it was only Amit. “I have defeated the two robot attackers that the Kingdom Guard sent in first.” Amit looked around the room at the mess. He sounded smug when he added, “I defeated them without causing furniture to fall through the floor.”

  “Fantastic. I’ll give you a medal later.”

  “I am also here to report that a shuttle has landed out front. It is possible that more authorities have arrived.”

  “Then it’s time for us to get out of here.” Rache ran over to the cage.

  “My olfactory receptors now detect meat,” Amit stated.

  “What?”

  Amit strode to one of the laboratory counters and picked up the remains of the sandwich. “This must be what that canine sought.”

  “Guess it wasn’t into cat women, after all.” Rache leaned through the gate. “Pounce, can you walk, or do you want me to carry you?”

  As she squinted blearily up at him, she looked like she might throw up. Maybe he should have volunteered Amit to do the carrying.

  “Who are you?” she rasped, sounding like she hadn’t had water in days.

  “Someone who’s going to take you back to your tree house.” Rache offered his gauntleted hand.

  She clasped it, and he hauled her to her feet.

  “You sound familiar.”

  He should. He’d given her and the rest of Qin’s sisters a ride on his ship not that long ago.

  But it was better for him if everyone believed he was dead.

  “You probably knew me in another life,” he said and guided her out.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  * * *

  Rache supported the wobbly Pounce as he and Amit walked out the back door, through the alley, and toward the front of the building. As Amit had warned, a shuttle had landed in the parking lot. A shuttle painted in the royal purple of the crown.

  Had someone sent a knight to investigate the alarm? Talk about overkill…

  As they entered the parking lot, the hatch opened. Rache braced himself in case he needed to raise his rifle or sprint off into the city with Pounce over his shoulder.

  A familiar face poked out.

  “He’s got Pounce!” Casmir called back into the shuttle.

  He and Qin jumped out, followed by Kim, Asger, and another knight—they both wore silver liquid armor and carried pertundos, so they must have expected a battle. Rache gazed blandly at the group as he released Pounce into her sister’s care.

  “There’s smoke back there,” the unfamiliar knight called. “I’m going in.”

  “There’s a modest fire in the basement,” Rache said, “due to the scientist employing defender robots that were programmed to blow holes in the building they were defending.”

  “Is the scientist still alive?” Casmir asked warily.

  “Stunned and heaped on the floor, yes. The defender robots suffered a more devastating fate.”

  Asger, apparently more concerned than reassured by Rache’s description of events, ran off after his fellow knight. That was fine. They could handle the cleanup.

  “You destroyed robots?” Casmir sounded as distraught as he might have at a human death.

  “Amit helped. He took care of the upstairs robots.”

  “Without causing flaming furniture to fall through the floor,” Amit said.

  “I told you,” Rache said, “the robots did that, not me.”

  “I did not give my robots time to blow holes in the building,” Amit said.

  Rache did his best to ensure his exasperated glare included both Casmir and Amit, then waved at the shuttle. “What are you all doing here?” He looked at Kim. “I was under the impression that you would wait until tomorrow to visit the laboratories on the list.”

  “Casmir dug up more information that pointed us to this laboratory,” Kim said. “Also, I was suspicious of your scheming look. Despite what you said, it was very similar to one of his.”

  “I should have worn my mask for our date.”

  “That would have made kissing difficult.”

  Casmir’s face twisted. “Can’t you warn innocent bystanders before you start talking about such things? I better check on Pounce.” He disappeared back into the shuttle. “Do you need something to drink?” his voice floated out. “Water? Bandages? Ear plugs?”

  “I can’t believe you think we’re even remotely similar,” Rache said.

  “Just in the scheming smirk.”

  Asger returned, the scientist slung over his shoulder. The man’s coughs promised he was still alive. Rache supposed that was for the best, though if he’d been out in the lawless emptiness of space, he would have killed the man for kidnapping a friend. Or at least a friend of a friend.

  Casmir must have heard the coughing, for he leaned out of the shuttle again and scrutinized the man. “Why did he kidnap Pounce? Did he spout his nefarious plans to you before threatening to blow your head off, Ra—David? Villains like to do that.”

  “He spouted his nefarious plans to me when I asked him to,” Rache said. “My hand might have been around his neck at the time.”

  “I suppose that’s one way to get information.”

  “I gathered he wanted to copy her DNA and make a few hundred more cat women to sell.”

  Qin made a face. “Was he planning to raise them here? In a strip mall? My sisters and I were educated and trained from birth as part of the package. The Druckers didn’t pick us up until we were twelve.”

  “He didn’t get into the details,” Rache said, “perhaps because of the aforementioned hand around his neck.”

  “You know how to kill a conversation,” Casmir told him.

  “I wasn’t interested in having an extended discourse with him. I’m certain your authorities can question him with a truth drug.”

  “I imagine so. We should take him to the Kingdom Guard now.” Casmir raised his eyebrows at Kim and Rache. “Can we give you two a ride?”

  “I need to work in the morning, so I will accept a ride back home,” Kim said.

  “I’ll walk.” Rache would have preferred to go with Kim, but… “So far, only one person knows where my apartment is. I’d prefer to keep it that way.” He didn’t even know all of the people Casmir had brought along.

  “Understandable,” Casmir said. “The location of an underground lair should be kept secret.”

  “It’s a subterranean apartment.”

  “Of course.” Casmir smiled and bowed to him, then disappeared back into the shuttle.

  Kim touched Rache’s arm—he wished he weren’t wearing his armor so he could have felt it. “Thank you for finding her.”

  “You’re welcome. Though it seems that your allies were sufficient for the task and you didn’t need my help.” Despite his words, Rache felt a little smug that he’d figured out where Pounce was before Casmir.

  “I still appreciate that you risked yourself to save one of my friends.”

  “I always will.” He bowed to her. “Should your appreciation move you to kiss me again later, I would gladly accept.”

  “There have to be earplugs in here,” Casmir’s voice drifted out.

  Kim rolled her eyes. “On our next date.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  As she climbed in and the shuttle took off, leaving Rache with only Amit for company, he tried not to feel alone. Maybe he should have accepted the ride and given up on keeping his apartment a secret. But he was still wanted dead by the crown, the authorities, and everyone on the planet. Nothing had changed.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  * * *

  10 years ago…

  * * *

  David had chosen his name. Tenebris—Latin for dark—and Rache—German for revenge or vengeance. It would do for his new and likely short life.

  He was reading an Old Earth classic, Moby Dick, as he recovered from his final surgery. Already, hi
s shirt felt tighter as the bio-synthetic muscle fibers grew under his skin. He’d been lean and fit before—per the king’s insistence—but now, he would be bigger and stronger. Not so big that he lost his agility, but much more powerful than he’d been as a mere un-augmented human being. He would be walking death—he’d also considered that as a name.

  “That’s not the best book to read before you go on a vengeance quest,” the captain said. He sat on the edge of his bed as he dressed and prepared to leave. The android nurse had come in earlier and declared him fit to go.

  “I know what it’s about.”

  “You’ve read it before?”

  “No,” David admitted. “I wasn’t allowed to read anything except military history and war strategy books when I was growing up.”

  “Sun Tzu? Liddell Hart? Space Commander Alex Decker?”

  “All of those and more, yes.”

  “Don’t make me regret not succeeding in recruiting you.” The captain grinned at him and grabbed his boots.

  David heard a couple of men talking in the hallway, but he didn’t think much of it—this wing of the medical station was busy with visitors and patients—until they strode in the door. One was carrying a familiar cup—the one the nurse had been refilling for the captain, but in his other hand, he held a DEW-Tek pistol. His buddy carried a rifle.

  “A hot android said to bring this to you, Finch,” the man with the cup said.

  “Did she?” The captain turned slowly, glancing toward a weapons belt hanging with his jacket on a hook on the wall. Six feet away from him. “Did you call her sweet cakes? She likes that.”

  “What we’d like is to tell you how we really feel about you, now that you’re not surrounded by your crew and in your armored ship.”

  The men lifted their weapons to fire.

  David rolled sideways off his mattress and onto the floor, putting the bed between him and the men. The captain dropped down behind his bed as weapons fire blasted into it, blowing the mattress to shreds.

  This wasn’t David’s fight, but he felt compelled to help. Besides, these idiots were as likely to hit him as their target.

  They were focused on the captain, so he had time to spring onto his bed, leap over the destroyed one, and to the other side without attracting their notice. Unfortunately, he hadn’t used his newly enhanced muscles yet, and he sprang so high that he cracked his head on the ceiling. That drew the attention of the man with the rifle. He swung it toward David.

  David landed on a bed and recovered in time to kick at the rifle, his foot sweeping outward so quickly that it startled him. He almost lost his balance backward, but the rest of his muscles compensated to keep him upright, and he connected with the firearm before it discharged. It flew upward, striking the ceiling like a cannonball and stuck, the tip of the barrel burying itself inches into a tile.

  David jumped down, grabbed his attacker, and hurled him into a wall. He sprang to charge after him, but his foe hit so hard that he crumpled to the floor and did not rise.

  The buzz of a stunner fired. David spun back to the fight in time to see the remaining man go down. Blood dribbled from the captain’s nose, but he’d managed to disarm his opponent and find the stunner.

  “Good going, kid,” he said. “We—”

  A third man charged into the room, firing even before he plunged through the door. David leaped to the side, but again, he miscalculated as his muscles sent him farther than usual. His hip clipped the end of a bed, and he barely kept from pitching to the floor.

  Crimson DEW-Tek bolts sprayed the room. David ducked a split second before bolts streaked over his head and slammed into the wall behind the beds.

  The captain lunged into grappling range with the gunman, and the firing halted. The smack of a punch echoed through the room. David rushed into the fight, seething with rage—rage spawned more by his own unexpected clumsiness than the attack itself.

  The man sensed him coming and shoved the captain away in time to spin to face David. But not fast enough to block a punch that sank into his stomach like a missile being launched. His weapon clattered to the floor as he doubled over.

  David grabbed him and threw him over a bed, marveling at his own strength as the man flew all the way to the wall. He struck shoulder-first with a crunching of bone and slumped to the floor next to the other man David had thrown. A gasp and moan promised that at least one of them was still conscious, but they were without weapons now, and didn’t rise to resume the fight.

  “As I was saying—” the captain slapped his palms together, as if knocking off dust, “—thanks, kid. I don’t know if they mentioned it, but it’ll take you a while to get used to your new strength.” His gaze lifted to the ceiling, where the rifle still dangled—right next to the hole David had punched into the tiles with his head.

  “Apparently.”

  David surreptitiously rubbed his hip, which hurt more than his head, then noticed he’d also dented the end board of the bed he’d rammed against. He’d gone from an agile air-bike racer and trained knight to some fairy-tale ogre who couldn’t compensate for his own strength.

  “It happens to everyone who gets upgrades. I’ve seen it plenty before. You’ll need to practice against other guys in the gym for a while, other guys with upgrades, ideally. As you can see, your power can be devastating to—” he raised his voice, looking toward the crumpled men, “—idiots not smart enough to buy combat armor before assaulting a mercenary captain.”

  “Is it wise to goad them?”

  “Oh, never, but what fun would my job be if I didn’t?” The captain shrugged. “I better clear out of here, since my enemies know where I am now. That’ll teach me to get my arm lopped off by a cursed Star Kingdom knight with a battle axe.”

  “A pertundo,” David said, having trained with the bladed energy weapon himself.

  “Whatever. I hate the Kingdom.”

  “I suppose that means you don’t take contracts from them.” Ten minutes ago, David hadn’t had any interest in joining mercenaries or doing anything except assassinating King Jager, but this fight had shown him that it would take time for him to master his newly upgraded body. If he wasn’t at the top of his game, he wouldn’t be able to get past Jager’s security to reach him, much less kill him.

  “Nah. They don’t offer, regardless—too snooty to ever hire mercenaries—but I’m not interested in their system or working for them. I do my best to keep my crew away from their agents.” The captain made a fist with his new hand. “It doesn’t always work, but that’s the biz. It’s dangerous.”

  “Are you still hiring?”

  “Sure. You interested?”

  “You’ve got enhanced people I can practice on?”

  “Yup. Mercenaries are always ready for a fight.”

  “Then I’m interested. For a while.”

  The captain stuck out his hand. “Welcome to my crew, kid. What’d you say your name is? Have you decided?”

  “Tenebris Rache.”

  “Sounds pretentious.”

  “I was raised as a noble in the Kingdom, trained from birth to one day affect history.”

  “So it needs to be pretentious?”

  David caught himself doing a Kingdom bow but shifted the gesture into a hand clasp. “Yes.”

  “So be it, kid. Welcome to the next phase of your life.”

  * * *

  • • • • •

  * * *

  Present day…

  * * *

  Rache was cleaning his armor when the chime alerted him to a visitor approaching in the hallway. He wasn’t expecting Kim—still the only person who knew where he lived—so he jumped to his feet and reached for a weapon before seeing on the wall display that she was indeed his visitor. She was carrying something in a shopping bag.

  He met her at the door and invited her in.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t comm before showing up,” she said, glancing at the bag, “but I wasn’t sure if I would be welcome once you found out wha
t I was bringing you.”

  “Is it a gift from Casmir?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Because you would never give me a gift you believed would make me wary.”

  “Possibly true.” Kim lifted the bag in offering.

  Rache leaned over and peeked inside, but the contents were wrapped in black tissue paper. “Hm.”

  “It won’t bite.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “Yes. Casmir proudly showed it off before wrapping it up.”

  Rache gingerly accepted the bag and pulled out the item inside. It was surprisingly thin. He unwrapped it and still didn’t know what he was looking at. The capital letters M and E in blue linked by a flashy orange and yellow comet flying behind them, all on a black background.

  “Is this… a sticker?” Rache turned it over, trying to figure out what one would do with it. “A magnet?” He looked to his refrigerator. “It’s not my style as far as modern art goes. Or any kind of art.”

  “He said it’s an appliqué. I’m not positive that’s the correct word, as there’s no sewing involved, but you’re supposed to stick it on the chest piece of your armor.”

  Rache stared down at it, horrified at the thought of plastering a garish sticker on his pristinely maintained black armor.

  “You get it, right?” Kim asked. “ME? Main Event.”

  He lifted the stare to her. Was she joking?

  “Casmir said the only way to make people remember your superhero name is to have the logo on your costume. Your armor, that is.”

  “Uh.”

  “Did you see the network news? The video? You did know there was a security camera recording inside that basement laboratory, right? The Kingdom Guard recovered it, and somehow, the press got a copy.”

  “Somehow?” Why was Rache positive that Casmir had played a role in that?

  Kim nodded. “A couple of reporters went out to Asger Castle to interview Pounce for information about the mysterious armored man’s identity—none of the camera footage was shot from an angle that could see through your faceplate—and Casmir happened to be there. He supplied your name—pardon me, your superhero name—to the reporters.”