by Dan Schiro
Inside, Bedside Manor greeted Orion with the bright lights of an automated lobby. The hospital motif continued, complete with medical symbols on the walls, rows of waiting room chairs and a cleaning robot clad in a cheap plastic nurse’s outfit. After a quick transfer from his datacube to the receptionist bot to pay for a room, the security door beyond the desk clicked open. He stepped into a narrow hallway where more hospital nonsense like “Operating Room,” “Trauma Center,” “Burn Unit” and so on marked the closely spaced doors. He slipped down the dingy hallway with his senses on edge, trying to intuit which room Dalaxa had disappeared into, distracted by moans and grunts and shrill screams that emanated from the closed doors. He didn’t have to guess for more than a few seconds before someone hissed his name.
Behind him down the hall, Dalaxa peeked out of a cracked door. She waved him in urgently, and Orion entered a dark perversion of the pristine hospital room he had escaped mere days before. Gleaming medical tools modified for sexual purposes lay on a tray next to a rudimentary hospital bed. A rack in one corner held a variety of restraints and IV bags, and a huge tank of anesthetic inhalant leaned against the wall. A soundly incapacitated mystskyn male in coarse leather lay spread-eagle on the plastic-covered mattress of the old hospital bed.
“What took you so long?” Dalaxa hissed.
“Me?” Orion rasped back, his face inches from hers. “What’s up with your disappearing act?”
“You think I wanted to flirt with this asshole?” She rubbed a hand to her temple and squeezed her eyes shut as if weathering the pangs of a headache. “I heard him bragging, I had an opportunity, I had to take it.”
“Slow down.” Orion raised his hands in surrender. “What did you hear him saying?”
“Enough.” Dalaxa jabbed a long finger at the unconscious mystskyn. “He’s one of Typhus’ hired guns.”
“Okay. So why did you kill him?”
“I didn’t kill him.” She shook her head. “Tetrazine-molecule base intoxicants are ingestible for mystskyns, sure, but not when you mix it with a lysogenic enhancer.” She grinned as if she had done something particularly clever.
Orion let his face go sarcastically blank. “What?”
Dalaxa jabbed her finger at the fallen thug again. “I spilled my drink in his drink, and he had an allergic reaction, get it?”
“So, you did kill him.”
“Please. I know what I’m doing. He’s in a coma, but he’ll come around in a few hours. The reaction also bolsters coagulation, which is key for what we need to do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Orion hissed.
“Will you please listen?” She gripped his arms, driving her fingers into his flesh. “He said the Mad Thinker dropped his whole crew here for a week. He said he wanted them to celebrate their last days as mortals before they changed the course of history, became gods, blah blah blah.” She sighed, shaking her head and loosening her grip a little. “They’re supposed to depart on a heavy cruiser, headed back for the stealth ship tomorrow. So that’s why we need his eyeball tonight.”
Orion shrank back from her grasp. “His eyeball?”
“Yes, of course,” said Dalaxa with a sharp nod. “We’ll need it to fool the biometric scans and board their cruiser.” She shrugged. “Once we’re on, it should be a simple matter for you to hack the controls.”
Orion glanced down at the still body. “What…?”
“His eyeball!” Dalaxa gestured impatiently at Orion’s right arm. “So, get your magic sword out. I’ll show you what to do.”
A few slick, sickening minutes later, Orion and Dalaxa exited the tiny room with a freshly harvested eyeball in a clear plastic baggie. The mystskyn hadn’t struggled as Orion removed his unblinking yellow eye and the vine-like optic nerve trailing it. That stillness had disturbed him more than the slow blood or even the soft scooping sounds his spellblade had made.
“Are you listening?” Dalaxa said, swatting his arm.
“Sorry.” Orion shook his head, trying to stuff the memory away. “What was that?”
Dalaxa scoffed. “Excuse me, are you having a moment over that little operation?” She threw a hand back at the securely closed door. “He’s not even dead. How many men, women and creatures have I seen you cut down in the last month?”
“Yeah,” Orion said with a shrug, “but they could fight back. And they were… actively trying to kill me. Me, or innocent people. What happened in that room felt… wrong.” Though he believed it, the whispers of his spellblade gauntlet begged to differ.
“Stop being such a soft-hearted fool,” Dalaxa said, a finger in his face. “That man was complicit in my kidnapping, my mind-rape and the destruction of my homeworld. In fact,” she said, her voice rising, “I’m quite proud of myself for not cutting his throat while he was unconscious.”
“I get it,” Orion hissed, hoping no one could hear them through the cheap hotel walls and flimsy doors. “I get it, okay? Let’s just put it — and this place — behind us.” He shook his head and pulled out his datacube. “AD, Kangor, come in.”
A short gravity lift ride later, Orion and Dalaxa returned to the crimson tiles of Circus Red. The incandescent hedonism churned on with fresh performers, bouncers and patrons, a party where time had no meaning. Orion spotted Kangor’s wolfish head above the crowd, and they shouldered their way through to find Aurelia was with him. The four of them leaned together in a small huddle amidst the raucous throng of aliens.
“Any progress?” Aurelia asked, yelling over the thumping mor trance music.
“It’s time to go,” Orion said, patting his suit pocket lightly. “I got our ticket back to Typhus’ stealth ship.”
“Oh, you got it?” said Dalaxa, sarcasm in her shout. “You did that?”
“Dalaxa’s right,” Orion said with a smirk. “She helped. But there will be plenty of credit to share later. Right now, we have to go — Typhus’ men are leaving tomorrow, so we need to steal their ship tonight.”
“Well and good,” barked Kangor, stooping his massive frame to hear and be heard. “I grow tired of this filthy, loud place.”
“Come now, lover,” Aurelia teased. “It’s such a delightful mix of filthy and loud.”
“Exile,” Kangor said, shaking his head. “Your appetite for depravity—”
“Let’s skip it, shall we?” Orion said sharply. “The mercenary’s burner cube had a reminder stored that said hangar H-39. It’s time to leave quietly.”
Before they broke their huddle, the music died, the psychedelic illumination blooming from the performer stages faded, and the overhead glowglobes blazed to life. The crowd groaned, muttered and quickly fell silent as Siban stepped to the edge of the main stage, his red suit bright in the white floodlights. Apparently, Aurelia’s trance had faded a bit earlier than expected. He pointed a thick trislav finger down at Orion’s group, and his voice boomed out like the oaths of an angry god.
“Patrons of Romp,” he bellowed. “We have saboteurs among us.”
Orion scanned the room. Some in the crowd stood paralyzed, while others made for the exits and still others jostled to get a peek at who Siban had singled out. Thickly muscled mor bouncers moved in on them from a half-dozen directions, glowing energy whips in hand. Orion tried to calculate a path out, but saw none as the bouncers closed ranks. A quick tally told him they were badly outnumbered, with more uniformed men and women arriving from the various gravity lifts around the huge oval room.
“These Union pigs,” Siban continued, “have come to subvert the free people of the Independent Kingdoms. They have profaned this place with their presence.”
Orion couldn’t help but smirk. “Profaned this place?”
“More the other way around,” muttered Kangor as he scratched at his torso.
“Patrons of Romp,” Siban roared, his three eyes wide in his inky face, “watch and see what happ
ens to those who disrespect Siban the Magnificent.”
Orion raised his hand and looked up at Siban. “Can I say something?”
“No,” Siban screamed. His three angry eyes flittered to his circle of bouncers. “Take them and bind them and—”
“Might want to hold up on that,” said a third voice, this one deep with the bass of command.
Siban, the bouncers, and the crowd snapped their necks around to the human man climbing atop one of the performer stages. Orion didn’t have to look — he knew the voice, and he knew the playing field had tilted back their way.
“Don’t mean to state the obvious,” said Jim Costigan, his close-cropped buzzcut, clean-shaven jaw and honest face out of place on a stage at Circus Red. “But those four,” he said, pointing to Orion and his team, “didn’t come alone.”
Siban chuckled indignantly. “If this is a joke, it is one that will earn you lashes of the whip too.”
Costigan shrugged. “Could just cut us all loose, get back to your business.” His calm voice carried well over the entranced crowd. “Wouldn’t be standing here if I only had four or five guys in the crowd.”
Orion couldn’t say for sure, but Siban seemed to consider this for a moment, as if calculating how many agents this interrupter might have stashed in a throng hundreds strong. Yet before the pimp, gunrunner and slave-monger could make any decisions, one of his bouncers cracked under the pressure and struck out. His glowing energy whip laid a sizzling lash on Kangor’s shoulder, and with the vycart’s great roar, Circus Red erupted into unbridled violence. Briarhearts clad in pirate gear flew into motion, choking, chopping and sucker-punching the bouncers they had crept up on while Siban ranted. The crowd moshed like an angry ocean, everyone striking out at bouncers and fellow patrons alike as the performers cowered on their elevated islands. Kangor hurled bodies through the air with great swipes of his arms, and Aurelia showed surprising restraint, merely burning those who came too close to her.
For Orion’s part, he kept Dalaxa Croy behind him and conjured a thick silver billy club. Forcing himself into the White Room, he parried blows of the energy whips and swatted away drunks as they stumbled toward him. Little by little, splashes of subtly different alien blood charged his spellblade’s glowing red veins. As the brawl intensified with screams and breaking limbs and curses, Orion wished he hadn’t already used the spell that would teleport them out of danger. So it went with the Blade of the Word.
Somehow, Costigan found his way through the madness to Orion’s side. “What’s up, OG?” he hollered. His nose had been broken, and his arm looked like it had been slashed with a smuggled-in shank. “You must have a lead.”
“I’m headed for the stealth ship,” Orion shouted back as he brained an oncoming bouncer with a swift swing of his club. “How did you know?”
“People want to kill you,” Costigan said with a bloody smile. “Make your move, you’ll never have a better chance.”
“He’s right,” Dalaxa shouted from close behind Orion. “We need to—”
“I’m not bailing on you guys,” Orion said, swatting a stout poxgane pirate.
“We’ll meet you back at the White Heath.” Costigan hit a pipe-wielding durok with a right cross and knocked him back. “You can buy me a beer.”
Orion knew he was right. This was his chance to steal the ship that would take him to Typhus the Mad Thinker, his chance to finally finish this. “Just get back in one piece, Cos,” he said, “and I’ll buy you a brewery.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Costigan threw another haymaker. “Get out of here!”
Orion whirled and cupped a hand to his mouth. “Aurelia, Kangor! Let’s go!”
Chapter 24
Thanks to the Briarhearts’ distraction, Orion and his companions made it across Circus Red to a gravity lift. They descended to Romp’s hangar deck and raced through the halls, only stopping to grab their tactical garb from Orion’s Prodigal Star so they wouldn’t have to storm Typhus’ stealth ship in their ridiculous disguises. After a quick retinal scan of their stolen eyeball, Orion settled panting into the captain’s chair of a well-patched troop transport.
He took a moment to catch his breath and acclimate himself to the simple controls of the transport, a blocky craft with stubby wings, large pulse cannons and pirate-style graffiti on its brown hull. Then he fired the industrial-grade ion engine, and soon Romp’s gaudy space platform was nothing but a faint purplish twinkle behind them. They sailed out toward the edge of the star’s pull, aiming for the gray line of frozen planetoids that marked the natural border of interstellar space. Dalaxa, Aurelia and Kangor sat on the grimy cabin’s crash couches, peering over Orion’s shoulder at the cracked viewscreen.
“The time is near,” Kangor muttered, his muscles bulging against the crash couch’s straps. “You’ll pay for running, hiding when the remnants of your people needed a leader most…”
“Easy,” Aurelia said to him in a hushed voice. “Easy, Kangor.”
“Let him be, Aurelia,” Orion said with a glance over his shoulder. “If he’s angry, good. We’ll have use for it.”
“Soon, apparently,” Dalaxa said, pointing a long finger at the viewscreen.
Orion turned back and saw a blinking green graphic superimposed over an object in the ring of interstellar debris. Orion magnified the view, and the four of them saw what appeared to be one of the countless small asteroids adrift at the edge of the Morella system. Yet when Orion transmitted the hacked transport’s access codes, he got a return signal from the dull chunk of ice and rock. The troop transport went into autopilot mode, and the data on the cracked viewscreen indicated they were syncing to the speed of the inert comet.
The distance between their dilapidated spacecraft and their destination melted as tense minutes passed. For a moment, Orion feared they would crash into the side of the great wandering glacier. Suddenly an aperture-like port whirled open on one of the comet’s flat surfaces, and the troop transport slowed. The stealth ship’s hidden propulsion units decelerated as the dark hangar bay swallowed them. When the transport landed and locked to a magnetic plate, Orion and his crew unstrapped without a word and made their way to the exit. A quick stop in the mercenaries’ well-stocked armory put fully charged lightshields on each of their arms and a lightweight multi-fire assault rifle in Dalaxa’s dexterous grasp.
“This is it,” Orion told them, his hand perched atop the round red button that would open the transport’s rear cargo door. “They’ll be surprised when we bust out of here, but that surprise won’t last long. We need to cut our way to the bridge and take Typhus out — that ends all of this.” He glanced around at his friends. Kangor looked full of wrath, an anger that had been building since long before Orion’s birth. Aurelia seemed eager for the fight in her own maliciously gleeful way, her eyes sparkling with green fire. Finally he turned his gaze to Dalaxa. “Are you sure you want to be part of this?”
“I am part of this,” she said as she hefted the gunmetal-gray rifle and flipped off the safeties. “I’ll give my life to stop the man who stole what I made. Just promise me this — don’t stop for me. Don’t let worrying about me stop you from doing what’s important.”
Orion nodded, took a deep breath and brought his hand back to push the button, but Kangor spoke up first. “Just be careful with that, Doctor,” he grunted with a nod at Dalaxa’s weapon.
“Doctors heal.” She smiled grimly at the rifle. “I’m no doctor. And I seem to remember holding my own against a horde of giant insects recently.”
“You may have learned a thing or two,” Kangor conceded with a shrug.
Orion allowed himself a chuckle. Then he compelled his mind into the pure violence of the White Room, conjured a silver bo staff from his glowing gauntlet and pushed the button.
Gears ground and the cargo doors slid open. A gust of stale air hit Orion as he charged out into the dim hangar bay, t
wirling his bo staff to fend off the expected hail of pulse bolts. Yet the hangar seemed empty but for a few lifeless heavy troop transports like the one they had stolen. No alarms sounded, no pulse bolts came, and Orion’s White Room faded in the absence of strife.
“Not much of a welcome,” Aurelia said, the fiery green aura around her dimming.
“It could be a trick,” Kangor growled.
“Might be,” Orion whispered, his eyes stretched wide to take in everything he could in the dimness. “On the other hand, might be that we still have the element of surprise. Come on, let’s—”
“Did you hear that?” Dalaxa hissed. She took a few steps toward the interior wall of the echoing hangar bay and flipped on her assault rifle’s flashlight. “There!”
Orion was grateful Dalaxa had the presence of mind to not immediately pull the trigger. In her white beam of light, Orion saw another of the malformed biosynthetic manowars they had encountered on War Blight. He had the same light-blue skin and the same gnarled white hair, though his deformities had skewed him shorter and rounder than his poorly drawn brothers. His naked blue body hunched over a bloody piece of meat, its original form rendered unrecognizable by the manowar’s gnawing bites. He didn’t seem to know they were there.
“Just like War Blight,” Orion muttered. “This place is abandoned.”
“We should take him out,” Dalaxa said with a nod at the biosynth.
“You hang back,” Orion said. “And don’t fire that thing unless you absolutely have to,” he added with a nod to her gun. “I don’t want to rile up any other freaks lurking in the shadows of this place.”
Dalaxa nodded, shifting the rifle in her hands, and Orion glanced at his partners. “Fan out,” he said to Kangor and Aurelia. “We’ll surround it, and whichever one of us it goes for, the other two will swoop in and take it down from behind.”
