The Dragons of Andromeda

by W. H. Mitchell

  When the quake had passed, Flax tried standing, but her legs were wobbly. Finally, she pulled herself up. The power out, the only light came through the narrow windows as rays pierced the cloudy air. A ray of sunlight rested on the remains of Judicator Busa-Gul’s statue that had toppled over, its head broken off and lying a few feet way. Pinned underneath the statue, Zala strained to free herself.

  Gul’s wife noticed Flax and her mouth curled into a sneer.

  “See?” she screamed. “You’re nothing but bad luck!”

  Flax, unsteady but still standing, picked up the obsidian glass carved in the shape of Gul’s head and limped over to Zala.

  “Leave him alone!” Zala commanded. “Put him down!”

  “Gladly,” Flax replied, dropping the head onto Zala’s skull. The impact made a wet, sickening sound.

  Taking a few steps away from what she had done, Flax collapsed, unconscious, while a pool of black blood slowly spread across the floor.

  When she woke again, Flax wasn’t sure how long she had been out. The penthouse was still dark except for a few emergency lights. Stumbling through the destroyed hallways, she reached the foyer but found it completely filled with debris, trapping her in the apartment.

  “Well, shit,” she said.

  With the thought of finding some water, Flax turned but stopped suddenly when a noise caught her attention. A heavy slab of basalt moved, falling over into the room. In the gap, a female Sarkan showed her face.

  “You’re alive!” she said.

  The Sarkan scrambled through the hole, followed by a male of the same species and, most surprisingly, a Gordian.

  “Who are you people?” Flax asked.

  “We’re here to rescue you,” the female said.

  Realizing being rescued simply meant going back to being a slave, Flax sighed. “That’s great...”

  “Do you want to be rescued or not?” the male Sarkan asked curtly.

  The Gordian, who had slunk past Flax while she was talking to the two others, came back into the foyer.

  “Hey, either there’s a dead Magna in here,” the Gordian said, “or she’s going to have one hell of a headache.”

  “Did you do that?” the female asked.

  “She was trying to kill me.”

  “Trapped under a statue?” the Gordian asked doubtfully.

  “Well, she would’ve killed me once she got free...”

  The Gordian chuckled and slapped her on the back. “Good enough for me!”

  “Sorry, who are you again?” Flax asked in bewilderment.

  “I’m Lieutenant Kinnari of the Imperial Navy,” the female said. “This is Captain Ramus and Orkney Fugg, both civilians.”

  “So, you’re not with the Magna?” Flax said.

  “No,” Kinnari replied. “We’re here to rescue you. I thought I made that clear...”

  “But you’re Sarkan...”

  The lieutenant smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I forgot we’re still in disguise.”

  “That’s called burying the lead,” Flax said. “How did you find me anyway?”

  “From the slave trader who sold you to Judicator Busa-Gul,” Ramus said.

  “Ipak-Bog told you where I was?”

  “No, he’s dead,” Ramus replied, “but his datapad had Gul’s invoice and address.”

  “Did you kill the judicator too?” Kinnari asked.

  “He’s not here,” Flax said. “It was just me and his wife... late wife.”

  “Enough talk,” Ramus said. “Let’s get going!”

  Like a scythe, the earthquake had cut a path of destruction through the city. Many of the buildings Ramus and the others passed on their way to the starport were now damaged and burning, smoke rising into the air already filled with ash. Slaves, alone or in groups, were wandering through the usually orderly streets, now littered with rubble.

  “The quake must have destroyed the pen enclosures,” Kinnari said.

  “Keep moving,” Ramus said.

  When the group reached the outskirts of the starport, Ramus heard a voice chirp in his earpiece.

  “Promise you won’t get mad?” the robotic voice said.

  “Gen?” Ramus replied. “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, some humans came to the ship,” Gen said in his ear. “They said they needed it to escape.”

  “You didn’t let them take it, did you?”

  “No,” Gen replied, “but then some Magna soldiers came and everybody started shooting.”

  “Just tell me the short version,” Ramus said.

  “The ship’s on fire—”

  “On fire?”

  “—after it exploded.”

  Ramus sighed. “Where are you now?”

  “Behind a storage container about 50 yards in front of you,” she said.

  Ramus looked across the concrete runway and saw Gen waving enthusiastically.

  “Stay there!” he shouted.

  Running across the open pavement, they gathered behind the container along with the robot.

  “What the flippin’ fungus do we do now?” Fugg asked.

  No one answered until Flax spoke up.

  “Ipak-Bog had a ship,” she said. “It wasn’t big, but it brought us all the way here from the Imperium.”

  “Do you know where it is?” Ramus asked.

  “It’s in a private hangar,” Flax replied. “I can show you.”

  The hangar, like most of the buildings in the area, was damaged but at least not burning. Ramus was also thankful that whatever security guards had been there were gone now. He and the others entered through a collapsed section of the hangar wall. Inside, a lone ship sat largely unscathed except for a few broken ceiling panels that had fallen from above.

  “Get that stuff off the roof while I check the cockpit,” Ramus said, pointing at Flax and Kinnari. “Fugg, check the engines.”

  “What about me?” Gen asked.

  “Just get on board and try not to blow anything up.”

  “Can do!” she replied.

  Flax wasn’t kidding, Ramus discovered. The interior, a single cabin, was even more cramped than the Ougluk ship.

  Standing on the roof, Flax shouted through the canopy, “We’ve got company!”

  Peering through the cockpit window, Ramus saw a group of six or seven slaves, all human, coming toward them from the hole in the hangar wall.

  “Everybody, get inside!” he barked.

  Flax and Kinnari scampered off the ship’s roof, followed by Fugg who had been at the back, examining the engines.

  “Close the door,” Ramus said.

  “What about them?” Flax asked, pointing at the slaves who had started running toward the ship.

  “Close the door!” Ramus shouted.

  Fugg slammed a control panel, shutting the hatch. An audible hiss filled the cabin as it pressurized, accompanied by the sound of people pounding on the outside of the hull.

  “We can’t just leave them!” Flax shouted.

  “Look around,” Ramus replied. “There’s not enough room for us, let alone all of them!”

  The lieutenant put her hand on Flax’s shoulder. “He’s right. You are the mission. You’re our priority.”

  “They have no future here,” Flax said, shoving Kinnari’s hand away. “They’re slaves. They’re going to die as slaves...”

  Ramus was already lifting the ship off the ground, even as the people outside grasped at hull fairings or anything else they could hold on to. From the corner of his eye, Ramus could see their faces, some frightened, some angry, as their legs dangled a dozen feet off the ground. One by one, they dropped, falling into the crowd of slaves below.

  “You monsters!” Flax screamed as Kinnari held her down.

  Ramus ignored her, guiding the ship through the open roof. Once they were free of the hangar, he slammed back the throttle, shooting the ship through the clouds of ash and smoke, ruddy with the light of distant volcanoes.

  Safely in hyperspace, Sylvia Flax was grat
eful to be free but disappointed with those who had freed her. Now she found herself alone with them.

  When the slave trader Ipak-Bog had taken her to Diavol, Flax remembered the cabin being much larger. With four people and a robot, the space was more confined, even claustrophobic. Captain Ramus ordered them to take stock of any food stores on board. Flax showed them the mini-kitchen built into a cabinet at the back next to a tiny bathroom in a cabinet of its own. For the next few days, they rationed the food and water and tried to make the best of it, but Flax remained sullen, the faces of the people holding on to the outside of the ship replaying in her mind.

  Gen was the first to speak with her directly.

  “Perhaps we could have saved more,” the robot said. “I’m sorry we didn’t.”

  Fugg was having nothing of it.

  “Stop your bitchin’!” he said. “You should be thankful, you ungrateful—”

  “Fugg!” Ramus stopped him.

  “Well, I don’t care,” the Gordian went on. “There’s only three people I care about.”

  “Oh, thank you, Master Fugg!” Gen replied.

  “Wait for it...” Ramus muttered.

  “Me, me, and me!”

  Flax glared at him and she wasn’t the only one.

  “I wonder,” Gen asked her, “how would you have chosen which ones to save?”

  “What do you mean?” Flax replied.

  “I mean, there were so many and there wasn’t enough room for everyone.”

  Flax paused. “I don’t know...”

  Eventually, when the ship emerged from hyperspace at coordinates Ramus and Captain Redgrave had agreed upon, the Baron Lancaster, like a dark silhouette against a sea of stars, was waiting. Flax did not look back at her rescuers or say goodbye. She was simply glad to leave them, and the rest of it, behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In his workshop, Lars was genuinely surprised to see Philip Veber suddenly appear through the portal. Of course, Lars Hatcher knew who Philip was, even if the young nobleman was barely recognizable. Then again, Lars knew his own appearance had changed greatly of late.

  Philip stepped farther into the room, his staff tapping on the floor, as the portal dissolved back into a solid wall. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “No,” Lars replied, “but I know who you are.”

  “Ah,” Philip said, “I can feel you reading my mind.”

  Lars sensed his link to Philip’s thoughts suddenly stop like a door being slammed shut. “Not any more, apparently.”

  An unsettling smile — perhaps it was the teeth? — crept over the young man’s face.

  “It’s best to keep private thoughts private,” Philip replied. “Not everyone should be an open book.”

  “Why are you here?” Lars asked, getting to the point.

  “I’m here for a book, actually.”

  Lars snatched the grimoire, which was still floating, from the air and held it against his body.

  “Yes, that one,” Philip went on. “I have three, but I need another to complete the set.”

  “Unfortunately,” Lars replied, “this book is the property of Warlock Industries. I doubt they’d be willing to part with it.”

  Philip’s chin rose as he turned his head slightly, looking at the metamind with a side eye. “That is unfortunate.”

  “Why do you need four grimoires?”

  “It’s for a ritual,” Philip said. “A very important ritual.”

  Lars nodded, tightening his grip on the book. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. There’s mention of a ceremony that just happens to require four tomes like this one.”

  “Really? Do tell...”

  “It’s to open a portal, but something far bigger than the one you just stepped through.”

  “A trans-dimensional doorway, in fact,” Philip replied.

  “Are you trying to get to the other side?” Lars asked.

  “As they say, doorways go both ways. I’m hoping something comes through.”

  “You’re talking about the Old Ones, aren’t you?”

  “You have been doing a lot of reading!”

  Lars huffed in exasperation. “You must be insane!”

  Philip, with a hint of boyish charm, shrugged with a smile. “Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

  “What could you possibly achieve by unleashing elder gods on the universe?” Lars asked. “It would mean utter destruction!”

  “You’re sounding like my mentor, Ghazul. He was doubtful too... until I showed him the light.”

  Philip chuckled, but Lars didn’t see the joke. It was frustrating, not being able to read his mind.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Philip asked, an earnestness in his voice.

  “What?”

  “Come with me and bring the book with you,” he went on, “then you’ll see what I have planned.”

  “I have no reason to trust you, Lord Veber,” Lars replied.

  “Perhaps not, but can you really trust these people at Warlock Industries? You must have realized they’ve created you for their own ends.”

  Lars thought of Dr. Sprouse. “I have friends here.”

  “Do you really? Are you sure?”

  “I can read minds, remember?”

  “Fair enough,” Philip said, “but I can offer you something better than friendship. I can give you unimaginable power. So much power, you could rule the universe!”

  The veins on his head pulsing, Lars glanced down at the book in his ashen hands.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, “but I don’t trust you.”

  “Fair enough!” Philip replied. “I promise I mean what I say.”

  “We’ll see...”

  The judicial chambers of Inquisitor Kovel Kerch were utilitarian, with a simple wooden desk and bookshelves filled with legal tomes along the walls. When Lord Maycare, Jessica Doric, and Henry Riff came through the doorway, Kerch was waiting impatiently at his desk.

  Lord Maycare carried a large briefcase.

  “I see you made it here alive,” Kerch said.

  “No thanks to your border guards,” Maycare remarked.

  “I sent word to let you through unmolested,” Kerch went on, “but perhaps they dislike humans as much as I do.”

  Maycare planted the case on the table with a loud thud. “Here’s your payment.”

  Kerch approached the case. As Maycare took a step back, the inquisitor released the latches and opened the lid. Inside were six jars of dark red liquid.

  “This is not payment,” Kerch said. “It is restitution for the crimes of your people.”

  “Well, whatever you call it,” Maycare replied, “there’s two liters from each of us.”

  “No doubt,” Kerch said. “Your boy there looks a little pale.”

  “I told you to drink more fluids,” Doric said, putting her hand around Henry’s arm.

  “I wasn’t thirsty,” he replied weakly.

  “Can we get this business started?” Maycare asked.

  Kerch closed the case. “Of course.”

  “We’re looking for a K’thonian grimoire,” Doric said. “Can you help us?”

  Kerch, returning to his desk, rubbed the scales on his neck. “Although it pains me to, I’m nothing if not fair. You have paid your reparations, so I will help you as best I can.”

  “So, you know where there’s a grimoire?” Doric asked.

  “Not exactly,” Kerch replied.

  “Then you’ve been wasting our time!” Maycare shouted.

  Kerch rolled his eyes. “Typical savage... no, I don’t know the exact location of such a book, but I do know where you might find one.”

  Doric cast an eye at Maycare who tried to calm down.

  “Good,” she said. “That’s a start.”

  “As it happens,” the inquisitor said, “there’s been an uptick in K’thonian attacks lately. I’ve traveled extensively to survey the damage and I think you might have some luck on a planet called Isyium.”

&n
bsp; “Why there?” Maycare asked.

  “Most attacks are hit-and-run,” Kerch replied. “The K’thonians fly in, do as much damage as possible, and then flee before local defense forces can respond. In this case, they landed for some reason. Obviously, we put up a fight and managed to kill several of them. They even left one of their ships behind. I suggest you start there.”

  “How often do they attack?” Doric asked.

  Kerch shrugged. “As randomly as the chaos they sow.”

  Maycare nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Kerch said. “You humans like to take things. At least this time you’re stealing from the K’thonians.”

  In a Middleton restaurant not far from the VOX News headquarters, Sylvia Flax ignored her Cobb salad while a video on her datapad played her broadcast from the night before.

  “Security forces, including newly deployed peacebots,” she said on the screen, “have secured much of downtown Regalis, bringing order to the ravaged streets of the Imperial capital...”

  The Flax of the present smiled, glad to have her life back.

  “I thought it was you!” a man’s voice said.

  Walter Ruggles, in a frumpy jacket and wrinkled pants, was standing beside Flax’s table. She took a moment to register who it was, having successfully expunged him from her memory.

  “Oh,” she sputtered. “Hello.”

  “I saw you through the window,” Ruggles went on, pointing to the glass behind her. “I bet you never expected to see me again!”

  Flax stared at him blankly until the gears in her head began turning.

  “Not at all,” she said. “It’s good to see you...”

  “After I was rescued from those hobgoblins, the Navy brought me back here. I was a little worried at first — you know, with IDEA and all — but then I realized I had nothing to fear. Most of the time that kind of stuff is just in my head anyway!”

  He chuckled, and Flax took a crack at smiling.

  “Well, it’s good that you’re safe,” she said, sounding encouraging.

  “You bet!” he replied. “Anyway, I should probably get going... it was nice seeing you again though.”

  Flax nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Ruggles gave an awkward nod of his own and excused himself. Flax didn’t bother watching him go, her attention drawn back to the datapad. She played another video but didn’t like it. Her chin was too low and her eyes weren’t looking directly into the camera. She would have to work on that for tonight’s show.