by Tristan Vick
“As a matter of fact, there is. Are you still in contact with your sister? The one who has allied herself with the empress?”
“Yes,” Onelle said hesitantly. “May I ask what it is that you need her for?”
“I need you to tip her off that a shipment of medical supplies will be making its way to Dagon Prime. When the politicians hear about it, they will do everything in their power to see that the elite aristocrats get their hands on it before the general populace. If the empress gets wind of the shipment in advance, she may make a run for it to re-distribute it more equally among her people.”
“You’re going to play her compassion against her?”
Slowly, Azra’il rose to her feet and locked her hands behind her back. “We must dismantle her foundation. Erode her allies’ trust. Take out her support network. Once that’s taken care of, everything else will come crashing down around her.”
A wicked grin formed on Onelle’s dark green lips. “Your bidding will be my great pleasure.”
She gave the Nephilim salute, which was two fingers pointed at a forty-five-degree angle in the air. The ranking officer responded by doing the same and tapping the fingers of the ranking officer. With civilians, the salute was unnecessary, but since Azra’il did employ the services of Onelle Te’Legra Agnar in an official capacity, she saluted back.
Onelle turned to leave when Azra’il Nun called out to her. “One more thing, Mistress Onelle. This isn’t the time to question where your loyalties lie. If you’re thinking about betraying me, I’d think again, if I were you.”
“The thought has never crossed my mind,” Onelle reassured her, glancing over her shoulder at the black eyes that stared back at her with a dreadfully bitter, almost hollow quality that always sent a shiver down her spine.
Although she didn’t like being threatened in such a manner, there wasn’t much she could do. As The Voice of H’aaztre, Azra’il Nun could literally command her to do something and she’d have no choice but to obey—including taking her own life. At least she was giving Onelle the choice in this instance, even if she was being a condescending bitch.
She pushed away the indignant feeling and managed a polite smile, flashing her pearly whites at the black-eyed woman. Once it was clear to her that Azra’il Nun knew where her loyalties lay, she spun around, and with a bounce in her step, she strolled out of the observation lounge.
After she’d returned to her signature edition luxury space yacht made by her own Agnar Galactic Industries, she flipped a switch and turned on the automated pilot. All systems purred as the ship came to life. The plasma coils of her Orion class-9 engines hummed as they heated up.
Instead of a quadcore, like a Hyperborean fusion drive, the Orion class-9 configuration only relied on a dual core engine. It made travel much more efficient, and since the yacht wasn’t meant for extended space flights, there was less need for redundancy.
The pearl-white yacht rose off the landing bay platform of the medical frigate and slowly turned toward the opening bay doors. Once the doors were fully retracted, Onelle tapped the console and the ship handled the rest for her.
As it exited the open hangar doors, it passed through the blue negative-energy shield and a purple shimmer moved across its iridescent hull. Once the ship had completely cleared the bay doors, Onelle settled into her seat and typed in the hyperspace coordinates necessary to make the jump into FTL.
Initially, she’d made a wrong calculation, and the computer bleated an angry sounding tone in protest. “Infernal technology,” she growled, not wanting to take blame for her own mistake. She quickly retyped the coordinates and this time the computer chimed gleefully in response, and the hyperdrive engines hummed to life.
“See? Was that so hard?” she asked the computer, rolling her eyes in exasperation.
Of course, she was accustomed to speaking to her ship as though it were a person. Even though it didn’t have any fancy A.I. interface and couldn’t actually respond to her, she still sometimes felt it could actually understand her. Even though most of the time it merely seemed to delight in aggravating her.
As the engines warmed up, she brought up a 3D holographic image of Jegra on the holovid and smacked her teeth in disgust. If she could rip Jegra’s world apart, piece by piece, then maybe...just maybe...she’d be satisfied.
It was only because she'd had the foresight to hide a brain-slug in her ear that she was comfortable blaming the parasite for her unrelenting bloodthirst. But the truth was, it had been there long before the worm.
By creating a valuable diversion, however, she was able to pretend someone else had planted the slug inside of her, and this had sent the fools on a wild goose chase looking for a villain who didn’t exist, never once suspecting that she’d done it to herself as a ruse to throw them off her scent.
The ruse had worked, however, and while they were pre-occupied with other things, she'd managed to make her grand escape. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now, all she wanted was to break Jegra, leaving her shattered and betrayed. In that crippling moment of sadness, Onelle wanted to freeze her with a crystalizer. Although crystalizers were banned, due to the fact that their damage was unrepairable, Onelle had pulled a few strings and managed to get her hands on one of the few remaining models that drifted around on the black market.
And the first step to destroying Jegra’s world was to sow the seeds of distrust and get her closest friends to turn on her, abandon her...maybe even renounce her.
Perhaps the only one who could travel freely throughout the Commonwealth, Onelle set course for Thessalonica to meet with her other sister, Raphine, and ask for a parley. The time for a little family reunion, she felt, was long past due.
“NO PARLEY!” RAPHINE yelled, attempting restraint. She folded her arms across her chest as the Imperial Guards fanned out behind her. If there was anyone who could get under her skin, it was her eldest sister.
Onelle stood in front of her yacht, parked just beyond the perimeter of Arena Palace, Jegra’s personal residence on the moon, Thessalonica. As she took in its grandeur, she couldn’t help but feel slightly impressed. Dagon architecture was as sacred to them as their many religions. It never ceased to amaze her how beautiful, functional, and elegant they made everything. She supposed that’s what one could afford, when one lorded over the rest of the galaxy with all one's wealth and power.
But who was she to criticize? Her palace on Arkadia was twice as big and twice as opulent. Still, she hadn’t conquered entire civilizations to procure it, nor had she forced children to dig in the mines for blood-diamonds to acquire her great wealth. No, she’d built her financial empire brick by brick.
A bitter smile formed on her forest green lips and she looked into Raphine’s Bisbee turquoise eyes. “I beg your pardon?” Onelle gasped. “You’d deny parley to your own sister? Your own flesh and blood?” She smacked her teeth in annoyance and turned her nose up, acting all superior.
“No sister of mine would climb into bed with the enemy,” Raphine shot back coldly. “Tell me Onelle, what’s it like, having your head so far up Azra’il Nun’s ass that you can taste it? Bitter? A little salty, perhaps? Oh, let me guess. Sweet and sour...just the way you like your stank-ass whores.”
Livid, Onelle slapped Raphine across her face with the palm of her hand. When the guards stepped forward to subdue her, Raphine raised a hand and gestured for them to hold their positions.
“You’re way out of line, you ungrateful brat. Who raised you after mom and dad died? Who paid for your education at the academy? Who fed and clothed you?”
“Abethca did,” Raphine answered indignantly, staring at Onelle with a gaze that cut like a knife. “You were never around! Always busy with whatever important business call you needed to make or had some corporate meeting or another.”
“I worked to take care of you and Abby,” Onelle responded. “I always made sure you girls had everything you needed. It was only because of Abby’s...” Onelle trailed of
f. She realized that if she besmirched her own sister’s good name it would only anger Raphine all the more.
“What?” Raphine asked, fishing for the unadulterated truth she knew her sister was dying to share. “Because what?”
“Because of Abby’s recklessness and her desire to seek fame in the Arena that she ever crossed paths with Jegra in the first place. If she had only listened to me, she’d still be alive.”
Raphine raised an eyebrow and took a step forward. The Imperial Guards held their position. “What do you mean...she’d still be alive if she listened to you?”
Onelle turned her back to Raphine and in a dramatic display of emotional turmoil and buried her face in the palms of her hands. Weeping bittersweet tears as if on cue, she sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I thought you knew.”
Raphine did her best not to roll her eyes at Onelle’s drama queen antics, but she needed to know what she was on about. “I know everything I need to know. As chief security detail for the palace—”
“Did you know it was Jegra who killed Abby?” Onelle spun around, her eyes full of a fiery rage that caused Raphine to draw back. “Did you know she vaporized her without even checking for a pulse? She still had a heartbeat, Raph. It was faint. But the detectors Dakroth had installed to keep watch on the vitals of his prized fighters showed that Abby was still alive. Check the records for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“That’s not how it happened,” Raphine said. “The assassin, Ishtar Bantu killed our sister. She snapped her neck. And even if she was still barely hanging on by a thread, she’d live out the rest of her life as a paraplegic? You know she’d never have wanted that. She would have rather died than have to endure such an existence.”
Onelle threw her hands up and balked. “Fine, take her side.” Onelle spun back around and raised a reproachful finger. “But I’m telling you, the meddling red-skin may have wounded our dearest Abby, but it was Jegra who murdered her. That’s a fact.”
Onelle flung her forest green hair over her shoulder, spun on her heels, and marched back to her ship. Raphine maintained her position and watched Onelle leave.
Just before boarding her shuttle, Onelle looked back at Raphine with sad eyes. “You don’t have to believe me. I don’t even expect you to forgive me. But I implore you, check the holovid files yourself. You owe Abby at least that much.”
Onelle disappeared into her iridescent space yacht, the external doors sealing shut behind her. The medium-sized craft rose, its plasma coil thrusters beating Raphine’s hair about in eddies of hot air. Then, rapidly ascending into the sky, it darted past wispy clouds and winked like a shooting star before finally vanishing into the depths of outer space.
Raphine watched her sister’s shuttle go. Danica sidled up next to her. “Was that who I think it was?”
“My lovely sister,” quipped Raphine in a sarcastic tone.
“And what did that traitor want?” She looked at Raphine, suddenly realizing she’d insulted her sister to her face, and quickly apologized. “No offense.”
“No offense taken,” Raphine replied. “She is a traitor.”
Danica placed a blue hand on Raphine’s shoulder. “Are you all right? I know her just showing up out of the blue like that couldn’t have been easy for you.”
Raphine laughed. “It was a bit of a shock, that’s for sure. But she’s always been a prima donna, that one. I’ll be fine. It’s just...”
“Just what?”
Raphine turned to Danica and stared hard into her yellow eyes. “She said that Jegra killed Abby, and that there’s holovid evidence of it. She was adamant that Abby wasn’t dead when Jegra vaporized her. I know it’s probably all just lies, but if there’s any amount of truth to it, I need to know. Please. I deserve the truth.”
Danica immediately felt the lump in her throat grow thick and heavy as she gulped it down. But she couldn’t formulate how best to say it and stood in silence until Raphine’s face turned to one of dismay.
“What aren’t you telling me, Dani? What do you know about this?”
Danica turned to the guards and waved her hand, “You’re dismissed.”
They looked at her and then to Raphine. Raphine nodded and the guards took formation and marched off.
“What I’m about to tell you not even Jegra knows about, so, if you’re going to blame anyone you blame me. You got that?”
Raphine nodded. Tears starting to well up in her eyes, brimming on her eyelids and threatening to pour out like tiny waterfalls. It wasn’t the sad news of her sister’s death, or the fact that her friends had kept vital information from her, but she feared that she was about to lose her closest friend.
“It’s true, what Onelle told you. Dakroth ordered Ishtar Bantu to assassinate Abby and pin it on Jegra. The way she did it was to make it look like she’d drowned her. She’d given Abby a syringe full of etorphine and then dumped her in the water.”
“And then Jegra stumbled upon the assassin, catching her red-handed, and intervened.”
“That’s right. And Jegra assumed Ishtar had drowned Abby, killing her in cold blood. But she never gave up hope. She even tried to save your sister, administering CPR. But Abby never woke up.”
“You still haven’t answered me. Was she dead? Had Abby’s heart completely stopped?”
After a long, hesitant pause, Danica answered the question. “No. But it was so faint that even Jegra, with all her enhanced powers, couldn't have been able to detect it. And until the drug wore off, there’d be no way of reviving her using traditional means. For all intents and purposes, she was dead.”
“That can’t be everything. Why does Onelle pin all the blame on Jegra and none of it on the assassin? What does she know that you’re not sharing with me?” The tears were rolling down both their cheeks now as she stared at Danica, her eyes blazing and hands trembling.
“Because,” Danica replied, her tone growing solemn, “Jegra disposed of Abby’s body the only way she could have. Using the blaster Dakroth had given her. The blaster I told him to leave for her.”
“I don’t understand...”
Danica wiped a tear from her cheek, sniffled, and divulged her deepest, darkest secret. “It was all part of my plan.”
“Your plan?” gasped Raphine. “What do you mean your plan?”
“Dakroth wanted me to frame Jegra for a crime so that she’d have a reason to want to escape the arena. Even with all his wealth, he couldn’t purchase her from IGS until her contract was up. And that wasn’t for another three years. As such, I did what I do best; I devised a plan to get Jegra into the emperor’s possession sooner. I framed her for murder. But then the Nyctans attacked and made my scheme unnecessary, so I erased the data and covered my tracks.”
When Raphine remained silent, merely stood there fuming, Danica didn’t know how to respond. So, she continued confessing the sin that had been eating away at her on the inside for so terribly long.
“Listen, not even Jegra knew that Abby still had a pulse. She was manipulated by Dakroth and myself into killing your sister. And...I’m sorry, Raph...so, so very sorry.”
Raphine glared at Danica, one eye squinting narrowly at her, the other one twitching with rage. “You?! Of all people, how could you? I gave myself to you! I slept with my sister’s killer!!”
“Please,” Dani said, reaching out her hand.
Raphine swatted it away. “You’re sick!” she growled. “You are fucking sick, Danica.”
“I feel terrible about what I did,” Dani sobbed. “You have to believe me.”
“I have to believe you?” Raphine asked, her face contorting and wrinkling with unheard of layers of disgust.
Raphine grabbed Danica’s hand, and, forcing it down into her pants, she shoved Danica’s fingers inside of herself. “You fucked me,” she growled. “You fucking killed my sister and then fucked me.” Pulling Danica’s hand back out, she flung it to the side. “There, enjoy the taste of my cunt, you fucking bitch. B
ecause that’s the last time you’re ever going to taste anything as sweet ever again.”
“Raphine, I...” At a loss for words, Danica merely bit her tongue and lowered her eyes out of shame.
Raphine shot her one last menacing glance and then stormed off, making her way back to the palace.
Danica felt a crippling sense of remorse come over her. She turned and called out, “Wait, Raphine!” Raphine paused without looking back and, knowing the moment wouldn’t last, Danica seized the opportunity. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve heard enough lies for the evening,” Raphine answered, and continued on her way.
Danica, completely shattered, sank to her knees and sobbed. Raising her mascara-tarnished eyes to the sky, she scowled up at wherever it was Onelle had slithered off to.
She realized right then and there that Onelle’s entire mission had been to turn Raphine against her and cause a rift so devastating it might even give her cause to doubt the empress.
It was, without a doubt, a master stroke by a master manipulator. And now, Danica had to figure out how to repair the damage and somehow prevent it from destroying everything she and Jegra had worked for.
22
The rim of Aldebaran’s outer edge eclipsed the system’s main star and cast a long shadow across the inner ring, one side in the shade of darkness, the other in a band of light. Like a giant wheel floating in space, it gradually rotated so that both sides had full day and night cycles. One side always spinning into the light of a new dawn while the other spun off into the dark.
Down on the surface, a small portion of the landscape lining the inner circumference was blemished with the charred remains of fallen soldiers and pitted with tiny craters from charged plasma grenades and high-powered plasma rifles. Coolant cartridges littered the desolate battlefield; scraps of Centurion battle robot lying alongside fragments of Nephilim armor could be found strewn across the blue stained soil.
As the shade of night settled over the landscape, Grendok barked orders at some officers who were hauling wounded off the battlefield and then turned his attention back to the empress.