Galaxy Under Siege

by Tristan Vick

  “Really?” Onelle echoed, her voice filled with disgust at the very idea of having to live in an ugly, scarred and tattered skin suit. “You’re going to let your flesh become disfigured simply to prove a point?”

  “And why shouldn’t I?”

  Onelle groaned and then said, “Suit yourself. But don’t come crying to me when you gain the title of ugliest gladiator ever.”

  “I shall do my best not to let it come to that,” Danica reassured her.

  “You do that,” Onelle said in a dreary voice. She yawned, took another sip of her margarita, and then promptly fell into an alcohol induced sleep. Both Aidora and Danica were alerted to the fact by her gentle snoring.

  As soon as it was clear that Onelle was out for the count, Danica sat up and turned to Aidora. The sudden change in demeanor and mood caused Aidora to cautiously draw back.

  “Who did that to you?”

  “Did what?” Aidora asked, unconsciously touching her neck. She’d tried her best to cover up the bruises with makeup, but maybe she hadn’t gotten it all. Maybe Danica had seen right through her disguise.

  Danica pointed down at her teal, wrap-around skirt. When she looked down, she saw the blue stain; her blood was seeping out and trickling down the insides of both her legs.

  “Only an act of violence can tear a woman up that badly.”

  Embarrassed, Aidora dropped her things, clutched her skirt and scurried off, hot tears streaming from her eyes as she fled. She wiped the tears out of her eyes and then disappeared into the crowd gathering at the entrance gate for this evening’s games.

  Danica stood up and looked over at the other servant girls, who looked to each other, trying to figure out what to do in such a situation. When it was clear that Onelle couldn’t be revived, they all bowed their heads and allowed Danica to gather her things and follow after Aidora.

  She'd shadowed Aidora all the way to the main square in front of the arena when she was all but certain the girl had spotted her. She made a beeline for the buildings, weaving through the crowd. When Danica stepped out into the square, however, she was surrounded by a mob of ecstatic fans begging for autographs and selfies with the famed gladiatrix.

  “Please sign my poster,” a young fan cried out.

  “Sign my breast,” a Bre’lal woman shouted over the din. She lifted up her shirt and flashed Danica.

  The commotion drew more attention and, subsequently, more bodies until Danica was cornered. She let out a frustrated sigh and then began signing autographs and taking selfies with all the plebeians.

  An hour later, Danica slowly inched her way back to the main gates of the arena. Coming to the side entrance of the gladiatorial chambers, she rattled the gate and caught a nearby guard’s attention.

  “Hey, you. No tours beyond this point,” he grumbled.

  “It’s me,” Danica said.

  “Me who?”

  “Me, Danica Valencia.”

  The guard, an elderly Dragonian on the gaunt side, drew closer and studied her face. Realizing she was who she said she was, he frowned and then smacked his teeth in disapproval. “What in the bleeding Helios are you doing out there?”

  “It’s a long story. Just let me in.”

  He unlocked the gate and then quickly pulled her inside. Locking the gate behind her, he turned to her and grumbled, “I’ve heard of gladiators trying to break out, but this is the first I’ve ever heard of one trying to break in.”

  She looked out through the bars, across the crowd gathered in the square, and into the narrow city streets. “I owe you one,” she said, addressing the guard who merely grunted approvingly. She peered out across the courtyard and gave up any hope that Aidora would return.

  When Danica returned to her shared cell, she found Ladgara being completely double stuffed by two Dragonian guards.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Danica shouted, throwing up her arms in disbelief.

  Both guards startled and withdrew themselves from Ladgara’s orifices. Fetching their things, they ducked out of the room as fast as they could.

  “Are you quite finished?” Danica said, folding her arms and giving Ladgara her best reproachful stare.

  “Not even close,” Ladgara lamented, sitting up on her cot. “I was planning on a triple orgasm tonight and you came in and ruined everything.” She pulled out a pack of smokes and lit up.

  “Hey, I’m not the nymphomaniac here,” Danica said.

  Ladgara held out the pack of cigarettes and offered one to Danica who hesitated at first but then reached in and took one.

  She helped Danica light up and then, just as Danica brought the fag to her lips, Ladgara slapped it out of her hand.

  “Wha—?”

  “Now you know how it feels,” Ladgara said, lighting up her own cigarette and puffing a cloud of smoke in Danica’s general direction.

  “Oh, very mature,” Danica said, waving her hand in front of her face to disperse the cloud of smoke.

  “If you whip that Dagon cock of yours out and pound me into oblivion, I might just reconsider killing you in your sleep,” she said.

  “In your dreams,” Danica replied. She bent down and picked up her cigarette from the floor, dusted it off, and then put it to her lips. She snapped her fingers impatiently and made Ladgara hand over her lighter.

  Danica got her cigarette lit and then puffed out a near perfect smoke ring. After a long silence, Danica said, “You’re a bloody hot mess, Vass.”

  “You too, sister,” she said, smiling at Danica.

  Pissed, Danica flicked her half spent cigarette onto the floor and then stormed off.

  Perhaps the part that stung the most was the fact that Ladgara wasn’t wrong. Danica had been a hot mess ever since her academy days.

  Walking through the tunnels beneath the hypogeum, Danica found her way to the armory and grabbed a shield and a sword from off the rack.

  Ladgara, it seemed, had a way of getting under her skin. And if she couldn’t stand being in the same room with that nympho, she figured she’d might as well blow off some steam fighting in the arena.

  A Dragonian soldier motioned her to come over to him and she obliged. He glared at her sternly and folded his arms across his meaty chest. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to fight.”

  “You just fought,” he grumbled.

  “I’m going to fight again,” she assured him.

  “It’s your funeral,” he muttered, turning away to let her through.

  She stepped through the gates with half a dozen other gladiators, all of them fresh meat, except for a couple, and then she heard the terrifying sound of a creature’s roar.

  The announcer came onto the speaker and said, “Ladies and gentlemen and species from all worlds! It has been brought to my attention that a new beast has, with great difficulty, recently been procured from a hostile alien world from beyond The Rift.”

  The floor parted, and the sands pulled away from the underground storage area. Up from the hegmata came a beast like nothing she’d ever seen before, but she recognized it by Jegra’s description. What was it she called it again? Oh, that’s right. It was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  “Nobody’s ever volunteered for a venation before,” a bulging eyed, sniveling creature of short stature and unknown species said, looking up at Danica.

  “I’m not nobody, now, am I?” she shot back, glaring at him harshly.

  He looked her up and down and then shrugged. “I guess not.”

  The horn blared, signaling the start of the match, and its noise startled the beast. The roar of the crowd only seemed to make things worse and the animal pulled on its chains.

  The chains were as thick as Danica’s arms, and still they torqued and whined against the raw power of the monster.

  “What in the bloody Helios have you gotten yourself into now?” Danica asked of herself, regretting her hasty decision—and the margarita.

  “Hey,” a voice came from behind her.

 
She turned to see Ladgara smiling at her from behind the bars of the viewing area. She was about to say something snooty when, unexpectedly, Ladgara said something she wasn’t expecting.

  “Good luck out there.” There was a short pause before she added, “Because you’re going to need it.”

  Ladgara casually balanced her fag back on her bottom lip and smiled as she watched, through one good eye, Danica being ushered out to meet her imminent demise.

  Danica mustered up a fake smile and flipped Ladgara the bird. Ladgara replied by winking and blowing Danica a kiss, which caused her to roll her eyes and turn away in irritation.

  When the horn sounded a second time, the beast’s shackles automatically unlatched and it reared back its head and let out the fiercest roar she’d ever heard.

  40

  Dead bodies littered the bridge of the Qui’tek’alon and Jegra stood panting. Blue and purple blood dripped from Jegra’s metallic gray battle armor and Brei’Alas stood close behind her, wielding dual plasma pistols, both of their muzzles glowing hot orange from overheating.

  “I’m out of coolant cartridges,” Brei’Alas said, checking the readout on both guns to find each of them down to their last notch. She might get a couple more shots out of each before the safety auto-shutdown rendered her plasma coil offline.

  Jegra bent down and pulled at the ammunition belt of one of the dead Nyctan soldiers lying at her feet. Wrestling with it, she finally managed to pry it free and tossed it to Brei’Alas.

  “Here,” Jegra said, “use these.”

  Brei’Alas fumbled a bit as she caught the belt, but she quickly saved herself any embarrassment by throwing it over her shoulder so that it sat across her chest like a sash.

  Brei’Alas ejected both coolant cartridges and then, with an extremely impressive level of expertise, brushed her guns against the fresh cartridges in the belt and, in one fluid motion, slid the new coolant cartridges into their rightful place.

  The coolant indicator crawled back from the last red tick on the indicator and filled all the way back up to a cool blue. Once the coolant readout was back to full, the guns chimed, letting her know they were ready for action.

  She twirled her guns around on her fingers with a bit of gunslinger style then looked up to find Jegra staring at her with an unusual expression. “What?” she asked in a tone that had an edge to it.

  Jegra raised an eyebrow and felt genuinely impressed. She hadn’t seen this more aggressive side of Brei before. “Where’d you learn to do that?” she asked, eyeing Brei with a newfound sense of admiration.

  Although Brei’Alas had her share of shortcomings, was aggravatingly timid, talked incessantly when she got nervous—usually at the most inopportune times—and occasionally was on the clumsy side when it came to wielding a firearm, she was an outright maverick.

  Poised, level headed, and a crack shot, Jegra scarcely recognized this new woman standing before her. At the same time, she found herself becoming aroused by the hidden strength of this woman she’d come to think of as more than a friend in the past few weeks.

  “I was top of my graduating class in marksmanship,” she informed the empress. She twirled her blasters in her hands and then shot Jegra a badass look. A look which instantly made Jegra weak in the knees.

  What had begun as a booze-laden fling had blossomed into a genuine friendship. And while Danica was far away, she saw no reason why Brei and she couldn’t enjoy one another’s company. But now, well, she realized she might have feelings that went a bit deeper than just friendship. And this confused her.

  She was supposed to marry Danica. But Danica seemed so distant to her now. In fact, in the past two weeks, Dani hadn’t even called her once. And it wasn’t until Lycia, of all people, alerted Jegra to the fact that Danica was fighting in the arena on Arkadia that she even knew how she was doing.

  Why wouldn’t she share something like that with her? What was going through her mind? Jegra almost felt as though she didn’t know her anymore.

  “Consider me impressed,” Jegra said, a pleasant smile forming on her lips. “And a little bit turned on,” she added.

  “You know you want me,” Brei said confidently, winking at Jegra.

  “I beg your pardon?” Jegra laughed and shot the girl a surprised look. Her newfound confidence was a bit outré, especially coming from her.

  “Was it...too much?” Brei asked, her timid voice returning as though it had never gone. “I was trying to exude confidence...like you always do.”

  “Brei, you’re perfect the way you are. Don’t ever feel that you have to change for me or anyone else.”

  “You mean that?” she asked, her eyes widening with joy. They shared a look and Brei felt it too. There was definitely something there that hadn't been before.

  Brei was about to say something about this unspoken attraction between them when a blast ricocheted off the wall next to her and a spray of hot sparks burned her left shoulder.

  Brei’Alas screamed out in pain as she jerked her shoulder away from the scorched wall and raised her right-hand blaster, returning fire at the asshole standing in the doorway.

  A sharp yelp escaped his lips when she hit him squarely in the chest. The Nephilim officer looked down at the smoldering hole in his chest that had vaporized his lungs and heart. His eyes wide with shock, he crumpled to a heap upon the floor and let go of his last breath.

  “Are you alright?” Jegra asked, running up to Brei’Alas and gently touching her shoulder, removing some of the singed fabric of her uniform.

  “I’m fine,” Brei insisted. “It’s just a slight burn.”

  Jegra leaned down and kissed her blue shoulder. Brei’Alas raised an eyebrow, and when Jegra looked up at her again, she knew it was the thing she’d been wishing for since the first day she’d met the empress.

  “I’m in love with you,” Brei blurted out as though she couldn’t constrain her feelings a moment longer.

  “I sort of pieced that together” Jegra replied, her eyes locking with Brei’s.

  Their lips crashed together and they kissed like two lovers who’d been reunited after a long separation. Brei moaned into Jegra’s mouth and Jegra swallowed it up thirstily.

  After a short make out session amid a throng of dead bodies, Jegra pulled back and said, “I don’t want to overstep my bounds here. I know you’re with Barrion and all this is confusing, so...maybe...”

  “Shut up and kiss me,” Brei said, trying on her confident look once more. She pulled Jegra in and locked lips once again.

  Jegra smiled as she melted into the kiss. Reaching up, she grabbed Brei’s EV suit by its collar and pulled her in close.

  “When this is over, I’m going to treat you to a real dinner date. Maybe someplace nice, like Padua of Themecca.”

  “An actual date? With me? In public? In the love capital of all Dagon?” Brei asked, scarcely able to believe her ears. “Won’t people talk?”

  “You better believe it,” Jegra said, nudging Brei’s nose with her finger. “And we’ll give them a whole lot to talk about.”

  Brei smiled and the two began to lean in for another kiss when the squeal of blaster fire echoed up the corridor.

  Both women pulled back and Brei raised her blasters while Jegra ignited her plasma sword. The edges of the blade lit up hot orange and crackled on the cool air as the feared weapon of the Knights of Caelum came to life.

  “How many of these assholes are there?” Brei asked aloud.

  “Always one more than there needs to be,” Jegra answered, her voice shifting to a hard and unforgiving tone. “After me,” she said, looking at Brei, who nodded in the affirmative.

  Jegra charged out in the corridor, shouting her battle cry at the top of her lungs. Brei trailed after her, both pistols raised, ready for action. But when they stepped out into the hall, they halted in their tracks.

  Lance Bishop was on his knees and Azra’il Nun held his own plasma blade dangerously close to his throat. The blade hummed with energy a
nd the white-hot edge was close enough to cause his flesh to blister and sizzle.

  “My dear Jegra, can you believe he just gave it to me?”

  “Don’t harm him!” Jegra pleaded, throwing up her hand and lowering her blade. Brei sidled up to her, both guns trained on The Voice, but Jegra shook her head warning her not to engage.

  Azra’il looked over at Brei and then smiled. “I recognize you. I saw a photo of you in your boyfriend’s holovid files. Tell me, how is my little pet, Barrion?”

  “He’s well, no thanks to you,” Brei growled.

  Azra’il Nun shrugged. “It wasn’t anything personal, mind you. Creating sleeper agents is my specialty.”

  “What do you want, Azra’il?” Jegra asked, redirecting the conversation back to her.

  “I want you to surrender yourself freely into the custody of the Fusion and give yourself willingly to our Gilded Lord.”

  “If he wanted me, he could have had me twelve months ago. Instead, he took my child from me.” Jegra stared menacingly at the Nyctan woman, who merely blinked at her with those oversized black eyes as a golden halo flashed.

  Azra’il blinked a couple of times, looked around the room and then back at Jegra. “Mother, is that you?”

  Jegra’s eyes instantly flooded with tears. “My baby?” she whispered.

  A hand reached out and touched her arm and she looked down to find Brei’s blue hand resting on her forearm. “Don’t trust her, or him, or whoever. It’s some kind of trick.”

  “Mother, please, join us. If you join us, I promise you...no harm will come to you.”

  “What about my friends?” Jegra asked.

  “Submit to my will, the will of H’aaztre, here and now and your friends’ lives will be spared. But resist and I’ll have no choice but to end the lives of everyone you’ve ever cared about.”

  “Don’t do it,” Brei pleaded. This time her words seemed to catch H’aaztre’s attention and The Voice turned her scornful scowl toward Brei.

  “Starting with this one,” the Voice snapped, glaring at Brei’Alas for her continual interruptions. “Place that plasma pistol to your temple and keep it there.”