by Jake Bible
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Yellow Eyes scoffed. "Abomination. I get it, man. Let it go."
Yellow Eyes stiffened then gulped.
"Wait, what was that about me dying as soon as the conversation is over?"
"You aren't going to die," Roak said, "because you are going to leave now."
"He will never make it out-" Father began then sighed as Yellow Eyes was gone in a blur. "That being is quite remarkable. Maybe I should study it more before I kill it. Oh, well, the abomination is gone now."
"That's what I've been called," Roak said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Abomination. I've been called that a few times. Why?"
"Don't you have Bishop's files? The answer is in there. I'm surprised Hessa hasn't told you."
"We haven't talked much. I've been waiting for you."
"Have you now? That's interesting. Why would you intentionally keep yourself ignorant?"
"It's not ignorance if the data in those files can't be trusted."
"Ah! That's why you're here!" Father laughed.
None of the skinless beings even twitched at the noise. They only stood and stared at Roak.
"You don't believe that Hessa is Mother!" Father laughed again. "You fool…"
"I'd be a fool to trust anything those files say."
"Roak. You know better. It's fairly easy to verify the legitimacy of the files."
"I'd be a fool to trust anything those files say."
Father sighed. "Always so stubborn…"
"Talk, asshole. How in all the Hells is she Mother? Why are you Father? What is this all about, really?"
"Don't you know?"
"I thought I did. But that was before the Mother bomb you dropped."
"What did you think it was all about before?"
"You ruined your universe so now you want this one."
"Oh, well, yes, that is very much true."
"But there's more…"
"There is always more."
"You want all the universes."
Silence.
"You want to exist across all universes so you can be one of the Eight Million Gods."
"No, Roak, you are wrong as always. So disappointing."
"Am I?"
"Yes to both. Wrong and disappointing." Father sighed. "I want to be the only God, Roak. The seven million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine other Gods need to go away and make room for the one and only God."
"Yeah. That's what I figured," Roak said and shook his head. "That's all I needed to hear. I got what I came for."
"Got what you came for? No, Roak, I led you here. We are far from done."
"Nope. We're done." Roak activated his comm. "Hessa? Did you put that message through for me?"
"I did, Roak," Hessa replied. "I have no idea what you are up to, but the message has been relayed, received, and responded to."
"He's on his way?" Roak asked.
"What is this? What is going on?" Father shouted. "How is she breaching my system? She should be blocked!"
"Oh, shut up, you," Hessa snapped. "Roak? He'll arrive in about forty-five seconds."
"Got it," Roak said.
Roak opened fire and blasted a wide hole down the middle of the standing, staring, skinless beings.
"Stop that!" Father bellowed. "Stop what you are doing now!"
"Nope," Roak said and kept firing as he sprinted through the gap he'd made in the standing, staring, skinless beings.
Well, not so much standing anymore. Every being, including Roak, was in motion.
The gap down the middle started to close despite Roak's continual firing of his Flott. There were just too many skinless bodies to be kept back.
"Hessa? Is he there?" Roak shouted.
"He has arrived and we are having an…argument," Hessa replied.
"What in all the Hells about?" Roak yelled as he fell to his knees, leaned back and slid under the swiping tentacles of four skinless Groshnels. Considering the beings each had eight arms, that was a lot of tentacles to dodge. "Put him on!"
"I don't think that's-"
"Put the little Skrang shit on!" Roak roared as he bounced back up onto his feet and fired point blank into a Gwreq's midsection.
Without its stone skin, the being's midsection became mush. Offal flew everywhere. Especially all over Roak. He wiped guts from his faceplate and kept running.
"Roak! ROAK!" Father boomed over the speakers. "You cannot escape me! I will take you now and force that evil witch to come out of hiding! She will comply! SHE WILL COMPLY!"
"What the fuck does he mean I will comply?" Hessa snapped. "Stay still, Roak, I'm going to moltrans you out…of…"
"Hessa?" Roak asked. He dropped his shoulder and rammed into two humanoids, knocking them aside. He had no idea the species since humanoids tended to look alike sans skin. "Hessa!"
"The moltrans is blocked, Roak," Hessa stated. "I can't get you out of there."
"What is the witch telling you now, Roak?" Father laughed hard. "Is your escape plan falling apart!"
"Oh, and now the Skrang is gone! Reck! Find out where in all the Hells he's going!" Hessa yelled. "Great. Just great. Hey, Roak. Next time you decide to do something stupid like this, tell me beforehand."
"You wouldn't have let me do it," Roak replied. His eyes were on the only way out he could see. "You definitely wouldn't have let me do this."
Roak took aim and fired over and over until his Flott powered down. It took every last molecule of plasma from the pistol to create the opening in the re-enforced plastiglass window at the end of the dining hall.
"What? Roak, what are you doing?" Hessa called. "Roak! Answer me!"
"I really hope you get the moltrans working!" Roak yelled as he dove straight out the newly opened window.
Straight out and straight down.
Eighty-some stories up and falling fast, Roak still managed to holster his Flott. He loved that pistol too much to just let it go.
"Hessa!" Roak called.
"The moltrans is still being blocked, Roak!" Hessa responded. "It wasn't the building being shielded. It's the whole Eight Million Gods damn planet!"
"Break the damn block, Hessa!" Roak yelled as he fell. And fell. And fell. "HESSA! BREAK THE BLOCK!"
"This isn't like cracking Father's comm block, Roak! This is moltrans we are talking about! I get it wrong and your molecules will be scattered who knows where!"
"If you don't moltrans me now then my molecules will be scattered exactly in one spot! On the fucking ground!"
"Roak-!"
"DO IT!"
"Ain't no need, old man," a voice cut in. "I got ya, you washed up bag of bones."
A small, needle-nosed, swift ship was suddenly directly under Roak. In the pilot's seat, staring up at Roak, was a young Skrang decked out in very flashy armor. He gave Roak a fanged smile and waved.
Then Roak slammed into the top of the cockpit at full speed.
"Son of a gump," Roak groaned. Even with his armor on, the impact was brutal and he knew he was going to be hurting for a while.
"Hiya," the Skrang said.
"Skabz," Roak said, his eyes locking with the Skrang's. "What the Hells are you waiting for? Get us out of here!"
"Yeah, about that," the Skrang, Skabz, said. He took his hands off the swift ship's controls and crossed his arms over his chest. "I was trying to make a deal with your AI pilot, but that wasn't going so well. How about you and I deal directly?"
Roak growled low, and was about to respond, but a high keening noise caught his attention. He turned his head and looked back up the way he had fallen.
Hundreds of skinless beings were plummeting from the opening in the window Roak had created. They were plummeting directly at Roak and the hovering swift ship.
"Oh, looks like we're on the clock now," Skabz said.
"You're going to be on the toe end of my Eight Million Gods damn boot if you don't get this ship moving!" Roak shouted.
"Roak. That was
a mean thing to say," Skabz responded. "Do you want to hear what I want or not?"
"Not!"
"Then we wait and see what happens when all those bodies land on top of you. I have the ship set to full impact, so I'll be fine, but you… Not so much, old man."
"Stop calling me old man."
"Why? Because you're not a man?"
"No! Because I'm not… What do you want, Skabz?"
"I want to piggyback my ship with yours," Skabz stated. "I'll be a sitting duck flying out there by myself."
"That's why the plan was for you to leave this ship behind and hitch a ride with us," Roak snapped. "We don't have time for a new deal!"
"No, you don't have time for a new deal," Skabz said. "I've got plenty of-"
The ship rocked to the side and Skabz instantly took control again.
"What the Hells?"
Roak looked out from the ship and saw six security fliers headed straight at them.
"How's the grip on those gloves?" Skabz asked.
"I should have just let you die here," Roak snarled as he locked his gloves to the surface of the swift ship.
"Hey, at least now you won't get squished by whatever those things are up there," Skabz said and punched the throttle of the ship.
Roak felt like his arms were going to be torn from their sockets. Even with the power assist from his armor, the pain was excruciating. Instinct and pain response would have made him let go of the ship if it wasn't for his gloves set to lock.
The security fliers raced at them, their plasma guns strafing the air space where the swift ship had been just milliseconds before.
"The way I see it, Roak," Skabz said as he flew over, under, and around the incoming plasma fire, "your time is done. You had a good run. Hells, it was inspiring to some of us in your shadow. Look at that crazy bastard take jobs that should kill him every time. But here you live. Truly inspiring."
"Shut. The. Hells. Up," Roak snarled.
The swift ship executed a full barrel roll and Roak screamed as he felt his left shoulder pop out of place. Excruciating pain became unbearable agony.
"Oh. Ouch," Skabz said. "I think I heard that from in here."
Skabz opened fire on the security fliers. Three were vaporized from the swift ship's cannons' onslaught. The remaining security fliers raced past the swift ship, leaving only open space before them.
"Where was I?" Skabz asked. "Oh, right. You need to retire, Roak."
"I'm going to kill you when this is done," Roak said through gritted teeth. Hells, every part of his body felt gritted at that moment. "That's a promise."
"Let go, Roak," Hessa said.
"You get the moltrans back up?" Roak asked.
"No."
"Then letting go would be bad. And I'm not sure I can."
"Yes, I can see from your armor's readings that your left shoulder is dislocated. All you have to do is disengage the glove locks. Do it, Roak."
"Hessa-"
"Do it, Roak!"
Roak disengaged the glove locks and tumbled right off the swift ship.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Skabz yelled as Roak was once again plummeting towards the ground below.
At least it wasn't the spot where all the skinless beings had landed. Roak was glad of that. He'd have his own pristine slice of plasticrete to impact with.
"This is going to hurt," Hessa said.
"I have him," came Poq's voice over the comm.
Suddenly, Roak's ship was directly under him. Then it was slightly off center. Then it was completely off center. Then Roak was about to fall past the wide-open cargo hold.
Then pain a million times worse than before exploded through Roak's body as his right arm was nearly torn free.
"Hello, Roak," the android, Poq, said as he gripped Roak's arm in his hand while the other hand held onto the cargo ramp's hydraulic strut. "My apologies for this."
Roak was flung inside the cargo hold. He flew a good few meters then crashed into a stack of crates.
Roak's last thought before unconsciousness was that he needed to clean out some of the clutter in the cargo hold. Especially all the Eight Million Gods damn crates that were everywhere.
Sweet blackness enveloped him.
4.
Roak did not wake up in a med pod.
He should have woken up in a med pod. That would have been the normal course of action when a being had both shoulders dislocated and was bruised from head to toe.
Instead, Roak woke up on a med table in the med bay. No plastiglass pod surrounding him. No one standing over the med pod staring in at him. No feeling of his injuries stitching together at an accelerated pace.
He woke up on a med table with a sense that the pain he was feeling wasn't even close to what he should be feeling.
"Hessa has you pretty doped up," Reck said from the side of the table.
Roak tilted his head, closed his eyes for a moment as he fought back the urge to vomit, opened his eyes, and stared hard at his "sister".
"You shouldn't be awake," Reck said. "Your metabolism is working well enough to still fight off drugs. Too bad you can't heal like you used to."
"How…bad?" Roak asked.
"We reset the shoulders," Reck said. "Wasn't easy getting you out of your armor to do that."
"Thanks."
"No problem."
"What else?"
"You have six cracked ribs."
"I've had cracked ribs before."
"Yeah, well, not like this."
Reck barely patted Roak's chest. Roak grunted and bit down on his tongue to keep from screaming.
"I've never met anyone that will have to wait for their ribs to heal naturally," Reck said with a wicked grin on her face. "This is going to be highly entertaining."
"Glad…" Gasp. "I could…" Gasp. "Make this…" Gasp. Cough. Scream. Gasp. "Fun for…you."
"Me too," Reck said and stood up. "You want some entertainment of your own?"
Reck brought up a holo. It was a holo of Skabz yelling at full volume inside his cockpit.
"Hessa is really playing hardball," Reck said. She swiped at the holo and the sound came on.
"-is terpigshit! I saved Roak's life! Let me piggyback!"
"The strain on my ship will be too much," Hessa said. "You must ditch your ship and ride with us or we leave you behind. You have thirty seconds to decide before I transport away."
"I'm not leaving my ship, you crazy AI!" Skabz shouted. "Do you have any idea the mods I've put into this ship! I've spent nearly every credit I have on Kik'pa'sha!"
"Did he name his ship?" Roak asked.
"It's a Skrang thing, apparently," Reck said.
"Twenty seconds, Skabz," Hessa said coolly. "Decide."
"Come on! COME ON!" Skabz pleaded. His voice lost its perpetual smirk and guttural Skrang growl, and ended up sounding like a petulant teenager from any number of galactic species. "This is not fair!"
"Patch me in," Roak said.
"You sure?" Reck asked.
"Do it," Roak said.
"Alright," Reck said with a shrug. She tapped at the interface at the end table. "Go for it."
"Hey, Skabz," Roak said. "Ten seconds, kid."
"Roak! Tell your AI to-!"
"She's not my AI. She's my partner. Seven seconds."
"COME ON!"
"Five seconds," Hessa interrupted.
"Any chits we get out of this, they're yours," Roak said.
Skabz shut up.
"What?" Skabz said.
"What?" Reck said.
"What?" Hessa said.
"What?" Yellow Eyes said from the med bay's doorway, making Reck and Roak both jump. Roak gasped then groaned then bit down on his tongue again. "Oh, shit, sorry."
"Time's up," Roak said around his tongue. "Hessa, let's get out of here."
"Alright! I'll hitch a ride!" Skabz shouted. "But I'm holding you to that all the chits deal, Roak!"
"No problem," Roak said. He nodded at Reck. She cut the feed.
"Do chits matter right now?" Roak responded. "What are we going to spend them on? Where can we even spend them? Father has this galaxy on lockdown."
"He did take over Javitz," Yellow Eyes said. "No more take-out."
Reck cocked her head and narrowed her eyes.
"Roak is giving away chits," she said. "Did Father get inside your head too? Are you being controlled?"
"I wouldn't be able to tell you if I were," Roak said. He tried to sit up and failed miserably. "Help me off this Eight Million Gods damn table."
Reck laughed. "Oh, that's not happening. You're messed up, Roak. Like truly messed up."
"If you cannot get yourself off the table then you are not ready to leave the table," Hessa said.
"No way I'm staying here forever," Roak said. "Just get me up onto the bridge. I'll sit and rest there."
"Sitting would not be helpful," Hessa said. "You will be in a good deal of pain in that position, Roak."
"That's what drugs are for," Roak said.
"Yes, well…" Hessa trailed off.
"Remember the whole your metabolism is fighting the drugs thing I said just a few seconds ago?" Reck asked. "Pretty much all conventional therapies aren't working anymore."
"All?"
"All."
"All," Yellow Eyes added, suddenly beside Reck.
"Son of a gump!" Reck yelled and actually managed to elbow the being in the side of the head before Yellow Eyes could blur away.
"Not cool, man," Yellow Eyes said as the side of his skull caved in then popped back into place. "That'll hurt in a few minutes."
"Then stop just appearing everywhere," Reck said. "Walk like a normal being."
"Oh, like you're such a normal being yourself," Yellow Eyes scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"What about you?" Roak asked.
Reck and Yellow Eyes looked at him, both puzzled.
"Can you still heal? Do the med pods work on you?" Roak asked Reck.
"They do, but I haven't had the damage done to me over the years that you have," Reck said. "Most of these scars came before you blew our little family up and threw us all out into the wild."
"That is not what happened…" Roak sighed. "So you can still heal? Yes or no."
"For now," Hessa interrupted. "But eventually she'll be in the same spot you are in, Roak. The other-universality of your bodies is conflicting with the physics of this universe. It was a gradual process, but it is happening."