by Jake Bible
"Don't," Roak said and pointed at Yellow Eyes.
"What?" Yellow Eyes asked, his body frozen in mid-stride. He was already halfway to Mother. He blurred back. "I wasn't gonna do a thing, man."
"That was good leadership, Roak," Mother said. "You saved your friend's life."
"I thought you said you weren't going to kill him anyway," Roak said.
"Yes, well, survival comes first," Mother said. "Shall we?"
"Shall we what?" Roak asked.
Mother gestured to a couple of benches. "Have a seat and watch you lose."
Mother didn't wait and took a seat. The being faced the battle and clapped its hands together.
"An amazing show. Simply amazing," Mother said.
"I prefer Galactic Steve," Yellow Eyes muttered.
"It's alright," Roak said. "But the view is blocked."
"What?" Mother asked. "Oh, that. Just some poor soul that was ejected into open space." Mother tapped its head. "The scan shows no life present. A husk of a being entombed in power armor. A sad fate, indeed."
"Roak…?" Reck whispered.
Roak held out a hand and Reck shut up.
"Power armor usually keeps a being safe from the dangers of open space," Roak said. "The power armor we're wearing does."
Mother slowly turned to face the team.
"What are you babbling about?" Mother asked.
"My power armor," Roak said, patting the armor he wore. "Strong enough for a fight and strong enough to be in open space."
He stomped his boots a few times, forced himself not to cry out from the pain it caused, then set his feet in a wide stance.
"These mag boots do come in handy too," Roak said.
There was the distinct sound of Roak's mag boots engaging with the observation deck.
"See? Totally locked in place," Roak said.
Everyone locked their boots in place. Except Yellow Eyes. He didn't have boots.
"What are you doing?" Mother asked.
"Waiting for the knock," Roak said.
"Knock? What knock?" Mother asked. The being stood and faced the team full on. "What are you going on about?"
A knocking noise filled the observation deck. Mother stiffened.
"Aren't you going to answer it?" Roak asked. "It'd be rude to not answer when a guest arrives."
"A guest…?" Mother's face filled with rage. "What have you done?"
The being spun about.
Clinging to the observation deck plastiglass was the suit of power armor. But it wasn't dead and still. It was waving with one hand while it slapped a thick hunk of metal onto the plastiglass. Evil's face grinned from behind the faceplate.
"No!" Mother yelled just before the hunk of metal detonated and destroyed the plastiglass, opening the observation deck to those dangers of space Roak had warned about.
27.
Even with the mag boots engaged, Roak found it nearly impossible to remain in place as the station's atmosphere was sucked out of the observation deck.
Then the bulkhead doors behind the team sealed shut, all air was removed, and the observation deck was fully depressurized.
That took some of the burden off Roak's body, but not all of it. Even with the atmosphere of the observation deck gone, the station still had gravity and that gravity weighed on Roak like a million tons of bricks. His knees went weak and he had to crouch down so he would avoid falling over awkwardly since his boots were still magnetically connected to the floor.
"I see Mother," Reck said. "Yellow Eyes?"
Yellow Eyes didn't respond.
"He doesn't have a comm," Nimm said.
"Right," Reck said.
She grabbed Yellow Eyes by the arm and pantomimed what she needed him to do.
He gave several thumbs up in response.
"Just use your speakers," Roak said.
"What's the fun in that?" Reck asked.
She did activate her speakers and finished telling Yellow Eyes then BR the plan.
BR picked up Yellow Eyes and flung him off the station, directly at the floating form of Mother. Yellow Eyes zipped through open space and grabbed onto Mother with four of his arm nubs. He executed a series of maneuvers as he pushed off from one hunk of debris to another then was finally floating back to the observation deck.
When he landed, he tossed Mother's body at the team. BR caught the being and held it tightly by the neck with one huge, armored hand.
"What now?" BR asked.
"Hessa?" Roak called as he slowly stood upright. It was touch and go for a few seconds, but he stayed standing. "How do we kill Mother? Did Boss Seven tell you?"
"No," Hessa said. "That wasn't part of what he knew. But I have an idea."
Their ship appeared before the destroyed plastiglass and spun about. The cargo hold opened and the ramp lowered, clanging silently against the edge of the observation window.
The team hurried, or in Roak's case shuffled, up into the ship.
Hessa raised the ramp and they were off.
"May I?" Poq asked as the android walked up to BR. "You are strong, but I am stronger."
BR handed the limp body of Mother to Poq.
"Where are we going?" Roak asked. He started to head for the lift.
"Stay there, stay suited," Hessa said. "And hang on. We aren't going far."
Roak felt the ship accelerate and quickly re-engaged his mag boots to keep from being flung against the cargo hold's wall.
Everyone did the same and after about fifty minutes they felt the ship slow then stop.
The cargo hold opened. There was no whoosh of air since Hessa never re-pressurized the hold.
"Eight Million Gods damn, Hessa!" Roak shouted as his helmet's faceplate automatically dimmed to almost black. "What the Hells?"
They were literally staring at the sun. The Sol in the Sol System.
Yellow Eyes was frantically waving his nubs in front of his eyes and pantomiming that he was blind.
"Someone make him stop," Roak said.
BR grabbed Yellow Eyes and gave him a hard shake. The being went limp and gave everyone a smile.
"Poq, please eject the unwanted passenger," Hessa said.
Poq mag-walked to the edge of the cargo ramp. Even with the ship's shields at full, the heat was close to unbearable. Poq hesitated for a second then flung Mother's body off the ship and straight at the sun.
The cargo ramp closed as Poq walked back into the hold.
When the welcome feeling of re-pressurization happened, Roak yanked off his helmet and took a deep breath.
"Stale ship air never tasted so good," Reck said as she too yanked off her helmet and breathed deep.
"We aren't done yet," Roak said. "Everyone to the bridge."
Hessa didn't moltrans the team. They walked with Roak to the lift then rode up to the bridge.
They arrived in time to see Mother's body still floating towards the sun.
Then, as if by destiny or fate, a part of the sun's surface erupted and a tendril of insanely hot gas enveloped Mother's body.
It was over like that. No more sign of Mother.
"Fuck you," Roak said.
Everyone nodded.
"Take us back to the fight," Roak said.
"I already am," Hessa said. "That's the rear view."
The view on the screen changed.
"Here is the front view," Hessa said.
The battle still raged.
Although, it looked a lot less lopsided than before.
In fact…
"Are those clones fighting clones?" Agent Prime asked.
"They are," Hessa said. "I commed the clones and tried to bargain with them. I explained that Mother was about to die and we were definitely going to close the tear in this universe so Father was cut off. They could join forces or they could end up on the losing side."
"How'd that go?" Reck asked. "No, let me guess. Only the Roaks said yes."
"How'd you know?" Hessa said.
"Easy guess," Reck replied.
Until another few hundred destroyers and corvettes transported into the vicinity.
"We're being hailed," Hessa said in a tired voice.
"Put him on," Roak said.
This time the being was an aged Cervile.
"Roak," the Father Cervile said. "You never cease to amaze me."
"Don't care," Roak replied. "What I do care about is the exact location of the tear in this universe. Want to give me a hint? I'll eventually find it anyway, but you telling me will save some time."
"The ego," the Father Cervile said then hissed. "Surrender, Roak. Killing Mother does not stop me. It may weaken my hold since now my access to tech control is limited, but I already have nearly every being in this universe under my sway, so I consider it a small loss."
"You're on my ass about ego?" Roak laughed. It hurt like all the Hells. "Tell me or not, asshole. I'm gonna take you down."
"You won't," the Father Cervile said. "You are once again pitifully outnumbered."
"Or not," Hessa said.
The view switched quickly to the nexus point. Thousands more ships were emerging from the swirling orb. The view switched back to the Father Cervile.
"How many universes are there, Hessa?" Roak asked.
"An infinite amount," Hessa replied.
"An infinite amount. Hmmm," Roak said. "Which means there are an infinite amount of versions of me. That's a lot of Roaks."
"That's a lot of Roaks," Hessa said.
"So many Roaks," Yellow Eyes said, but zipped his lips when he received a glare from Roak.
"How are the numbers on your side?" Roak asked. "Infinite?"
"I will never surrender, Roak," the Father Cervile said.
"I don't need you to," Roak said. "I just need to cut you off from my universe. Let you wither away and die in the universe you're trapped in."
"Trapped? Trapped! Does this look trapped?" the Father Cervile shouted and spread his arms wide. "I own this universe, Roak! And there are so many galaxies that your galaxy knows nothing about! I can keep this war going until the end of time!"
"That so?" Hessa asked. "You sure about that?"
"Well, hello there," Reck said as she checked the scan readings on her console. "Looks like we have some folks arriving late."
The view screen split to show a few dozen ships appearing suddenly behind Father's new forces. Then more ships appeared. And more.
All told, close to six hundred new ships joined the fight. All with weapons hot and trained on Father's forces.
"Getting a little crowded in this system," Roak said. "Gonna be hard to miss when they start firing."
"Quite a few more beings than you thought were able to avoid your control," Hessa said. "Now that your tech half is gone, there isn't much threat of you taking them over anymore. In fact…"
"You know nothing of my ability to control beings," the Father Cervile snapped. "You are all… You are all… What is happening? What have you done?"
"I have slowly been inserting code into the comm signals I've sent out," Hessa said. "That code self-replicated and infiltrated every implant in this galaxy. The implants are now cutting Father off and preventing him from controlling anyone. I may not be Mother, but that's not really a high bar to live up to, is it?"
"What is-? AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" the Father Cervile screamed then collapsed.
The view screen took in the entire battle.
Only the clones were still fighting.
"Put me on general comms," Roak said with a sigh.
"All yours," Hessa said.
"This is Roak!" Roak shouted. "The real Roak! Listen up, idiots! If you don't stop fighting now then you can be assured that I will hunt each and every one of you down and do some really nasty shit to you before I kill you! And you all know I'll do it too!"
The plasma fire dwindled to nothing.
"Eight Million Gods damn right," Roak said.
Then all of Father's ships started to list and angle off in random directions.
"Oh. I didn't think about that,"Hessa said. "It may be a while before the beings recover from Father's control."
"Open comms again," Roak said. "Hey! Me again! You're all about to be moltransed into one of Father's ships so you can take over. Don't leave the system. In fact, don't do an Eight Million Gods damn thing except keep the ships from colliding with each other."
The clone fighters split off in all directions.
"That part's done," Roak said. "What's next?"
A thousand more ships transported onto the scene.
"You had to ask," Yellow Eyes said.
"Not good," Hessa said. "Very, very not good."
"B'clo'no's," Nimm said. "Their entire fleet, it looks like."
"One more time," Roak said and sighed. "Open comms."
"Including the B'clo'no's?" Hessa asked.
"Especially the B'clo'no's," Roak said.
"Comms open," Hessa said.
"Gonna say this once," Roak called out. "Go away. Go away or every ship you see will turn and blast you out of existence. If you attack then we will make it our goal to wipe your race from this galaxy. There will be nowhere a B'clo'no can hide that I won't find them. You will all die."
Roak paused and waited. None of the B'clo'no ships left the system.
"You didn't tell them who you are," Yellow Eyes whispered sotto voce.
Roak grumbled then, "This is Roak in case you didn't know that."
Again, Roak paused and waited.
Then slowly, sections of the B'clo'no fleet began to transport away until they had all left the system.
"Nice bluff," Agent Prime said.
"Bluff?" Roak asked. "Who was bluffing?"
"It wasn't a bluff," Reck said.
"But those were B'clo'no's," Agent Prime said. "If they'd attacked then we would have probably lost."
"No idea what you're talking about," Roak said. "I wasn't going to lose. Have you not been paying attention, Prime?"
Roak stood up, steadied himself, and faced the FIS agent.
"I don't lose."
He started for the lift, paused, then turned back to the view screen. He studied it for a couple of seconds.
"What's that?" Roak asked and pointed at a tiny speck floating past the ship.
"There he is! He did get blasted away from Pol's station! We thought that would happen, but then I lost him!" Hessa cried. "Good eyes, Roak!"
"I find beings, Hessa," Roak said. "So finding myself, even if it's an Evil version, is pretty easy."
Then he walked off the bridge and made his way down to his cabin where he knew Ally was waiting.
He undressed, groaning and moaning the entire time, then crawled into bed next to Ally.
"Sounds like we won," she said.
"Not yet," Roak said.
Then he started to drift off to sleep. He hoped he didn't dream.
28.
They spent weeks on what had previously been Pol's station.
While the majority of the time was spent making sure there were no honeypots or boobytraps in the system, a good amount of time was spent getting the sibling clones organized.
"They all agreed," Reck said as she plopped down in a seat in the mess.
It was the Borgon's mess and not the station's massive mess deck. They'd been using the Borgon parked in the hangar deck as their base of operations. No one on the team fully trusted being exposed on the station.
"All?" Roak asked.
"A couple of Rakes were dicks about it, but they came around too," Reck said. "Fucking Rake…"
"Do we need to worry?" Roak asked.
"Not with the Klav here," Nimm said.
It was Roak, Reck, Nimm, Yellow Eyes, and Evil.
"Good call on bringing the House of Teeth Klav to the station," Evil said. "They'll keep the clones in line and the clones will keep them in line."
"Mutual distaste creates a sur
prising amount of efficiency," Hessa said. "Speaking of efficiency…"
"I'm not making the call," Roak snapped. "You know what that asshole said the last time we saw him. He's gunning for me."
"He's only gunning for you because he believes you killed his best friend's wife," Hessa said. "If we set him straight then maybe he'll listen and take the job. He is the one that knows the location of the tear in our universe."
"So do the bosses," Roak replied. "Ask them. You're all cozy with Boss Seven."
"Was cozy," Hessa said. "Although, I don't know if cozy is the right word. It does not matter anyway since now that the salvage mercs are no longer controlled, business for them is back to normal. Which means the bosses no longer communicate with outsiders."
"Then we keep looking ourselves," Roak said.
"Hessa?" Yellow Eyes asked. "Did you say that Salvage Merc One believes Roak killed his best friend's wife?"
"That is what I said," Hessa replied.
"Is that because Roak didn't kill her or because she isn't dead?" Yellow Eyes asked.
"I didn't kill her," Roak said. "I beat the ever-loving shit out of her and left her for dead, but I didn't kill her."
"So she isn't dead?" Yellow Eyes asked.
Roak began to answer then paused. He frowned.
"Hessa, is there a record of Midnight's death?" Roak asked.
"Record? She was part of the Edger rebels," Hessa said. "I doubt there's an official death certificate."
"I don't care about official," Roak said. "I care about a record. Something proving she's dead."
"I… Let me check," Hessa said. "No. Nothing proves she died. But it was Razer Station, Roak. You know what it was like."
"I do," Roak said. "There was enough chaos that one of her Edger buddies could have gotten her off the station in time."
He pointed at Yellow Eyes.
"Good job," he said then closed his eyes. "Do not make me regret saying that."
"Oh, I'm going to so make you regret you said that," Yellow Eyes said.
"Eight Million Gods dammit," Roak muttered.
"What are you saying, Roak?" Nimm asked. "I want to hear you say it."
"Looks like we have a hunting job to tackle before we find the tear in the universe," Roak said.