Ragnarok: Colonization, intrigue and betrayal.

by Andrew Claymore

  Gabriella wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t that nepotism?”

  “You might recall,” Luna said, smiling at the face the young woman had made, hoping there was still some of the old Gabriella in there, “this is a feudal system?”

  “Yeah,” Gleb added, “out here, ‘nepotism’ is just another word for government.”

  “Do you have any idea how nuts this sounds?” Gabriella ran her free hand through her hair.

  “You’ve already taken on the role,” the young man said to her.

  She tried to glare at him but she was clearly having a hard time of it. “Not you too?”

  “You fought for Ragnarok, you brought down Memnon’s cruiser and you brought us together when we were busy banging our heads.” He turned to put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Folks are already talking about it. Maybe they’re not using the word ‘governor’ but they’re hoping you aren’t going to just pick up and leave us.”

  “It’s typically a job for the nobility,” Gleb said. “A governor is almost always a relative of the overlord.”

  “I’d bet they’re a lot older than I am, though,” Gabriella replied.

  “Maybe, but look at me.” He gestured to himself. “A full lord and only half your age.”

  Gabriella flopped back on the couch with a sigh. “Abuela always told me my mouth would get me into trouble,” she told the ceiling.

  “I wonder if there’s room in city hall for an apartment…,” she muttered.

  “You don’t want to move into city hall,” Luna insisted. “You’d have them knocking on your door every five minutes if you were just up the stairs from the council hall.

  “You need to build an official residence on the other side of the main square. Make ’em walk all that way if they want to bother you.” Luna resisted the urge to glance at the real reason she was insisting on privacy for Gabriella.

  The reason spoke up. “You should have guards posted as well,” Vikram said. “We’ll never know if we captured all of the enemy survivors from the battle.”

  “We’ll need to reconstitute our defenses if we’re going to hold this world,” Gleb mused.

  “Of course we’re going to hold it,” Gabriella said immediately. She held up her hands. “Look, we can’t explain right now. We don’t even really understand ourselves but it’s important that our people continue to make this world our home.”

  Luna stared at her. She’d had the feeling that something was being left unsaid since she’d arrived.

  Now, Gabriella was confirming that but she wasn’t ready to explain any of it? What the hells?

  “It’s important,” Vikram told them. “It goes to the heart of who we all are as a species but we need time.”

  “Time here on Ragnarok,” Gabriella added. “Can you give us that? No questions asked, for now?”

  Luna was speechless. She looked at Gleb.

  He shrugged, clearly curious, but he nodded. “There is something going on here. I felt it when we first arrived with the colony.”

  “And I’m just hearing about it now?” She glared at him.

  “We had a lot going on,” he said defensively. “Plus, I didn’t know it was anything definitive at the time.”

  He seemed to space out for a second.

  Gabriella gave Vikram a look.

  Gleb shook his head. He gestured to Gabriella and Vikram. “It feels right. Let’s give them time to sort it out.”

  Luna shook her head. At least he’s got some idea what’s going on, I suppose. Unless he needs a catscan…

  “OK,” Luna turned to the new governor. “You sure you’ll be alright here?”

  “Yeah,” Gabriella exchanged a glance with Vikram.

  “I’m exactly where I need to be.”

  Chance of a Lifetime

  Babilim Station

  The two humanoids strolled hand in hand through the hall of rest. Large slabs, long enough to accommodate a body twice their height, stretched away into the hazy distance in every direction. They were roughly shoulder height.

  Everywhere they looked seemed the same – endless rows fading to nothing. It would be easy to get lost in here if they went much farther.

  They were half a kilometer from the nearest entrance, by this point, and the door was barely visible, easily blending in with the squarish slabs.

  “No ghosts yet,” he teased. “Nothing but old fool’s tales. The ancients disappeared a quarter million years ago. If any are left, they’ve probably forgotten how to haunt anybody anyway.”

  “You were right,” she said but she wasn’t referring to his irreverence for the dead. “There’s absolutely no place to hide in here!”

  She let go of his hand and turned to one of the platforms. She used the dusty control panel at the end of the slab to climb up onto it.

  He watched her, his heart pounding, as she sat on the end of the slab, legs dangling over the controls. She touched a finger to the raised metal nub at her temple, temporarily disconnecting her mind from the rest of their civilization.

  Her proximity receiver was still running, though, and it was sending shivers through the young male. He disconnected his own long-range system and scrambled up onto the control panel.

  It would have been unrealistic to expect he’d have noticed the light that had started pulsing through the glazed surface beneath his feet. Even if he had, a blinking light would have been a poor distraction compared to what the young couple had in mind.

  She wrapped her arms around his back, locked him in place with her legs and kissed him like there was nobody else in the room.

  As far as they knew, they were right about that.

  She edged back onto the slab and he crawled up after her, their short-range link amplifying their desires. They were practically vibrating with…

  He frowned. No, he thought. “Can you feel that?” he asked her. “The air is vibrating.”

  She laughed. “Were you up all night coming up with that line?”

  He grinned at her, deciding to go with it. “No, I got to bed around two – two thirty…”

  She laughed turning her head. “Oh Gods!”

  “You like that?”

  “No… Gods! Get off me!” She shoved him hard and he fell off the edge of the slab.

  Before he could figure out what he’d done to upset her, she was landing beside him. She raised up to peer over the top of the slab they’d been on.

  His body responded to his curiosity before his conscious mind got around to telling him what to do. He grabbed the top of the slab and pulled himself up to see what she was looking at. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

  A body lay on the next slab to theirs.

  Well, to call it a body wouldn’t be entirely accurate. It was a skeleton, at the very least, but it also had tendons and some muscle tissue attached. The muscles are growing? As he watched in horrified fascination, he noticed that there were veins snaking along, coming into existence just ahead of the muscle tissue.

  It was large, he realized.

  “She’s big,” the young female said. “She’d be the right size for this station…” She trailed off with a shudder and grabbed his hand.

  “She?” he said but then he noticed the fatty tissue on the body’s chest, now being covered with skin.

  Even after watching an alien body grow out of thin air, they still twitched in alarm when her eyes opened. He didn’t even notice that his lover’s fingernails had drawn blood from his palm.

  A groan escaped the newly created body’s lips. The young pair backed away from their slab. He had his hand out behind him to feel for the support base but he felt something soft and warm instead.

  They both turned, staring up at another of the large creatures. This one was male and he looked down in mild surprise at the pair.

  Still linked by their short-range system, the two young humanoids fled like it was some kind of synchronized sport.

  Still holding hands, they scrambled out to the main walkway and rac
ed for the exit as if death itself were nipping at their heels.

  “Didn’t think they were attendants,” the giant muttered in amusement. He slapped his own face.

  The newly created female ancient sat up and looked at him, frowning as he slapped himself again.

  He peered thoughtfully into the distance, nodding to himself. “Outpost 56038,” he whispered. “Melchior… My name was Melchior.”

  Two more bodies were taking shape behind him.

  He looked at her. “Who are you?”

  She opened her mouth to answer but then her eyes grew wide with alarm. “I’m… I’m not sure!”

  He nodded, smiling sympathetically. “Sometimes it takes a while for your consciousness to settle into a new home. It will come to you.”

  She turned to watch the two young humanoids as they ran for the exit. “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  Blooper Reel

  Writer’s Keyboard

  The Captivity Scene – take 3

  “It’s too much damage for medical nanites,” the stabbed man said with a bubbly gasp. “I need a full med-bay!”

  The murderer nodded. He stood and stepped back, activating a holo menu. The bench as well as the decking it sat on simply dissolved beneath the man, letting in a roar of air.

  With a startled, blood-frothed yelp, the injured man dropped through the opening and… He chuckled, still sitting but two feet lower than he’d been before. “Somebody left a box of cables down here.”

  Editor “Cables? Where’s the key grip? If we end up going into overtime to finish this chapter, he’s paying for pizza.”

  Grounds for Greivance Scene- Take 1

  “And have everyone think I’d lost my mind?” Rohan flared but his anger was short-lived. “I had no idea that Frank had experienced the same thing. I wasn’t sure if it was just in my mind.”

  “We should have said something,” Frank admitted. “It’s much easier when you have multiple witnesses.”

  “Try saying that at a urinal,” Sushil quipped.

  “Including my own… Wait, what?” Rohan blurted.

  Claymore “Really? Toilet humor?”

  Sushil “Like you can talk?”

  Claymore “Right… Fair enough!”

  Chance of a lifetime Scene – Take 1

  She wrapped her arms around his back, locked him in place with her legs and kissed him like there was nobody else in the room.

  She sneezed in his mouth...

  “Sorry,” she said. “The whiskers on his face are too long. A few went right up my nose.” She looked at him. “Are you alright?”

  “Damn, girl!” He screwed up his face and shifted his position. “That was a serious sneeze. I think I even farted a little.”

  Claymore I’ll see myself out…

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