Imperatrix of the Galaxy

by Tristan Vick

  9

  Pacing back and forth with worry, Danica unclasped her hands from behind her back and looked toward the sonic shower where Lianica was running through the cleanse cycles before heading out for her morning shift. She looked away and then muttered, “I’m perfectly fine.”

  There was a touch of resentment tucked into her voice, due mostly to Lianica ordering her to take the day off and rest, something she was positive she couldn’t do. Not with the empress missing. Not with all the work that needed to be done.

  “I know you’re strong, but you’ve been through a serious trauma,” Lianica said, stepping out of the shower. The steamy mist dripped down the curvature of her naked blue body as she had skipped the air-drying cycle. The cool air of the open room caused her dark purple nipples to stand erect and she placed her hands on her hips and shifted her stance which, unintentionally, gave her a seductive appeal.

  Danica paused to admire Lianica’s youthful body thinking it odd how the younger generation chose to shave all their hair, but she quickly turned away again, having realized she was gawking, and resumed her pacing. “I’m bound to go mad if all I can do is wear a groove in the decking and lust after you.”

  Lianica rolled her eyes and went over to her closet. Tapping a wall panel, it slid to the side and a rack of uniforms slid out. She picked one from the series of identical white and gray uniforms and began dressing.

  “Look, I only ask you take it easy because I care about you. But if that’s too much to ask, then, feel free to disregard my overbearing protectiveness and do what you need to do.”

  Danica stopped in her tracks and spun around to find Lianica perched on the arm of a lounger as she struggled to get her knee-high black patent boots on. “You mean that?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Lianica replied. Having finally zipped the boot over her right calf, she began the struggle with the other one. After finishing that boot, she stood up and made eye contact with Danica only to realize Danica was staring at her, mouth slightly open and with a partial smile frozen on her face. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Danica replied.

  Lianica squinted suspiciously and then laughed. “All right, sweetie. Whatever you say. But, if you’re coming,” she added, waving a finger up and down Danica’s mostly exposed figure, “you’d better change out of that. You may give the crew the wrong idea.”

  Danica looked down to discover that her nightgown had slipped open just enough to expose both areolas and more than enough breast to be on the scandalous side. She quickly wrapped back up and then sauntered over to the sonic shower.

  Lianica fastened the golden shoulder tassels to her uniform along with the chain that connected them, her pins and stripes, and her various medals and commendations. It was the Dagon way to always present your accomplishments boldly at all times. Clasping the last ornament over her left breast, she made her way to the door, tossed her hair, and looked back over her shoulder. “Meet me in the astrometrics lab when you’re ready.”

  With that she exited her quarters and left Danica alone in the shower.

  The lingering silence was louder than the hum of the sonic shower, and Danica couldn’t help but resent herself for being unable to protect the empress, to protect Jegra. When a faint series of tonal chirps broke her nagging conscience and interrupted her cleansing, she checked the holographic vidcom to see who was calling. The incoming signature only read Unknown Caller. The computer’s voice informed [*Encoded communique for Danica Valencia. Will you accept the call?*]

  “I’ll accept,” she replied, surprised that anyone had her private I.D. tag. Very few people even knew it, so whoever it was, she assumed it must be important.

  Raven Nightguard’s indigo face appeared on the digital display on the curved inside of the glass shower stall. She brushed aside the white tuft of hair that blended into a purple ombre and smiled. There was a brief silence between them and then Raven asked, “Is it a bad time?”

  “I’m just taking a shower,” Danica answered. Seeing the embarrassed look on Raven’s face, she quickly added, “But if you’re calling me, you must have heard the news.”

  “Is it true?”

  “I’m afraid so. The empress is gone.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  Danica raised her gaze again. “It’s true she was blasted out of the sky, but her actual disappearance seemed to be caused by one of those celestial squid entities. Otherwise, I’m at a loss.”

  There was a long pause as Raven mulled over the best course of action. “All right. You keep searching for her on your end. I’ll put out some feelers and see if anyone in the Commonwealth has heard anything along the smuggling routes and the merchant hubs. At the moment, I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”

  “Every little bit helps,” Danica replied. Raven nodded.

  As Raven leaned over to disconnect the call, Danica’s voice called out, “Wait.” She stopped her hand and looked back into the cam-recorder.

  “I appreciate you doing this,” Danica said. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, you and me, but this…just know it means a lot to me.”

  Raven gave a subtle nod and then cut the feed.

  Danica broke down in the shower and sobbed her eyes out. Once she’d gotten it all out of her system, she finished showering, dressed, and then headed to astrometrics.

  When Danica strode into the room, Lianica practically choked on her own gulp. “That’s almost worse than the nightgown,” she teased.

  Danica looked down at the banded top made of semi-translucent, white cloth which revealed almost everything, only slightly subdued by its wedding veil-like opacity. Not only that, but the various layers were cut in revealing ways. Violet bikini bottoms that practically matched her skin tone were only overshadowed by the garter that held chap-styled leggings. The leggings, of course, were skin-tight polyurethane, white, with a series of circular cutouts down the sides that spiraled in such a fashion that they formed a rather hypnotic pattern.

  To complete the ensemble, she had bright red buckle strap ankle boots that fit perfectly over the white leggings and added a garish splash of color.

  She looked back up and threw one hand on her hip. “You don’t like it?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Lianica replied. The outfit was distracting to say the least, and now it was Lianica who found herself gawking.

  After having stared for a bit too long, she looked away and began reading some star charts. Unable to help herself, though, she snuck another peek as Danica went over to the table and leaned over to pick up a holovid tablet.

  Loosely clenched fist to her mouth, the commander cleared her throat and said, “Getting back to the task at hand, I’ve plotted the least number of slipstream jumps it would take to cover the entire Commonwealth and the Outer Rim worlds.”

  “How many?”

  “If we can manage eight different jumps a week, it will take us roughly thirty-seven odd years to cover every inch of charted space.”

  Danica tilted her head slightly and looked up from her charts. Rubbing her chin contemplatively, she asked, “What if we just covered the Outer Rim planets and deep space ports first?”

  Lianica looked down at her holovid pad and did a few quick calculations. “Assuming we find her out there, it would take about five years.”

  “All right, let’s assume we get lucky within the first couple of those. Is that something you think this crew would be willing to undertake?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lianica replied, her eyelids half lowered, her face deadly serious. “I am willing to undertake it. And this crew will obey my orders or get a free spacewalk courtesy of airlock eight.”

  Danica knew that airlock eight was the airlock that jettisoned its refuge directly aft of the ship. In your last wheezing breath, as your lungs began to freeze shut and your heart grew so swollen that it’s about to burst in your chest, you see garbage floating around you and the ship sailing away from you. You die without hope. Without dignity. Without
honor.

  It’s a death reserved for traitors. And if Lianica was willing to threaten the crew with such a shameful demise, then Danica knew what she said was genuine.

  However long it took—no matter what obstacles they ran into—the Shard would search every quadrant of the Commonwealth and beyond and would not stop until it found its empress, Jegra Alakandra of Thessalonica, Empress of Dagon.

  It wasn’t until several minutes later that Lianica noticed a series of yellow dots show up on the astrometric holographic display of the Commonwealth. She looked over Danica’s shoulder to see what she was doing.

  “What are these?” She pointed at the sporadic appearance of golden dots that hovered in a disordered cluster all around the system.

  “I’m plotting all known sightings of the celestial squid entities. If there’s a pattern to their movement, then maybe we can use that as a springboard for launching the search for the empress.”

  “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “You would have. Eventually,” Danica reassured.

  Lianica smiled. “I guess it’s true what they say: There’s no substitute for years of experience.”

  As more dots appeared, Danica squinted at the coordinates and then gasped. She looked at Lianica with a pleased expression, eyes wide with the excitement of the revelation.

  “What is it?”

  “There is a pattern. Look,” she said, pointing out the series of dots, tracing them down the curvature of an arc. Each of the dots followed a similar arc, and all the arms of each arcing branch met at a centralized point. “Here, here, and here.”

  “It’s a spiral?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, too. But take a look at this.” With a pinch, Danica shrank down the spiral then opened her fingers again and a duplicate spiral popped up. Moving the copy over the star chart, she repeated the process five more times. Each time she overlaid the outer stars over the mid-point stars of the previous map. “You see?”

  “It’s a fractal.”

  “Yes,” Danica said. “And if they travel in fractal patterns, large and small, we should be able to extrapolate their jump points.”

  “Let’s increase their range by a factor of thirty. That way we can see all the jump points beyond the Outer Rim but that are within the creature’s reach. After all, we have them ranked at the same energy reading as the Dreadnaught class warships. So, assuming they’re folding hyperspace for instantaneous jumps along these coordinates, starting with where the empress disappeared…”

  “We should be able to chart the squid’s possible jump points.” Danica snapped her fingers and then tapped the hologram of the fringe area just beyond charted space a few times. A series of yellow dots just beyond the Outer Rim turned orange and she said, “Here. These points are possible jump points of the creature, assuming babies can jump just as far as the adults.”

  “That’s still roughly three-thousand light years we need to cover.”

  “It beats thirty-thousand.”

  “Even with the slipstream drive working around the clock, that’s still roughly five years.”

  “Four point seven, to be exact,” Danica added, being her meticulous self.

  “Yes,” Lianica smiled. Her smile was infectious as it spread to Danica.

  “What is it?” Danica asked.

  “Do you realize you just single handedly gave this mission a directive, a direction, and a detailed map all in one morning in the astrometric lab. I heard your genius was legendary on the battlefield. The way you devise strategies is studied at the academy. But I just never thought I’d see you working your magic up close and in person. It’s…well, it’s impressive.”

  “Be careful, commander, if I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were fishing to become teacher’s little pet.”

  “How could I not?” Lianica replied.

  Danica looked around the room. The dozen or so hours they’d worked had left them the only two people remaining in the astrometrics lab. Meaning they had the space all to themselves.

  Danica started undressing and Lianica swallowed hard and looked around. “I’ll lock the door,” she said.

  “No,” Danica replied, reaching out and grabbing Lianica’s wrist and stopping her. “It’s more exciting if there’s a risk of getting caught.”

  “Oh, you’re naughty.” Lianica grinned and bit her bottom lip as she watched Danica reach behind her back and unfasten her bra.

  Lianica only had time to unfasten her belt by the time Danica scooped her up and set her down on the projection table. The hologram of space danced around the shadows their bodies made as they lay back on the table.

  Danica leaned in and kissed Lianica’s full lips and had reached down to help peel off her tight-fitting dress pants when, unexpectedly, the ship rattled with the concussive force of a blast.

  “What in Helios was that?” Lianica said, sliding out from under Danica and getting dressed again.

  Danica was doing the same; both women were dressed faster than it had taken to undress, an ability that years of service lent them in times just like this one.

  Lianica went over and tapped the wall comm. “Report.”

  “It’s the emperor, Commander. He’s found us.”

  “Blast that man,” Danica mumbled off to the side.

  Lianica shot her a sharp glance and then leaned into the comm. “Tell him he has got my attention and that I’ll take his call in my personal ready room.”

  “Um…” the voice on the other end said hesitantly.

  “Well, spit it out,” Lianica ordered.

  “The emperor is on his way here.”

  “He’s coming here, personally?”

  “Yes, Commander. What are your orders?”

  Lianica thought for a moment and then said, “We’d best greet His Majesty as he expects. Have everyone wearing their dress whites and we’ll convene in the hangar landing bay.”

  A half hour later, the hull of the ship dissolved and Emperor Dakroth’s personal shuttle appeared. “Attention!” the XO shouted above the din of whispers and everyone snapped to attention as a fast silence settled across the crew.

  Of course, the only one not in attendance was Danica, for obvious reasons. She couldn’t show her face–not after her little stunt back aboard Tamoran’s vessel.

  The menacing black shuttle, with its folding wings, landed on the deck. Its wings, like the venomous flesh-eating butterflies of Skallek, rose up vertically and a hatch on the underbelly of the ship opened, revealing a massive loading elevator. The lift descended from the ship’s underbelly along with a spray of steam from the atmospheric regulators and then clanked onto the metal hangar deck with a resounding shudder that could be felt in the boots of all the crew who stood at attention as they awaited the emperor’s arrival.

  As the steam cleared, Commander Lianica Blackstar took several steps forward and stopped halfway between the crew and the shuttle. Emperor Dakroth and the red-skinned woman, Ishtar Bantu, manifested out of the steam, as if they were specters, and met her in the middle of the flight deck. They stood sharing intense glances in silence and then, Lianica cavalierly clapped the heels of her boots and saluted.

  “Lord Emperor Dakroth,” Commander Blackstar said, crossing her fist over her heart and taking a deep, ninety-degree bow. Rising back up, she added, “As ship’s commander, it is my great pleasure to welcome you aboard Her Majesty’s royal battle cruiser, the Shard.”

  10

  Sweat glazed Jegra’s soiled skin as she stood panting under a hot, red sun. She wiped her neck with her hand, her fingers plowing through the grime and leaving trails of freshly exposed skin, and sighed, plucking out the wooden spear she’d fashioned from the deadwood. The head of the pteranodon hit the dirt with a resounding thud and a splatter of blood spurted out of the creature’s gaping neck wound.

  A sharp pain surged through her and, leaning on the spear for support, Jegra moaned and then checked her side. “Balls,” she said, running her fingers
along three large gashes in her torso where the reptile’s taloned foot had clawed her.

  Her foot on the creature’s neck, she took ahold of its beak and, giving a hefty, twisting jerk, tore it off. Hobbling over to the acid pool, she dipped the beak in. Everything sizzled away except for the bone, and she drew up a small portion of the acid and splashed some of it on her wound.

  Her subsequent scream cut into the night as deeply as the claw marks cut into her side. Her wound sizzled and smoked as her flesh burned away from the acid, and Jegra screamed again and then crashed to her knees. Hunched over, she gripped her side and whimpered from the pain. But at least the wound was disinfected now and sealed shut. Her healing factor, albeit slowed by this planet’s harsh conditions, would handle the rest.

  A couple of hours later, Jegra sat perched in front of a giant spit she’d fashioned from the dead wood and roasted the giant pteranodon. The crackle of the fire was the only sound that filled the night, as there wasn’t much life on this barren world. What life she had come across was currently becoming her feast, its flesh sizzling tantalizingly.

  The dinosaur-like bird, glazed in its own offspring’s yoke, looked like a giant, succulent chicken, the size of an Earth cow. Reaching across her lap, she fetched a half cracked eggshell the size of a beach volleyball, reached in, and pulled out the wet goop of the yoke and albumin left inside. Tossing the contents onto the pteranodon meat and smearing it around with her hand, she slowly spun the shaft of the spit until the dino-goose was golden brown.

  Although the past couple of days had been a living hell, getting a fire going was easier than expected. All she did was dip a branch into the acid water and wait for it to catch on fire. Then she quickly reeled it out, walked over to her firepit, and ignited her bonfire. There was enough deadwood to keep it going indefinitely.

  Once she cooked the meat to perfection. She picked up the branches she’d twiddled down into chopsticks using a jagged rock, and plucked a piece of sizzling meat off the bird’s body, blowing on it a few times before tossing it into her mouth.