Imperatrix of the Galaxy

by Tristan Vick

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  “What?!” Raven laughed. “Onelle?”

  “No, silly. Jegra,” Angellyk replied.

  Raven laughed again. It sounded so absurd. But the look on Angie’s face suggested she was being sincere. “Oh,” she said, her tone softening, “you’re serious.”

  She was fond of Jegra and would go to the ends of the galaxy and back to make sure she was safe, but it wasn’t love. At least, she didn’t think so.

  “I wouldn’t joke about your love life, hon. There’s nothing funny about it. In fact, it’s pretty dang sad, if you ask me.”

  “Ha-ha,” Raven replied, narrowing her eyes at her. “But Jegra’s my empress. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Angellyk said skeptically, folding her arms over her chest. “Just friends.”

  Raven blushed. “That’s right. Just friends.”

  “I’m not the one blushing,” Angellyk teased.

  Raven’s cheeks darkened even more, but this time with a hint of anger. “I forgot how frustrating you can be sometimes,” she said, storming out of the brig.

  Angellyk raced out after her. “Don’t be like that! I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that…”

  Raven stopped in the middle of the corridor. “Just…what?

  “It’s just that you’ve not let many people in close to you. But I see you and Jegra are very close. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I appreciate that,” Raven said, reaching out and brushing Angellyk’s face with the back of her hand. “But, like I said, we’re just friends.”

  “In that case,” Angellyk said, throwing her arms around Raven’s waist and reeling her in. “I’ve been dying to do this since I came aboard.”

  Her lips crashed into Raven’s and they shared a hot, mouth-watering kiss. Midway through their make out session, the doors parted and they quickly pulled apart, trying their best to pretend nothing had happened.

  Skuld was standing in the entrance holding a tray of food for the remaining prisoner, Onelle. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have to…” he nodded down at the chow and then glanced nervously back up at the two women, “you know.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Raven said, motioning for him to continue on with his duties. “We’re done here anyway.”

  Not waiting around long enough for Angellyk to try and talk her into something she’d likely regret, she scurried up the corridor and disappeared out of sight.

  “Apologies,” Skuld said, glancing timidly at the sad looking green-skinned woman standing before him.

  “No, it wasn’t you. I was, perhaps, a little too forward.” Angellyk smiled at Skuld and then turned to go roam about the ship, clear her head, and maybe take a cold shower.

  Raven entered the bridge to find Kregor and Gyllek both busy on the comm. “Do you read me?” Kregor asked. “I repeat, this is the Skywend responding to the Chiron distress call, do you read me?”

  “What’s going on?” Raven asked.

  “It’s the Chiron, ma’am, they issued a system wide distress call.”

  “Where’s the call coming from?”

  “Galliforn, Captain,” Kregor replied. He looked at her, awaiting her orders. His nictitating eyelids blinking twice as he watched her mull over their next course of action.

  “Set course for Galliforn, maximum speed,” Raven informed. Turning to leave, she glimpsed Gyllek and Kregor both giving her a curious look. She knew they had questions, but until she knew more, it was best just to keep her assumptions to herself. “I’ll be in my quarters sending an encoded communiqué to Empress Alakandra. If this is what I think it is, we’re all in a pot of boiling water and the only way out is going to be by jumping into the fire.”

  After Raven exited the bridge, Gyllek turned in her chair and looked at Kregor with a confused expression on her face. “What in the galaxy was the captain on about? Pots of water and jumping into fires?”

  “Bad news, I’m afraid, kid. Just your average all around bad news.” Settling into his seat, Kregor leaned forward, flipped on several switches, and dialed up the ship’s FTL drive.

  “That’s what I thought,” Gyllek replied.

  “Strap in, kid,” he said, pushing the throttle all the way up to maximum. Outside the main view portal, the stars all around them began to stretch into a kaleidoscope of different colors, “and settle in for the long haul. B’cuz this adventure is just getting started.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Gyllek replied in her cutesy voice. Giving Kregor a playful salute, she winked and then sat back and buckled in for the ride.

  40

  The Chiron passed through the stream at maximum speed making its way toward the satyr homeworld, Galliforn. Outside the window of Grendok’s quarters, a rainbow kaleidoscope of colors whisked by. The colors, like a psychedelic light show, danced along the hull in a hypnotizing blur. It was beautiful, but staring at it too long could give you a headache. Or a bad case of vertigo.

  A sense of lightheadedness overcoming him, Grendok turned away from the hyperspace vista to face the mirror and stared at his solid reflection. Having put on his admiral’s uniform, he finished fastening his collar and then tugged at his sleeves, popping them out so he could clip on his cufflinks.

  Lost to his thoughts, the time had come, he felt, to utilize every asset he’d been building for the past one hundred and forty years. Arms dealer, black market trader, illegal clone provider, renowned war hero, all of it had come to a head.

  Before exiting his room, he fetched his battle-axe and slung it across his back. The magnetic clamps locked it into place and, taking a deep breath, he strolled out into the corridor.

  The short walk from his quarters to the bridge only took a few minutes but he used the time to clear his head. He’d need a clear head to think through the next step of this shit storm. Not only had a coup been executed on Dagon Prime, but Senator Targon’s daughter, Callestra, now led the Dagon Imperial fleet. And for some strange reason, they were holding on the Southern Rim of the Empire, as if they were waiting for something.

  But that position held no strategic value and it left Dagon Prime wide open to attack by the Nyctans. What did Callestra know that he didn’t? Not being privy to such information got his goat, but he already had an idea about how to obtain such sensitive information.

  Upon arriving on the bridge, Sub Commander Tabitha looked at him, straightened up, and announced his arrival. “Admiral on deck!” she hollered. The bridge crew all stopped what they were doing and rose to their feet and saluted, holding their salutes until their captain returned them with one of his own.

  Grendok saluted and said, “Everyone, at ease.”

  His crew turned back to their stations, returning to their duties. He skipped up to Tabitha, who stood before the large monitor.

  “Coming out of hyperspace now,” the navigations officer informed. This prompted the crew to look up at the forward viewscreen.

  The rainbow kaleidoscope of paper-thin light strands shrank into pin-points of stellar light. The blue streaks snapped into closer stars, the red into far away stars, the yellow into system stars, the green faded into invisible dark matter, and the purple, well, the few purple streaks signified black holes.

  THUNK! The ship jolted as something struck the Chiron’s outer hull. “Take evasive maneuvers!” Grendok barked.

  With a heavy groan, the massive ship swooped down, narrowly avoiding another, much larger, asteroid, half the ship’s own mass. More rocky debris clanked and pinged against the ship’s korridium hull and the ride through the debris became exceptionally bumpy.

  Tabitha watched the thick debris outside the viewscreen crashing, ricocheting, and spinning off in every direction. It was chaos. “There shouldn’t be an asteroid belt here.”

  “It’s not an asteroid belt,” answered the admiral in his grimmest tone. He raised a finger as the ship emerged from the thick of it only to reveal their homeworld, Galliforn, cracked in
half like an egg, floating lifeless in the sky.

  There was no grid of city lights lighting up the evening sky. No transports going to and fro as with most bustling space ports. No signs of life of any kind. Just the hot orange of a molten core bleeding out of a green world that had been cleaved in two. As the molten core cooled in the frigidness of space, it hardened, forming a metallic strand, like the severed umbilical cord of an aborted fetus that dangled lifelessly in the dead of space.

  As the terrible, horrible realization set in, the crew all gasped as one, their hearts instantly breaking. Many broke down into sobs. But Grendok said nothing. It took everything he had not to break too.

  The Galliforn Space Defense Front, their flag battleship Stormbreaker, and every single one of the orbital laser platforms had been destroyed. There wasn’t a ship or laser platform remaining between their homeworld and The Rift. Just an endless string of destruction and debris. The skeletal husks of destroyed vessels and the rocky remains of the planet were all that was left of the once mighty Galliforn. Whatever it was that had hit the planet had utterly decimated it. The Good Ole Girl was gone.

  “What in the galaxy could do something like this?” Tabitha asked, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

  “Not what, but who, my dear.”

  Tabitha looked over at Grendok, a frown forming on her face. “What do you mean? Do you know who’s responsible for this, admiral?”

  “It’s an omen,” Grendok said.

  “An omen for what?”

  “That all worlds will fall.”

  “Fall? Fall to whom?”

  Grendok turned to Tabitha and, speaking in a hushed yet equally gruff tone, his voice betraying the first signs of trepidation, he answered, “He has returned.”

  “Who?” Tabitha asked. “Who has returned? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “The one I cannot name. The one drawn back from countless eons and inconceivable dimensions. He who instills dread in the fiercest warriors and compels the most ruthless knaves to cower and hide. He who carries with him the Yellow Sign. A golden light delineated by a single and incontrovertible trait; everything it touches is laid to ruin. My dear Tabitha, you ask who has returned? But isn’t it already clear?” Grendok paused, turning back toward the viewscreen to take in the destruction of his fallen homeworld. Taking a moment to let the direness of his words take root in the minds of the men and women of his crew, he finally answered, “The Yellow King.”

  Epilogue

  Administratrix Anaïs Nin entered the throne room to find all of the court assembled. Even her political and military advisors had convened. She felt rage growing within herself as the crowds parted, all of them eyeing her with startled faces. It was only when the throng parted to reveal the gleaming backside of a figure she recognized all too well that she understood their edginess wasn’t because they feared her, but because they feared Him.

  A beautiful Nyctan man with silver flowing hair, skin as soft and pure as the finest ivory, and sunken eyelids gazed over his shoulder at her with sanguine eyes. It seemed as if he recognized her at first glance, but for some reason unbeknownst to her, he seemed sorry to see her.

  Brilliant golden armor with what seemed to be enormous, gilded eagles’ feathers hung from his back. The gold-plated feathers swayed as he slowly turned to greet her.

  “My dear daughter,” he said, his arms clasped behind his back. “I have been waiting for this day for more than seven millennia.”

  The Gilded Master swept back his wings as though he were sweeping back a cape and, catching the air, they fanned out and then promptly curled back into pleats, each feathery fold falling back into place.

  With slow deliberate movements, he smiled down at the administratrix with hypnotic black eyes. Eyes blacker than obsidian; all but for a golden halo that ran around the circumference of his irises which gave him an otherworldly appearance.

  Anaïs Nin could hardly believe her eyes. Was this real? Had her God returned? Was it really him? What about the prophecy? What about the emissaries? If it really was her God, she needed to know.

  She wanted to pinch herself just to be sure she wasn’t dreaming, but then he smiled upon her. And she knew. She knew because instead of feeling warmth or love, she felt nothing but dread and despair echoing throughout a cold and infinite void. She felt her stomach sink and a crippling sense of hopelessness come her. It must be Him, she thought. She was sure of it.

  “My Lord,” Anaïs Nin said, kneeling before the feet of the Gilded Master, H’aaztre. She trembled in fear but clamped down on her nerves and hid her spine-tingling feelings deep down inside her.

  “Rise,” H’aaztre said, reaching down and guiding the administratrix to her feet with a gesture.

  “I too have waited for this day,” she said, taking his hand and kissing it, “my lord.”

  The Supreme Lord H’aaztre raised an eyebrow. “Is this so?” he asked in a skeptical tone.

  “Yes, my lord,” Anaïs Nin replied truthfully. “I would not lie to you. I swear it on my life.”

  “Then why are the preparations not complete?”

  “My lord?” she asked, confused by the question.

  “The Ceremony of the Chosen One,” he answered. “Where is my chosen vessel?”

  “I’m afraid a suitable vessel could not be discovered in time.” She bowed her head apologetically.

  The Gilded Master reached down and gently raised her chin. “Are you barren?” he asked.

  “No, my lord,” Anaïs Nin replied, her eyes watering with remorse for the awful guilt she felt for disappointing him. “It’s just that…” she trailed off. There were no excuses. She had deemed the child unworthy and sacrificed it, knowing very well the repercussions. She had failed in her sole mission as High Priestess to provide her Lord with a suitable vessel. “My lord, I am not worthy. I have failed you. I have failed my sacred duty as High Priestess and I deserve to be punished.”

  Never in a million years had she expected that H’aaztre would return but a handful of days after the ritual. Yet, she got the distinct feeling that He saw right through her weakness. He knew she was a whore who had let herself be overcome with the carnal desires she’d felt for so long. He knew of Dakroth’s sickening seed being impregnated in her, and she knew that He saw through her—that she ignored all the signs of His divine return.

  Unable to bear the weight of her abysmal failures any further, an unforgivable sin in her eyes, she fell to her knees before her Lord, prostrate, and burst into tears. Clutching his feet, she kissed his golden boots and begged for his forgiveness.

  “Oh, my child, do not weep,” H’aaztre said, pulling Anaïs Nin back to her feet. Guiding her gently into him, he placed her head against his metal-plated chest. He hushed her like a loving mother would a weeping babe and, stroking her hair softly, said, “There, there, my child. Everything will be all right. You shall see. Soon, it will all become perfectly clear to you.”

  Her face pressed to her Lord’s bosom, she felt her heart racing in her chest, the fear, the guilt, her penitence, the reverence, the excitement…all of it churning inside her like a building storm. She allowed herself to let loose, and pressing her cheek into his warm embrace, threw her arms around him and held him as he held her.

  That’s when she felt the terrible agony of H’aaztre’s hand tearing through cloth and flesh as he reached into her back and tore out her spinal column. A viscous sounding splatter was the last thing she heard before the infernal darkness seized her.

  The administratrix’s body crumpled to the ground and landed in a disfigured mess along with an excess of her sticky green blood. Her flayed back looked like the toothed opening of a zipper, as small bone fragments protruded from the gory wound.

  Clutched in the Gilded Master’s bloody hand was the spinal column and head of the administratrix. Her dead eyes peered out across the court with a look of utter terror frozen on her face. And as though some part of Anaïs Nin was still inside somewhere, a single t
ear trickled down her forehead.

  Not a single gasp or murmur was made. The distinguished guests of the court were beyond petrified. They dared not react in any other way than that which showed the utmost veneration of their Lord. An ancient supreme being which many of them had only heard about in the scholarly texts, but who walked among them now. A God whose namesake a large majority still prayed to daily. A God they would not question, for their faith drove them to blind obedience and servitude. For that is what the phrase “Nyctos etd’ve H’aaztre,” meant. The Slaves of Hastur.

  If their God wanted their queen dead, then he must have his reasons. How could a God be wrong?

  “You there,” H’aaztre said to one of the Carcosan Virgins that cowered off to the side like a frightened animal. She reluctantly stepped forward. Placing the gory skull and backbone into her hands, green globs of gore dripping from them, he commanded, “Dispose of this.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said, taking the remains of her queen and scurrying back.

  Sir Lance Bishop, one of the top-ranking Knights of Caelum, stepped forward. His gauntleted fists clenched, a rage burned inside him as he grappled with the death of his beloved queen. He wanted nothing more than to have his vengeance, God or not. But he was abruptly halted in his tracks with one sharp glance from the Gilded Master.

  “Is there something you wish to say, Sir Knight?”

  “No, my lord,” Sir Bishop answered, easing back into line.

  Yolkai Estan, the current oracle, brushed back her red and gold trim robes and placed her hand over the knight to let him know it was all right.

  This was neither the time nor place to mount a protest. But she understood the knight’s deep-seated urge to protect the queen at all costs. It was literally programmed into his DNA. All the Knights were genetically enhanced in such a fashion. And now, the queen was dead. Slaughtered before her loyal servants as a symbol of H’aaztre’s terrible might as well as what would happen to those who dared to defy him.

  “Most Excellent,” H’aaztre said, a satisfied grin spreading across his beautiful lips. Turning to the throne, he sauntered over, his wings swaying behind him, and took his rightful place.