The crowd, which had been split between the triumphant cries of the Biskottis and the angry yelling from the star pilots, gradually began to quiet down as the same two revelations washed lazily across the assembly. Terrorgorn gave a little baffled frown, as one would when an aging, oft-used appliance refuses to turn on.
The Biskotti with the spear finally stopped stabbing, and decided to simply push his spear experimentally into my back as far as he could. Subsequently its entire length disappeared into the frayed hole in my flight jacket, followed by his hands and wrists.
I pushed my tongue against my teeth to reactivate the mic. “Phase two,” I whispered.
The Biskotti was yanked off his feet as something grabbed his spear and pulled. He disappeared into my lower spinal region, and his terrified wail was cut off by the faint sound of something fleshy being clouted with a leather cosh.
The other spear carriers were clearly unsure what to make of all this, but a few of them were slowly advancing in short hops, waiting for someone else to take the lead and charge forward. Before any of them could, three small spherical objects were burped out of the hole in my back, all clattering to the floor and rolling in different directions.
Even from the floor I could feel the entire room instinctively tensing up with anticipation in the moment before the smoke grenades exploded.
Trac knows how Derby was able to squeeze so much smoke into such a small grenade, but it was certainly in a hurry to get out and stretch its legs. Within seconds, I, the crowd, and, most importantly, Terrorgorn were engulfed in a blanket of blinding white smoke. The Biskotti firing squad swiftly panicked and unloaded what remained of their bullets at the place where they had last seen me, but I had already scrambled to my feet and darted to the side so the bullets only hit walls, floor, and Biskottis.
I pulled off my shredded flight jacket. So far, things were going well. It was only sheer blind luck that the Biskottis had all aimed for my chest, where I was wearing a harness with an activated Quantunnel on both sides. Each about fourteen inches wide and a foot and a half tall, protecting as much of the torso as possible before it would’ve been obvious under the jacket. Still, it had left quite a few heart-achingly vulnerable spots. I had suggested another, smaller, triangular one to put down my jeans, but my two partners had vetoed that one.
“You guys all right?” I said quietly as I kept low and attempted to get my bearings in the smoke.
“A little more warning before the gunfire would have been appreciated,” came Derby’s reproachful voice, simultaneously coming from my chest and from a rented storage unit on the other side of the galaxy. “With what they did to these walls, I fear we’ve already lost the deposit.”
“You ready for your part?”
His voice moved to the Quantunnel on my back. “Yes, let’s decant a little professionalism into the situation.”
It’s a strange experience, having a full-grown man climb out of your back, even if that isn’t technically what was happening. I can’t say I recommend it. I could feel the straps of the harness shifting around like a backpack full of monkeys, and then I was almost bent over backwards when Derby briefly rested his entire weight on the Quantunnel’s bottom edge, but the moment it lifted I heard the sound of sensible shoes slapping onto the tile floor as Derby scooted off about his own mission.
This done, I turned my attention to the wall of opaque smoke in front of me, currently containing one armed mob and one galactic scourge, both unaccounted for. Without warning, a Biskotti with an assault rifle stumbled into my two-foot visual range, coughing squeakily, and peered up at me. Its gaze focused, and its face looked like it was turning hostile in the brief moment before my foot got in the way and I kicked it back into the fog.
“Thermal goggles,” I requested. I heard the sounds of panicky rummaging and items falling off shelves, then I recoiled in distaste as Sturb’s pudgy hand emerged from my chest, clutching a pair of black goggles on a rubber strap. This was turning into the kind of experience that could give a guy body issues.
With the goggles on, my vision went from uniform gray to uniform blue decorated with red and yellow sprites panicking and fighting each other over whether they were fighting to get me or to get out. In contrast, there was a cooler, yellow-green figure sitting on a higher position just ahead. Terrorgorn didn’t seem too animated, but I could see he was tapping the ends of his fingers together anxiously, not happy with events but not wanting to cause a fuss.
I was creeping up on his flank when I took a step forward and, to my alarm, the smoke disappeared instantly, exposing me to Terrorgorn and what members of his Biskotti security team had had the presence of mind to stay around him. I hopped back into the wall of smoke before I could be noticed by anyone with the will to pursue.
It was turning into a good day for the ongoing process of researching and fully divining the extent of Terrorgorn’s abilities. He had pushed the smoke away from himself, creating a clear bubble about thirty feet across, which gave a pretty blatant indication of the maximum range at which his telekinetic powers worked. Fifteen feet didn’t sound like much, but it was a tall order to sprint across it in the fraction of a second it would take for him to focus on my spine and snap it like a fast-food chopstick.
I edged carefully around the perimeter of Terrorgorn’s circle of influence until the vague, featureless yellow-green blob reported by my goggles looked like it had its back to me. That was the obvious approach, but some of the armed Biskottis were here as well, protecting their new god. It would only take a second to alert Terrorgorn to my position, and the smoke looked like it was starting to dissipate. I silently cursed the efficiency of Salvation’s air cyclers. I whispered “Derby” so quietly, I was practically just mouthing it, but it was enough for the tooth mic to pick up. “Status?”
The high-pitched whine in my ears, that I had, up to this point, been attributing to some nearby Biskotti in a state of weirdly continuous torment, suddenly stopped. “Status is, pausing briefly in the middle of my crucial task to acknowledge a dolt.” The whine started up again.
“When you’re done, I need some covering fire directed at Terrorgorn. Think you can manage that?”
“But of course,” said Derby over the whine, which I had by now deduced was the sound of his largest power saw working against the metal bars of the giant cage. “I don’t suppose any of you heroic star pilot types managed to secrete blasters about your persons, which you were planning to use the instant you saw an opening?” There was a faint rustling of flight jackets, and Derby clicked his tongue. “Ah. Only most of you, then.”
The smoke had lifted enough that I could see the outlines of Terrorgorn and his protectors without the goggles, but before they could register my presence, a barrage of blaster shots from the opposite direction peppered Terrorgorn’s position, stunning two Biskottis and sending them spinning through the air like fainting goats. The remaining guards bunched together into a protective wall between Terrorgorn and the newly liberated star pilot assault force. This had the additional effect of removing all obstacles between Terrorgorn and me.
My flight jacket was still in my hands. I wound the sleeves around my wrists and bobbed on my toes to psych myself up. This was the moment. I had to act before I had time to think about it and produce several compelling reasons to not do it. I sprinted forward, scaled the back side of Terrorgorn’s throne with three nimble hops, then brought my flight jacket down on Terrorgorn’s head.
The zip was facing me and the sleeves were either side of his skull, so when I pulled back, it was like I was trying to use the jacket to garrote his entire face. His skinny arms came up, index fingers upraised as if wanting to politely interrupt me to raise a small point, but I kept pulling the fabric taut, so eventually he gave a little sigh and began to use telekinesis.
I should have realized that covering his eyes with the jacket didn’t so much prevent him from using his power
s as prevent him from using his powers on anything but one specific thing—meaning, the jacket. A ball of force ballooned the fabric outwards, almost yanking my arms out of their sockets before I could plant my feet on Terrorgorn’s shoulder blades and pull back with all of my strength. A second burst of kinetic force exploded from his head, nearly giving me whiplash.
I kicked myself forward and was able to get my arms around his skull, my legs around his chest. Different parts of my body shook as he tried to throw me off, but without vision he could only blast in random directions. “Sturb, now!” I said through gritted teeth, when Terrorgorn’s head was practically halfway into my chest Quantunnel.
“Um. Right,” said Sturb from the speaker, although I could faintly hear it coming from my chest, as well. “Look. I know I agreed to do this, but I think a lot of that was me being swept along in the enthusiasm everyone had for the plan, and I’m really actually not very comfortable with doing this at all.”
One of Terrorgorn’s eyes was briefly exposed as the hole in the back of my jacket shifted over it, and the ceiling light directly above us promptly exploded. I slammed one of my arms around the hole and redoubled my grip. “Sturb, for plying out loud!” I yelled as Terrorgorn managed to escape from my legs and send my entire body swinging like a loose pendulum.
The smoke had all but completely drifted away now, and the Biskottis could see Terrorgorn’s plight, but most of them were too busy trying not to be outflanked by Robert Blaze and his star pilot crew as more and more of them escaped the hole Derby had made in the cage. One Biskotti made a token effort to come to Terrorgorn’s rescue, but a random telekinetic blast knocked them over like a bowling pin.
“I just need you to promise me that you’ll sign some kind of statement I can present at my next support group meeting.”
“Yes! Fine!” I was being flung from one of Terrorgorn’s shoulders to the other like a sack of laundry.
My arms came away from his head, but I managed to keep my grip on the sleeves of my jacket. At that moment, Terrorgorn’s head managed to find the tear in the jacket’s back, and with a terrible rending sound, the hole widened. The jacket plopped down around his shoulders as if I were merely helping him put on a sweater.
Now wearing my ruined jacket like a poncho, Terrorgorn slowly rotated around, then tilted his head down to examine me. He gave a confused little smile, as if I’d merely bumped into him on a packed monorail.
Sturb’s hands emerged from the hole in my chest, followed by his arms, his head, and his shoulders. He reached up and plopped a curvy metal crown onto Terrorgorn’s head, snatching his hands away as if from a hot stove as soon as it was in place. “Sorry,” he whined, before falling back into my chest as if yanked by a bungee cord.
Terrorgorn continued smiling, rolling his eyes back to examine his new accessory. I stumbled back, missed my footing on Terrorgorn’s pile of chairs, and fell all the way to the floor. The Quantunnel on my back hit the tiles with a metallic clang that sent painful echoes running through my shoulder blades.
I made to get up on my elbows, but was interrupted by a force like an invisible giant’s foot pinning my entire upper torso to the ground. My arms were locked into place, outstretched either side of me in a crucifixion pose I hoped wasn’t about to become appropriate. Above me, Terrorgorn cocked his head, admiring his own work.
“Strb,” I managed, through a face that felt like it was pressed against an invisible window. “T’s nt wrkng . . .”
“Yes, I, um . . . I haven’t turned it on yet.”
My attempt at a frustrated sigh turned into more of a squawking premature death rattle as further pressure pinned my head to one side. From this angle, I could see the small skirmish unfolding in the concourse. Robert Blaze’s crew were gradually advancing along the concourse ring, taking cover in stalls and doorways, while the Biskottis were still trying to hold the line in front of Terrorgorn’s throne. Their projectile weapons were more vicious, and they had the better accuracy and coordination, but they didn’t have the cover, and the star pilots would have them outflanked soon enough.
All of which I put together after the fact. At the time, the only observations going through my head were that none of those selfish brackets were coming to help, and I was going to die any moment, and oh trac, oh God, I didn’t want to die.
“Strrrrb . . .” I grunted as my nose was being ground into the tiles.
“All right! Yes, I know! I know I said I’d turn the slave crown on now, but I really don’t think either of you properly appreciate what a massive cause of anxiety this is for me.”
Derby, who was probably out in the concourse helping the star pilots, spat out a frustrated grunt. “Do you need me to come back in there and turn it on for you?”
“Nnngh,” I offered.
“No, you don’t need to do that, I just . . .” A few abortive squeaks emerged from the back of Sturb’s throat before he found new words. “I signed a pledge that I’d never touch slave crowns again. Slave crowning people is evil.”
My head was pulled an inch off the ground, and my neck, already turned to the side, began to rotate further. I caught a glimpse of Terrorgorn’s dreamy smile before he directed my attention forcibly at the floor. I felt a crick in my neck that didn’t seem like it was going to get any better.
“Sturb, would you consider it evil to smash someone’s teeth in?” said Derby.
“Well . . . yes, I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me.”
“But what if your teeth had been glued together and your mouth was full of poison? Surely you would appreciate someone smashing your teeth in before the poison went down your throat.”
“R’s grt r prrnt,” I added, as my field of view shifted another inch to the left.
“All I’m saying is, context matters more than following a strict interpretation of the law,” said Derby. I would have been plying grateful if he’d made his point with shorter words.
I heard the sound of an expensive piece of electronics clattering onto a work surface. “Oh God, I pressed it,” wailed Sturb. “I can’t believe I pressed it. That was so bad of me.”
The pressure that had been holding my entire body down instantly disappeared, giving me the wonderful sensation of floating on a cushion of air for a moment, unless it was the dopamine. I sat up and gripped my chin in both hands to make sure my neck was in order. Actually, Terrorgorn had done wonders for my usual stiffness.
Terrorgorn himself was still wearing the dreamy smile, but his eyes were wide and staring, the pupils wobbling in time with the flashing lights on the slave crown. He extended a shaking hand toward me, another index finger upraised to indicate that he wanted to politely interject something. “I . . . hm,” he began. “Could you . . . hmm.”
Two completely unprompted statements probably meant he was taking this very seriously. With his smile now frozen humorlessly in place, he lifted one foot into the air, lazily turned his body to face the crowd below him, then swung his entire torso like a sledgehammer, smashing his head on a nearby metal backrest with enough force to make every orifice in my body wince.
The clang of slave crown against seating device was loud enough to silence the skirmish taking place a short distance away. The stricken Biskottis, low on ammo and pinned down by blaster fire—nonlethal, of course, star pilots being what they were, but they didn’t know that—looked back at their leader, and their already demoralized faces drooped another few inches.
Now with a full audience, Terrorgorn tried to right himself, or perhaps wind up for another blow, and ended up toppling right off his makeshift throne. His head struck the floor of the concourse like the clapper of a giant bell. I hurried around the pile of chairs and held him down before he could do any more damage to the slave crown.
It wasn’t a fully functional slave crown, and couldn’t force the wearer to follow instructions. It was a simple nerve dampener, designed to s
everely restrict the speed and extent of the subject’s movements, along with Terrorgorn’s psychokinetic abilities. The kind of thing Sturb was probably making in his high-school tech lab as a measure against the bullies he no doubt attracted.
Derby and I had spent several hours persuading Sturb to compromise on this, punctuated by the occasional long sulk in the bathroom. But now, holding Terrorgorn’s limbs in place with my face six inches from his, I gained a full understanding of Sturb’s reluctance to use the technology he had invented. Something about Terrorgorn’s bloodshot eyes, and the way his muscles quivered as they fought the signals overpowering his nervous system, made me very queasy.
Finally, Terrorgorn gave in. A final burst of psychic energy did little more than make my ears pop, and he let his skinny limbs flop to the ground, exhausted, like overboiled frankfurters.
“Send a supervillain to catch a supervillain.” I breathed heavily as I slowly released my grip and rose to a crouch.
“Can I just say, I resent that,” said Sturb, like anyone cared.
Once I was satisfied that Terrorgorn wasn’t about to jump up and shish kebab my doints with a single pointed finger, I surveyed the room, and the first person I saw was Ic. She was at the front of the battered mob of Biskottis, who had all ceased to fight their defensive battle, for the obvious reason that the subject of that defense was now lying stricken at my feet.
Ic looked at me. Then she looked at Terrorgorn. Then her gaze traveled back up to me.
“The Ancients have won the battle of the heavens,” she reported, voice quavering with revelation. She threw out her arms wide. “Praise the Ancients! Oh, praise them!” Then she broke into a ceremonial dance of worship that seemed reminiscent of a waiter with two armloads of plates swaying their hips left and right as they attempted to navigate a packed canteen. The few Biskottis that joined in didn’t really put their hearts into it.
Then Derby materialized from the misty atmosphere of relief that had descended upon the station. “I believe everyone is accounted for,” he relayed. Securing the concourse had been the large part of his role in the plan. “Biskottis and star pilots alike.”
Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash Page 28