by Aaron Crash
The cargo bay doors opened.
“Yes!” Fernando said. “Bill and Lizzie have reached an agreement. Their love will last forever. It’s all very romantic. Now, Blaze, if you’ll allow me, I will see if I can get Cali under control.” The Clicker fired his starcycle down to where Cali was chewing at the cable though it was hurting her terribly. Black smoke swirled from her burning mouth.
Over comms, Fernando uttered rough syllables of Onyx speak, casting a spell. The Clicker doctor had learned enough of the harsh mystical language to do some magic. It seemed to work. Cali calmed down enough to allow Fernando to remove the harpoon from her belly. Instead of ripping the insect apart, she also let him remove the moon rocks from her bracelets, which Fernando stuck to his nanotech. Then both werewolf and Clicker disappeared into the cargo bay.
Once there, Fernando would find a lead-lined case, and once Cali wasn’t exposed to the lunar stones, she’d return to her shy, gentle self.
Trina chuckled. “So, let me get this straight. Fernando can help keep Cali under control. Otherwise, she’d kill us all. Without Elle, I become a bloodthirsty evil vampire. And now Bill is responsible for keeping the psychotic demon trapped in our computer from becoming a murder machine. And we’re going to try and close the Onyx Gate before it all comes unraveled and we kill each other.”
Blaze sighed. “You forgot that if Elle gets too powerful she becomes completely satanic.”
“Isn’t our family wonderfully strange?” Ling asked happily.
“Strange doesn’t quite capture it,” Blaze said sullenly. Trina was right. It was all completely, screwily insane, and yet, when they worked together, they were unstoppable.
“Elle?” Blaze asked again into comms.
HIs sister was strangely quiet.
“Let’s get back to the ship,” the gunny said. “I have a bad feeling that my sister isn’t okay.”
“And if she’s not okay, I’m not okay,” Trina reminded him. “Blaze, your heart beats so loud. I can hear the blood going from one chamber to another. You do have some blockage in your arterial veins. I’d lay off the chorizo.”
Trina needed blood and fast.
But he wasn’t about to stop eating chorizo. What was the point of saving the universe if he couldn’t sit down to cheap, spicy sausage?
In the end, you had to die of something.
THREE_
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Bill convinced the new Lizzie to put the ship back to how she’d found it originally. That was a good thing. What was definitely bad? They’d lost a ton of weapons and ammunition. They did save the plasma minigun, which was a gun Blaze dearly loved. Other armament, luckily, could be salvaged as well. Xerxes’s last party as a necrotechnological terror hadn’t destroyed all their toys
With the weapons locker full of hullfoam to keep the ship pressurized, Blaze was, once again, without a room. The master suite was basically a barbecue where they’d roasted spider demons. Worse yet, his MH3 hammock was now just cinders and melted plastic.
But where he slept didn’t matter. He had to get to Elle. Trina went to the galley to suck down a few bags of blood, while Fernando and Bill took care of Cali in the sick bay. For twenty minutes, she’d had a silver spear through her guts, and it was taking her a bit to heal. Bill had to repair her bracelets.
Which meant Ling and Blaze alone would face Elle. The door to the bridge slid open and Blaze ambled in, shotgun over his shoulder, ax attached to the nanotech on his hip. Ling had left his spacesuit with the starcycles in the cargo bay. He was in his ivory-colored tunic. On his belt were the silver handles of his fusion nunchakus. A thick chain connected the flat metal of the fusion emitter to a handle that held the hydrogen shell. He had two pairs. When asked, Ling said he liked the challenge of the weapon. He couldn’t lose focus for a second. He always had to know where the twelve inches of fusion energy was or else he’d do himself mortal damage. It kept him in the moment.
The bridge had been torn apart. All the furniture had been used to make creatures, but now it was back to being inanimate trash: shredded upholstery, shards of wood, warped metal rods, and the remnants of the holographic controls.
In the middle of the mess, Elle had cleared a space and drawn a pentagram on the floor. Candles burned at each tip of the five-pointed star. Kneeling in the center, she wore a low-cut black dress and her long black boots. On the left side of her body, on every piece of exposed skin, she had red and black tattoos to match her long, dyed hair. An Ojo de Horus tattoo covered her chest over her heart. Blaze also had the tattoo since it protected them from demon possession.
Blaze liked his tattoos, but his favorite was on his hands. On the fingers of his left hand he had LIVE and on his right, EVIL. But include his thumbs, and the ink spelled out LIVE ON and NO EVIL.
He’d gotten them after spending months in the stockade after murdering his demon-possessed CO and disobeying orders. A dishonorable discharge from the Terran Astral Marine Corps followed. His commanding officer’s behavior had turned bizarre, and so it wasn’t considered full-on murder, but it was enough to delete Blaze from the Astral Corps.
Blaze and Ling approached Elle.
“Elle?” Blaze whispered. A quick glance at his combat display showed her mojo was down to twenty percent. But it was holding steady.
She didn’t respond. She was entranced by something. That was why she hadn’t answered him when he’d tried to contact her.
Lizzie’s voice broke through comms. “Hhhey, Blaze. Your sister and I hhhave been talking. I talked to Fernando and hhher at the same time since I have superior communication skills. But your sister, well, she is still Hhhuman enough to be limited in what she can do. I can relay a message to hhher.”
Blaze raised a lip in a snarl. “You tell her to snap out of it right now. We’re worried about her.”
“And if I don’t?” Lizzie asked in a voice suspiciously sounding like the arrogant archduke they’d dealt with before.
“I’ll rip this ship apart and you with it,” Blaze growled. “I’m thinking this is the last house on the block for a douchebag like you.”
Bill clicked over comms. Yeah, the Clicker engineer wasn’t going to like him much for threatening his beloved spacecraft, but it wasn’t like there was any love there to lose.
Ling sighed next to him. “Come on, Blaze, you’re going to have to go along to get along.”
“Not something I’m willing to do,” Blaze said. Then: “Lizzie, you tell my sister I’m on the bridge and she needs to talk to me…in Human…right now.”
“Fine,” Lizzie said in a sulk.
Elle’s eyes blinked open, and she weaved, then slumped to the ground.
Blaze and Ling leapt over the candles and helped her off the floor and into a chair. Elle was squeezing her eyes shut. “Went deep, dear brother. Xerxes is there, but he’s insane. Lizzie and Bill are keeping him relatively coherent. We’re lucky the AI wasn’t advanced. Lizzie always was a level-headed girl. And Bill loved her. So he loves the new her.”
Ling held her hand. Blaze knelt. “Elle, what’s going on? I don’t like that you were so unresponsive both when we were outside the ship and when we first hit the bridge. Was Xerxes holding you hostage?”
“There’s no Xerxes anymore. There’s only Lizzie. I heard your whole conversation, and you were right. If the ship is destroyed, this new entity will be destroyed as well. And what Trina said was also right. Bill is keeping it in check.”
“Great, everyone is a bad five seconds from slaughtering me. Is this family, Ling?” Blaze asked.
Ling smiled. “Unfortunately. Or fortunately. It does add a certain dramatic tension to our adventures.”
Elle opened her eyes and they glowed red for a second as the Onyx energy filling her dissipated. Then they returned to their normal dark brown. “While Xerxes lost most of his memories and thoughts in the transition from demon robot to loveable spaceship, he still has information we can use. Granny is definitely on Hutchinson Prime. Sh
e knows the location of the Onyx Gate without a doubt. So, we know Xerxes never lied about that. But the rest of it? Well, it gets tricky.”
“Tricky how?” Blaze asked.
“Xerxes was ancient, we’re talking millions of years old. He lived during the time of the Etrusca.”
Blaze grabbed a piece of a chair and drew it up to his sister. There was enough of the stool left to keep it and him upright. He considered what she had said. The Etrusca had been a massive interstellar empire six million years ago. Inexplicably, they had disappeared. No one was sure if they were Clicker, Meelah, or Human, the only known sentient spacefaring species in the universe. Blaze and his crew had encountered Etrusca ruins before, and while they’d thought they were just space junk, during their fight with the demon robot, they had awakened the structures by firing fusion energy into what Xerxes had called an initiator cube deep inside the gargantuan ruins. Tentacles and weird anthropomorphic space fish had been the result. Abruptly, the two structures they’d triggered had disappeared. Not sure what that meant. Probably nothing good.
While Blaze pondered, Ling asked, “Does he know what happened with the ruins we encountered?”
Elle exhaled and shook her head. “It’s murky at best. The ruins can build something, but I can’t tell what, and Xerxes was iffy on it. It scared him, I think, which might be good news. Maybe the Etrusca fought demons, and the ruins, when combined, created some kind of superweapon against them. I don’t know. Xerxes…can’t keep calling it that…Lizzie is also afraid of her father, her lord and master, so maybe the Etrusca were evil after all. And his brother, his older brother, is on Hutchinson Prime.”
“Another archduke pendejo, am I right?” Blaze asked.
“Yes,” Elle replied. “He called him Chthonic, lord of death and master of haunts. And if Xerxes was powerful, Chthonic is even tougher.”
“Are there any other brothers?” Blaze asked.
“A sister,” Elle said, “but Lizzie wouldn’t talk about her. When I asked, she got nauseated. Think about that, the idea of his sister made an archduke of hell, er, our computer now, sick to his…her stomach.”
“Not sure that’s so odd.” Blaze grinned. “You make me sick all the time, Elle.”
“Funny.” She didn’t smile. “And I have other news. Xerxes had access to most of the hyperlight transmissions from both the IPC and the Union. Granny is on Hutchinson Prime, without a doubt, but the planet is off-limits. The IPC have set up a blockade around the system. No one is going in and no one is coming out. The Union is fighting it, but no one thinks they’re going to win.”
The Terran Union of Interstellar Systems, a.k.a. the Union, was the galactic government no one wanted and everyone ignored. The Interstellar Presidential Corporation, the biggest company in the known universe, controlled most everything, and the Union was not only pathetic but powerless. A board of directors ran the IPC, and what they said became law immediately. As long as their employees made mad cash and their customers bought their junk, everyone was happy. The end.
Good law-abiding citizens ran the Union, and they made sure everyone had their say and that everything was fair. So, yeah, nothing much happened there.
“What reason does the IPC give for the blockade?” Blaze asked.
“Hutchinson Prime has two suns, a big neutron star that is pulling a yellow star into it. They say the two suns could collide at any minute. Does that sound right to you?”
“Doesn’t that space stuff take a long pinche time to happen?” Blaze asked.
“I was thinking the same thing though in less crude terms,” Ling said. “It’s not like the two stars will collide in the next year or even decade. It might take thousands of years for the neutron star to destroy the sun near it.”
“So it’s total bullshit,” Elle said. “Which makes me wonder why the IPC doesn’t want anyone going to Hutchinson Prime. And how in the hell are we going to get past that blockade? We’re wanted by the IPC. We have bounties on our heads.”
“Ironic,” Ling said, “given the fact that we are bounty hunters—well, officially.”
That was their cover. They did hunt down some Human trash wanted by the IPC or the Union, but generally they only took jobs that might have a paranormal or demonic element. It didn’t pay much, but they got by.
“Another neutron star?” Blaze muttered. “Don’t like the sound of that. Any Etrusca ruins near it?”
“No,” Elle said. “But one is moving toward it. A large rectangle. For the first time in recorded history, we are seeing a ruin moving, and it’s moving fast.”
A feeling of dread filled Blaze’s stomach. Things had gone past chaos into total mayhem. He longed for the days when they weren’t fighting archdukes and wondering about Etrusca ruins. But if they could close the Onyx Gate, they could become normal bounty hunters and millions of people…if not billions…would be safe from demons, ghosts, and other ghoulies.
“So, we have to break through the blockade, grab Granny, fight this Chthonic puta, and get out before either the suns collide or the Etrusca ruin shows up. Sure. That should be relatively simple.”
Elle nodded. “That’s what’s on our plate. One more thing… We could make some money. The Goreback family was last seen on Hutchinson Prime. You know how much they’re worth each?”
Blaze had to think about that for a second. The Gorebacks were a family of clown-worshipping cannibalistic psychos that had gone on a murdering spree a couple years back. It was real Texas Chainsaw Massacre stuff. Blaze had never cared for old horror movies, but his foster father, Arlo, had been a scholar. He’d get drunk on Barf Baby Malt Liquor and binge watch Rob Zombie movies. For being five hundred years old, they held up pretty well. Like the American dollar, classic American movies were as strong as ever.
“Dead or alive?” Blaze asked.
“Dear or alive, a million dollars each,” Elle said.
“Add kill some bad guys to that list,” Blaze added. “Now, I have to go see how my vampire girlfriend is doing. I’m hoping I can’t see her veins anymore.”
Ling nodded. “And I should go see about repairs and if we sustained any damage. I’ll also investigate the solar activity in the Hutchinson Prime area to see about the validity of their blockade.”
Elle stood and gave Ling a hug. She turned and took Blaze’s hand. “Lizzie really is on our side. She’s not going to be able to perform any of her old tricks, though. Her days of creating huge monsters made out of spaceships, or even reconfiguring this ship, are over. She used the last of her powers today.”
“Don’t like it, Elle. Don’t like that we have a former demon as our ship’s computer. Seems to me it’s asking for trouble.”
She squeezed his hand and let it drop. “But if Lizzie can help us by providing intel, it would be worth it.”
Blaze wasn’t so sure. But they seemed to be stuck with the ghost in their machine. He left the room, heading toward the lower deck. He contacted Bill and told him to trigger another spacetime wave and get them moving toward Hutchinson Prime. He wasn’t sure how they were going to run the blockade, but he hoped Trina had some ideas. She’d been an auditor with the IPC before she broke ranks to join them hunting demons.
He wanted to pick her brain, but she was back in the library, resting. She’d left a message not to be disturbed. He didn’t like that any, but he wasn’t about to wake a sleeping vampire. Checking the galley, he saw she had guzzled down every last drop of blood. They’d had around four pints, and it was recommended to wait eight weeks before any of the Humans on board gave more. They would have to push it. Meelah or Clicker blood wouldn’t work. It had to be Human.
Or maybe they could feed the Gorebacks to Trina. Blood was blood, even from evil putas like them.
In the sick bay, Cali slept in one of the beds, her stomach bandaged. His fault, but what were his options?
Fernando turned to him as he walked through the door. The Clicker checked on the girl, adjusted some fluid dripping through an IV, and looked
at a monitor, using all four of his arms to work on her.
The Clicker doctor chattered, and the implants responded. Bill didn’t have implants, and that was why Fernando did all the taking for them both. “Her wound is having trouble healing, Gunny. If she were to turn back into a werewolf, it would heal quickly, but I don’t think I could talk her down again. My mojo, to use your rather silly word, is low. It does take a lot out of me to cast even the simplest spells.”
“I guess it gets easier,” Blaze said, “but I really wouldn’t know. Keep me posted on her condition. We might have to come up with something creative if she doesn’t get better and fast.”
Fernando agreed.
Blaze left the sick bay. He checked on his crew, did a quick tour of his ship, and found things were back to normal. Most importantly, he checked on the cellar. That was where they held the ghosts, demons, and other ghouls they captured. Normally, Elle cast a snare sphere spell, the baddies were collected in the orb, and then they transferred the Onyx energy into the cellar. The nastiest crap in the galaxy was in there, under lock and key.
The hum of engines filled the ship as they surfed through the galaxy on a spacetime wave, pushed and pulled, going faster than light.
Blaze figured he’d catch some sleep in the cargo bay. He could reprogram the nanotech on a starcycle to configure a bed. He’d done it before, though it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as his smart hammock.
Problem was, Ling was practicing his kung fu moves in the open space. He whirled his fusion nunchakus, which were glowing blue with modified energy shells. Instead of creating twelve inches of deadly yellow star power, the modified shells created a static electrical field that only stung and didn’t kill.
A training sphere floated through the room, firing pencil-thin stinger rays at Ling. He deflected them with a swirl of his weapon, rolled across the floor, leapt, and struck the sphere with the glowing blue rod of his weapon.
A little battle practice would be good before going to bed. And he wanted to chat with the Meelah and get his unique view on the situation, though sometimes talking to Ling was frustrating. Nothing was a big deal to the space sloth. If they beat the bad guys, that was awesome, and if they were all killed, it would mean a chance to explore death. For Ling, every situation, no matter how dire, was win-win.