by Aaron Crash
Meelah only lived thirty-five years, forty at most, and so the idea of death was always with them. This was especially true with Ling, who, had trained ten years at a Shaolin monastery learning kung fu and meditation.
Blaze dropped his shotgun down onto a starcycle and grabbed the haft of his ax. He then shut down his nanotech battle armor and stood there in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Hey, Ling, toss me a training shell.”
From his marsupial pouch, the Meelah whipped out a shell and threw it over to Blaze. At the same time, the sloth ducked stinger beams fired from the floating orb. He threw one of his nunchakus, and it struck the orb. A second later, he triggered his other nunchaku and spun it to deflect more stinger beams. Watching the Meelah in combat was an amazing experience. Every movement was controlled, and there was no fury or fear on Ling’s pointed face.
When they’d fought a breeder demon, the spider creature had laid eggs under the Shaolin sloth’s skin. He’d fought on, unperturbed, ignoring the pain even as the eggs hatched.
Blaze ejected the hydrogen shell from his ax and stuck the ammo into his pocket. He then slid in the training shell and was ready. Both of his ax blades glowed blue. He entered the fray.
Ling knocked the orb over to Blaze, and Blaze sent it spiraling against the wall. Lizzie’s voice came over comms. “Ling, thirty-five points. Blaze only one. Get on it, Gunny.”
Blaze wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the new Lizzie.
Ling slid across the floor and struck Blaze’s leg with the nunchaku energy. Blaze winced at the shock.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Blaze said. He struck at Ling, but the Meelah flipped over his ax and lightly poked the gunny with one of his pink fingers.
“Tag, you’re it,” Ling said.
Blaze reached for the Meelah and almost touched him. But then the orb hit him with a stinger beam and that hurt. Like being poked with a needle.
“Dammit!” Blaze cursed. He whirled and caught the next ray on his ax. Then he leapt over Ling’s next attack. He landed. “Hey, Ling, you think we can trust this new Lizzie?”
“We shall see,” the sloth said. The orb fired, and the beams would’ve hit Blaze, but the Meelah caught them on his nunchaku.
Blaze shoved the sloth to the floor. “Thanks, but you’re it now.”
Ling bounced up and whirled. Blaze took his ax in both hands, and like a cleanup hitter in Terran baseball, he hit the orb like it was a fastball. It zoomed across the room.
Ling threw his nunchaku at Blaze, and the gunny sent the sloth’s weapon flying. The sloth smiled. “Either this new Lizzie will betray us, or it will learn to love us. Our actions dictate reality only in part. Most things we are powerless over. If we destroyed Lizzie, perhaps she then would not exist to save us from a future threat. Or, the inverse is also true. By trusting her, we might be murdered by her. How can we know?”
Blaze charged the sloth. Ling sprang up and over Blaze and landed behind him. The sloth landed a powerful kick right into Blaze’s back, knocking him forward. He stayed on his feet and turned as the training sphere came careening in, stinger beams blasting. Blaze used his ax to deflect them.
He was “it,” though. Ling scurried away to snatch up one nunchaku and then another.
Another chop of his ax and the orb again soared against a wall, bounced off, and went for Ling, who was spinning both his nunchakus in circles of blue light.
“I’m worried about Cali,” Blaze said. “It was close. Both Trina and our resident werewolf almost ate me. And not in the good way.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Ling said casually as he blocked the training sphere’s beams.
“Of course you don’t,” Blaze said. “It’s a sex joke.”
“I see,” Ling said. He charged the sphere and sent it over to Blaze with his nunchaku, and Blaze sent it soaring right back. “It’s amusing how obsessed Humans are with sexual desire. No wonder it took your species so long to explore space. You had to explore your own genitals first.”
“No. Well, yeah. Maybe,” Blaze said, continuing the combination of tennis and tag they were playing with the training sphere. “But I’m still a little pissed at Elle. She ordered me off the ship, and I listened to her. Family, right? It was the wrong call, but I listened to her.”
Ling knocked the sphere over to Blaze, and the gunny ignored it, letting the beam hit him. At the same time, he sprinted over and caught the sloth unaware. The sneak attack worked. He tapped Ling on the shoulder, whirled, and deflected the stinger beams, then spun back to knock away Ling’s nunchaku with his ax.
Ling sent his nunchaku over Blaze’s head to hit the sphere and then used his other to stop the gunny from hitting him with his ax. “Blaze, my friend, there are two mistakes you can make with family. The first? Listening to everything your family says. The second? Ignoring everything your family says. You’ve done the latter for the three years you’ve been hunting demons with Elle. You’re only now listening to her. There is bound to be some mistakes.”
Blaze had to take a minute to think about that. He and Ling exchanged blows with their weapons, but both took turns blocking the training sphere from stinging them. Blaze thought he was doing well until Ling kicked his ax out of his hand, threw his nunchaku to send the training sphere to the floor, and then took the gunny’s legs out from under him.
Ling bent and touched his forehead with a claw. “You are it, my friend.”
Blaze sighed and laughed. “Fast, quick, and mellow as hell…remind me not to fight you for real.”
“That would never happen. We are brothers in arms, friends until the end, and I would rather explore death than hurt anyone in our strange little family.” Ling offered a paw to help Blaze up.
The gunny took it. “I’m done. You beat me.”
“I did,” Ling agreed. “But you did well. For a Human.”
Blaze contacted the computer. “Lizzie, we don’t need the training sphere anymore.”
Of course, the new entity couldn’t leave it at that. “And it was just getting good. Well, it’s suchhh a pity, but very well.”
The sphere dropped to the floor. Ling went and picked it up along with his fallen nunchaku.
Blaze stood there, wondering at how strange his life had become. He was taking advice from a furry dude with a pouch. “Hey, Ling, any idea on how we’re going to get past the IPC blockade?”
The Meelah shook his head. “No, there are no easy answers. And I checked on the IPC’s science. There is a real chance that the stars will collide in the next three days. However, I don’t believe that’s why the IPC have blockaded the planet. The people have already left. There was a mass exodus about a week ago. Now? Silence. Something is seriously wrong on Hutchinson Prime. It’s almost as if the entire world is dead. Completely and totally dead.”
Fingers of cold fear chilled Blaze’s spine. “Yeah, I can feel something bad is coming. Chthonic, lord of death, master of haunts, is there. Well, we have at least a day of space travel to get to Hutchinson Prime. I’m going to get some rest.”
Ling bowed. “Sleep well. I’ll get with the Clickers, and we’ll come up with a contingency plan on how to get past the blockade.”
Before the Meelah could leave, Blaze reached over and playfully yanked on one of his pointed ears. “And you’re it, Ling. No tag backs.”
The Meelah chuckled. “How very Human of you.” He left.
Blaze walked over to the starcycle and manually configured the nanotech on top of the bike to be a bed. He climbed on top, and the microscopic robots moved over and formed something vaguely comfortable. But his back was going to stiffen up without a doubt. Oh well, Hutchinson Prime would have stores. He could buy a new hammock. Or maybe they’d find Granny fast, and they’d have the time to clean out the master suite.
Yeah, but first, sleep.
As he was drifting off, he wondered about the cat he’d seen. Trina wasn’t crazy. But what did the cat mean?
It had appeared right before t
he new crazy Lizzie had appeared.
Had the cat come to warn them? Or was she an ambassador of evil?
Only time would tell.
Blaze woke up to the ship spinning off the spacetime wave. A familiar voice filled the halls, blasting over the loudspeakers. “This is Security Director Alvin Denning of the Interstellar Presidential Corporation. You will come peaceably, or we will destroy the Lizzie Borden. I’m through dicking around with you, Captain.”
“It’s gunny,” Blaze growled. “I was never much for officers.”
Lizzie’s voice followed over comms. “Good morning, Blaze. Your old friend hhhas come calling. Hhhe doesn’t sound pleased. Hhhe sounds like he hhhates you. Now, hhhow could that be?”
FOUR_
╠═╦╬╧╪
Explosions rocked the Lizzie, sending Blaze to the floor. He was already accessing the command controls through his implants.
And pleading his case with Denning. “Look, Alvin, we’re fighting some serious shit. After we put those ghosts on your attack ships near Fleabugger, you must believe there is demonic crap in the universe. Can you cut us a break?”
“You destroyed the impound lot, you fled our audit, and you did something to the P13rce unit that was my official representative. We have heard nothing from the senior IPC auditor sent to investigate your spacecraft, which had highly illegal fusion weapons. What have you done with senior auditor O’Reilly?”
“She’s a vampire now,” Blaze said.
“You’re joking, and I’m not laughing,” Denning fired back.
Another explosion rocked his vessel. “Lizzie, status report.”
“Do you like asteroids, Gunny?” the ship asked. “Because we have asteroids, three Cavalier-class attack ships, two big Paladins, and a dozen Vespula, otherwise known as wasps’ nests, all loaded up. It seems they brought the blockade to you. Good news, Hhhutchinson Prime hhhhasn’t been destroyed by the two suns colliding, and the way seems to be clear. Other than the IPC armada trying to kill you.”
Blaze growled. He saw their situation. An asteroid belt orbited Hutchinson’s Prime twin suns, and they’d lost their spacetime wave right in the middle of it. Not lost it. Denning and his IPC attack ships had disrupted it. They’d seen them coming. Most likely, the IPC had put a tracker on the Lizzie Borden when it had been impounded on Fleabugger. Denning hadn’t wanted to pursue them into the Sargasso Expanse because he was sane…unlike them. All he had to do was wait until they left that treacherous part of space and then jump on them.
Blaze retrieved his nanotech gauntlet and slipped it on. Encased in armor, he went to jump on a starcycle. But no, things were desperate. And when the shit hit the fan, there were two people he wanted by his side.
“Elle!” he called through comms. “Get down to the cargo bay. You and I are going out on starcycles.”
“What?” his sister screamed. “You’ve got to be kidding. We have to surrender. There is no way we can get through this armada. If the Vespula launch their wasps, we’ll be one ship against a thousand.”
Blaze slammed his ax to his leg and stuck the shotgun on his back. Over his shoulder, he slung his bandolier of fusion shells. “Yeah, and that’s why we need to split up. And I’m going to go get Cali.”
“Damn, Blaze…” his sister whispered.
“We can’t get captured,” Blaze said forcefully. “If those stars collide and if Granny dies, we’re back to square one. I won’t let that happen, and no pinche IPC putas are going to get in my way.”
Blaze raced down the corridor, burst into the sick bay, and grabbed Cali off the bed. She was back in her blue dress, which was bloodstained because she’d bled through the bandages. He didn’t pause to check her bracelets. Either they’d work or they wouldn’t. Either way, Cali was hurt, they were screwed, and she could help unscrew them and heal herself at the same time.
The ship shuddered as the IPC bashed her shields.
Back in the cargo bay, he shoved a nanotech gauntlet on Cali and triggered it. The black swarm of microscopic robots covered her in an armored spacesuit. Blaze reached into a storage cupboard and grabbed a pair of boots, custom made by Bill for Cali. Blaze attached them to her legs. The gunny then swung himself onto a starcycle, cradling the hurt girl. The nanobots encased both their legs, a port in the wall opened, and they zoomed out into space.
Elle, dammit, wasn’t moving her ass. “Don’t you want to fly our ship through this?” his sister asked, probably still on the bridge.
“No, give controls to Ling. We need multiple targets. Not sure how we’re going to get out of this one.”
Outside the ship, Blaze glanced around. In the distance, partially obscured by the chunks of spinning round rock, the twin suns gleamed. Even from hundreds of thousands of miles away, it was clear the yellow sun was being pulled into the gray light of the dead star. The planets of the system were like small shadowy marbles, hardly visible.
The asteroids around him were huge, which was good. They’d be easy to avoid and would give them places to hide. The Lizzie Borden streaked ahead, dodging the theta-particle beams from the Cavalier-class attack ships. The round vessels had top and bottom fins as well as long extended wings, which, when not in battle, could be folded into the main body. The fins were all loaded with plasma turrets and theta-particle cannons. Those gunners could come loose from the main ship in a fight. The wings had a mixture of nuclear torpedoes and slapper missiles, which could disable a ship by disrupting electrical current. But Blaze was thinking Denning wasn’t very interested in taking them alive.
The Lizzie was back to her triangle shape, a mishmash of metal plates, mostly black, some blue, linked by silver welding scars.
The three attack ships were the same ones they’d fought on Fleabugger: The Relentless, the Inspiration, and the Adamant.
Good. That might be very good news.
The IPC vessels were pushing the Lizzie toward the two big triangular Paladin command ships. Control towers and big cannons rose at each point of the triangle. Mostly, they acted as troop carriers and aircraft carriers, but the Paladins also had bad, bad guns.
Between the two massive ships was a line of Vespula, also known as wasps’ nests. Perfectly round, the Vespula contained wasp-shaped drone ships. Pilot-less, their flight was coordinated by the main nest’s AI. Each Vespula would have a hundred of the drones, which meant Blaze and his crew would be overwhelmed by twelve hundred guns in a mere five minutes.
Make that five seconds and fourteen Vespula. Two hidden spaceships swerved around a spinning asteroid and unleashed their load. Two hundred wasp drones sped toward them, wings unfolding from the long bodies and six guns emerging from the yellow-black hulls. Yeah, wasps. IPC pendejos.
Blaze kept the throttle open and, going full blast, kept up with the Lizzie and the IPC ships attacking her.
Cali was coming out of her coma. Her voice whispered through comms, “Blaze, what’s happening? Are we fighting Xerxes?”
“It’s complicated,” Blaze said. “But I need you to wolf out and take out the antennas on those two Vespula. And do what you can against the Cavaliers hitting Lizzie.”
Cali glanced down and lifted a leg. She smiled wearily. “The boots. They’re a little big. You know, a girl doesn’t like to emphasize her less attractive qualities. I have such big feet.”
“And big teeth.”
“All the better to bite them with.” Cali sighed. “Point me at the ships. And hope I don’t see you. When I turn, I’m going to be super pissed at you for putting a silver spear through me.”
A plasma blast shot in front of them from the incoming wasps.
Blaze dodged it and then whirled around, letting the force of the abrupt turn send Cali hurling through space and toward the ships in the distance. One werewolf against two hundred ships. Poor ships.
“Sic ’em, girl!” Blaze triggered the Cali Bad Dog command.
The girl’s bracelets snapped open as miniature blue-fire engines in the boots fired, propelling
her toward the wasps. Her body grew to be eight feet long, a frame loaded down by several tons of indestructible muscle and violence. And to add a little hot sauce to her already monstrous powers, her fusion claws winked on.
She shredded the first wasp she hit and didn’t slow down. Other wasps clustered around, and while the plasma fire smoked off her fur, it did nothing but put a little pink on her skin. She raced toward the two Vespula, but only some of the wasps were converging on her. Others raced toward Blaze.
He dipped his starcycle down and spun under an asteroid, racing under it as it turned about, its sides dappled by the light from the twin suns far in the distance. Wasps followed him. He turned and blew one to dust with his fusion shotgun. Four shots left.
He’d created special housing in the starcycle for reloading. He shoved Ugly Betty into the slot and jacked out the used shell. A new one slid in from the magazine, and he was ready to rock. Two wasps whirred in from in front of him. He’d save his fusion cannon for the really bad stuff. Triggers on his grips sent plasma bolts into each of the drones, pummeling their wings, their bodies, their guns, until they were nothing but slag.
He whooshed past their wrecked, sparking bodies and then dodged another incoming asteroid. The wasps behind him weren’t so lucky. A glitch in the AI? Or just a bad turn of the asteroid? Either way, they were gone. Two chunks of rock smashed together. Blaze would’ve expected dust or smaller boulders, but no, the two space boulders split in half, so they didn’t have to worry about smaller debris.
More wasps came hurling in.
Blaze fired his plasma guns, taking out three, and one came forward, guns blazing. He ducked, snatched up Ugly Betty, and put a hole in the drone that disabled all its functions.