"Etiam, Chamos," the two goons said. "Moloch est magna."
Zepar sniffed him again, for some reason fascinated by his scent. He gestured to the two goons and spoke in the Sata'anic language once more. "Retain this one for questioning. Disable the radios and the hyper drive so they can't communicate or jump into hyperspace. Cut the ship loose and release the other two to limp home on their impulse engines."
“Hey!” Apausha resisted as the two goons grabbed him and dragged him towards the Prince of Tyre, motioning to his two crewmen to take their cargo ship and go. "I didn't resist!"
“You are under arrest for defying the orders of an Alliance ship to open your vessel for inspection,” Zepar said. “You will be detained for questioning.”
"I didn't resist!" Apausha shouted again as they dragged him out past the terrified human females who huddled together in their Sata'an bridal gowns sobbing.
Pruflas slammed him over the head with the butt-end of his pulse rifle. Apausha lost consciousness, but awoke at some point to recognize the sterile white hallways which blurred into a long white line as they dragged him down to a room he assumed to be Zepar’s laboratory. They strapped him into a chair, like a dentist's chair only with restraints. He fought against them, but he could not break free.
Furcas jammed a muzzle around his snout so he couldn't bite them with his sharp fangs and jammed a huge hollow needle into his arm while Pruflas hooked electrodes up all over his body and two clamps, one on his dorsal ridge, the other on his toe. They reminded him of the clamps you would use to jump-start a ground shuttle.
The intravenous fluid which dripped into his veins felt cold, but carried with it was a different kind of chill, some sort of drug. Apausha fought the light-headedness, a strange feeling of euphoria as though all were well in the world when it really wasn't, and pictured Marina, his beloved Marina, sitting home on a clutch of eggs, waiting for his return. If he gave them whatever information he knew they were about to torture out of him, the same thing would happen to her as had happened to him as a child.
Behind him, he heard Zepar herd the terrified females into a holding area. Three of the women, the one who had spoken Kemet and two others, were herded into a separate room, sobbing. Zepar came over to check how much of the IV had been absorbed into his system and read the electrical activity coming off of his body from the electrodes.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant Apausha,” Zepar said as pleasantly as if they were discussing dinner. “A little birdie told me stories about a report you filed with the Sata'an Secret Service, spilling your guts about our little off-books trade deal."
The Angelic made a tsk-tsk noise, back to acting like the obsequious assistant he usually pretended to be. That strange euphoria made Zepar's words sound far away, hypnotic, as though he were an old friend. Images came into his mind. Friend. No need to fight, little lizard. We are your friends.
Apausha fought the sensation. "What do you want from me?"
"Why, we want to know the location of Earth, of course," Zepar said. "And you will tell us."
"Go to Haven!" Apausha said.
Zepar bent close, his blue eyes as emotionless as those of a dead man. He sniffed again, as though enjoying the scent of fear. "Furcas … if you don't mind … the video screen?"
The goon flipped on a video monitor. The Peykaap drifted using nothing but impulse engines, crawling back towards the Sata'an border at a painfully slow speed.
"The Chinosia is sitting on the border waiting for us to get there," Apausha said. "If you fire upon the Peykaap, it will be an act of war!"
Zepar's features, the face of an accountant or a clerk, not the malignant creature that stared out of those cold blue eyes, spread into a knowing smirk.
"Oopsie," Zepar flipped his finger in the air as though he were a teenaged girl, "I forgot. While you were resisting being boarded, you caused the Prince of Tyre to drift over the border into territory controlled by the Tokoloshe Kingdom. We just managed to fire our thrusters to get back into our own airspace, but your poor ship? Oh! No! They're still on the wrong side of the border."
Zepar zoomed out the camera to display the ominous shape which sped toward the Peykaap. Terror grabbed at Apausha's gut. No! Not the cannibals! The Peykaap was no match for a Tokoloshe dreadnought. Heck! The Chinosia was no match for a Tokoloshe dreadnought, either! It was only a battle cruiser! A dreadnought carried the same firepower as an Alliance command carrier.
"You bastard!" Apausha shouted, fighting the wooziness they were pumping into his veins. "You've got to help them."
Dreadnoughts were squat and bulbous like insects, with every square inch bristling with weaponry and a drill built into the nosecone for battering and tearing apart enemy ships. The Tokoloshe were a brutal bear-like species, one of the few to ever cast off Sata'anic rule without Alliance help. They had spread like a plague throughout the uncharted territories and now were expanding into the buffer zone between the two great empires, unchallenged because neither empire trusted the other empre enough to give their ships access to put the Tokoloshe Kingdom on a leash. Oh … and they had one disgusting habit that made them the scourge of every other species in the galaxy.
Cannibalism….
"Well now I would," Zepar patted his cheek as though he were his father. "It just so happens I am on good terms with the commander of that particular vessel. But what are you willing to do for me?"
Apausha watched the dreadnought speed for the hapless Peykaap.
"It's your choice, little lizard," Zepar crooned. "Save your friends? Or ask my good friend Commander Wujudu to give you a ringside seat while they strap your friends down to a Tokoloshe feeding pole and make you watch them be eaten alive?"
Apausha watched the dreadnought move closer to the Peykaap, the smaller cargo vessel crippled without the ability to leap into hyperspace. Dreadnoughts had been built to maneuver in ordinary space and take on larger vessels firepower-to-firepower. A cargo ship such as the Peykaap was all hyper drive, with no need for impulse thrusters except to help it dock. The massive ship grew closer to the Peykaap until the smaller cargo vessel was nothing more than a speck.
Oh! Shay'tan! Please! What should he do? One thing he knew for certain was that his emperor and god would not want him to give the enemy the location of his newest conquest. Marina would be left penniless, cast out into the streets and not even allowed to remarry, his hatchlings sent to the workhouses to clean the streets along with the lowest castes from the marginally sentient homeworlds! If he squealed, the Alliance would show up at the planet and thousands of good Sata'an soldiers would die defending it from the Angelic infidels!
On the other hand, he could think of no worse way to die than being devoured alive…
His god made the decision for him. Weapons fire came from somewhere outside the screen, firing not upon the dreadnought, but their own cargo vessel. Apausha watched the Chinosia pour torpedo after torpedo into the Peykaap to make sure the men inside met a rapid death. Blinding light made him blink as the ship exploded and was no more.
"Hanuud! Wajid!" Apausha cried out.
The Chinosia leaped out of there as quickly as it had jumped in, not eager to have the dreadnought pursue it into Sata'an territory. The cannibals had few inhibitions about expanding their kingdom at Shay'tan's expense.
"Shay'tan be praised!" Apausha sobbed. A mercy killing! The Chinosia had given his men the mercy of a quick death. "May Shay'tan guide your spirits into eternal paradise!"
With the radio busted, there was no way the Chinosia knew he was still alive! He was persona-no-grata, at the mercy of Zepar and his two goons. Furthermore, Shay'tan would believe he had been killed in battle, unaware the winged demons still had one man on board who they could torture the coordinates out of.
He turned his head and looked away from the video screen, understanding what came next.
"Get this ship to the Beta-site," Zepar ordered the two goons. Furcas moved to obey, leaving the room. Pruflas continued to stare at Ap
ausha with his cold, feral blue eyes.
"I won't tell you anything," Apausha said, knowing even as he spoke the words that it was not the truth. But he would hold out as long as he could. If the Chinosia came back after the dreadnought left to recover their flight recorder box, perhaps they would realize there had been one man left behind to torture?
Marina, his hatchlings … disgrace. No! Finding out he had survived was not a good thing after all! Yes ... it was the right thing to have happen. Shay'tan needed to know the Alliance was on its way so he could shore up the resources defending the human homeworld so the infidels could not do to all humans what Lucifer had done to the women.
Those poor humans!
"Now let me ask you again, little lizard," Zepar caressed Apausha's scales as though he were a lover. "What are the coordinates of Earth?"
Chapter 54
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.10 AE
Haven-1 - Eternal Palace
Young Lucifer - Age 15
225 Years Ago…
Young Lucifer
"Mama?"
I stared in slack-jawed speechlessness at the visage which graced our apartment. Mama, my poor, sad mama who had worn black for as long as I had been alive, stood in the middle of our living room wearing a beautiful white dress. Her proud black wings arched gracefully like those of a swan, rippling with excitement at her every move.
"Lucifer!" Mama exclaimed. "He comes!"
"Who?"
"Your father! The courts ruled the Emperor has to give him visitation rights to see his own son!"
I gave Mama my best impersonation of Father's glower. Father had filled me in on the -real- history of Shemijaza's criminal behavior, including taking me into the Game Room to show me how that malignant silver Third Empire had grown into an enormous tumor on the galactic chessboard. Why, Shemijaza had stolen world after world right out from under Father's nose! And Father couldn't do anything about it because the silver-eyed man was smart enough to only steal worlds that sat on the Alliance-Sata'an Empire border. If Father sent too many ships to protect those planets, he would have -two- enemies to fight at once, not just one!
"Shemijaza is not my father!" I pulled away from the hand she had reached up to fiddle with an errant cowlick of my hair. "-Father- is my father!"
"No, chol beag," Mama's expression softened. "Father is the Emperor of the Alliance. And a good man. He just doesn't understand that things are -different- now. Your -real- father has cast out the shade which was whispering to him."
I crossed my arms and flopped down on the couch, not even bothering to arrange my wings over the low back so there was room for Mama to sit down next to me. I stuck my legs up on the coffee table; a defiance I knew would make Mama angry.
"You can't make me go with him!" I pouted. "Father will stop him. The only reason the courts sided with Shemijaza is because they're all afraid of him!"
My so-called 'real' father had blown up 17 mining planetoids and threatened to start destroying 'real' planets if the courts didn't get off their backsides and act like the independent judiciary Father had set them up to be. Father was furious She-who-is would not let him simply use his ascended powers to zap the silver-eyed man and make him go away!
Public opinion was a factor Father had not taught me to about when he'd taught me how to play Galactic Chess. Shay'tan didn't allow anything but state-controlled media in the Sata'an Empire, so Father had never learned to use it against him. Now that I knew where to sneak in and watch television, I could see how inept Father was at rebutting Shemijaza's manipulation!
"Your real father loves you," Mama stepped over my legs and sat down anyways, right on top of my feathers. "If he didn't, he wouldn't have been able to help me heal you."
"I don't care!"
"In your heart, you know this." Mama tapped my chest above my heart. "You can feel him … here. I know you can."
I crossed my arms over the offending spot that had never stopped humming since the day I had been shot and turned to look in the opposite direction. It felt as though a deep bass voice kept humming that song that I had heard in the dreamtime. Well I didn't want Shemijaza's silly song! Not even if it -had- made the bullet-hole close up and, after a few days, not even left me with a scar.
"Then why does he keep blowing up planets?" I asked. "Huh? Good men don't put planet-killers on helpless mining colonies and make people homeless!"
I looked into her mind and plucked out the words that would hurt her most.
"Or take their wives against their will!"
As soon as the words flew out of my mouth, I regretted it. I didn't really understand what 'taking against their will' meant, only that it was something really, really bad and it had Father tied up in knots. Tears sprang to Mama's eyes as she looked away.
"That wasn't him," Mama said softly. "Someday you will be old enough to understand that there are all kinds of demons which can possess a man. Alcohol. A bad temper. Some tragic event that makes you so angry you just want to strike back at everything and everyone who ever hurt you. -Personal- demons. Those can make a man do bad things, but ultimately your behavior sits solely upon -you-."
Mama put her palm on my cheek, her warmth seeping into my skin which was her gift to heal, grown powerful now that she no longer needed to hide it.
"But then there is another kind of demon," Mama said. "Monsters that are not of this realm. -Real- demons. Creatures without shape or form because they were defeated and the ability to shape matter was stripped from them so they could not command the power of a god. But they still -have- power. If they can find somebody with a -personal- demon like your father had and whisper what he wants to hear, they can feed your hatred until you begin to do bad things. That is what happened to Shemijaza."
Mama looked away, but not before I caught an image of what that bastard had done to do to her. I gasped for breath at an image of that green thing that had tried to snatch me in the dreamtime attempting to devour Mama's spirit alive. It had not just been a physical violation as Father insinuated, but a spiritual one as well! Bile rose in my throat at the awful image of Mama's screams. How had she survived? And then … escaped?
Tears welled in Mama's eyes.
"Mama?" The sad part was still there, I realized. Shemijaza still had to answer for his crime. It gave me hope that Mama would give up this foolishness and marry Father.
"It's why the Emperor lingers in this realm," Mama's eyes were imploring. "To make sure the only demons which torment people are the -personal- kind. The kind you can heal on your own if your will is strong enough. Not the kind that would watch us be destroyed for their own amusement."
"Then why didn't Shemijaza cast out the bad spirits -before- he hurt you, Mama?" I turned away from her. "Huh? If he loved you, then why did he let the bad spirits make him hurt you?"
"He didn't…"
"I can -see- into your mind, Mama!" I shouted at her. "Haven't you figured that out by now? I can look into your memories as though I was there! Like a picture book! So don't tell me he didn't hurt you! Because I can -see- what he did to you! And if he cared about you, he wouldn't have done it!"
Mama's lip quivered. Her eyes grew watery, the way they often looked on my birthday, but she did not break eye contact.
"He helped me heal you," Mama said. "But not before -you- healed -him- first."
I snorted and moved as far away from her on the couch as I could get, in the process yanking out the feathers she had sat on when she'd sat down next to me.
"It is your gift," Mama said. "To look into the darkest night and see what is really there. Through -your- eyes, your beautiful silver eyes that act as mirrors, you can make people see what they do not want to see within themselves, all the ugly places that hide from the light of day, and force them to make a choice based upon the truth, not what the deceiver whispers in the dark."
"Dragon dung!" I cursed. "Shemijaza has silver eyes, too! Why didn't he just look at -himself-?"
"Because the nature of the
Evil One is that he blinds us to our own faults," Mama said. "He whispers to our subconscious until we no longer know which version of us is -really- us, and which is the Evil One using us to promote his agenda."
I refused to look at her.
Mama took a deep, pained breath and closed her eyes, as though looking at some event in the past, but she put up that wall which prevented me from seeing it. Well she wasn't the only one who could put up a wall! I blocked her out. I did! I blocked her out the same way she blocked me out! I was no baby to be protected from the truth!
An uncomfortable silence stretched between us. Mama looked away, unable to meet my gaze.
"I deceived your father," Mama said at last. "There are no lies between a mated pair. The Evil One took control when Shemijaza had just found out I wasn't there for the reason I had said I was there and he felt betrayed."
Her lip trembled. "We didn't know that earlier when we had said our wedding vows…"
Mama looked down and ran her hand down the front of her dress.
"You were conceived in love, Lucifer," Mama touched my cheek. "-That- is why Shemijaza was able to help me bring you into this world. Not out of the violence the Evil One whispered to him afterwards when it sensed it was losing control over its mortal vessel."
The image which came into my mind was … ick! People -did- things like that to one another? Oh … yuck! Father -never- did things like that to a female! Although lately I had found myself daydreaming about…
I was saved from that impure thought by a knock on the door. Father. Come personally to plead with her not to go. He was manifested into a form that was halfway between that kindly old man who he liked to pretend to be and the god of thunder who had smote the man who had shot me that day. He looked nothing like me, I understood now, but oh, how I still wanted to be like him! Even if he -wasn't- my real father!
Mama stepped outside to speak to him. I crept closer to peek through a crack in the door.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 58