Space Dragon Allepexxis

by C. K. Pershing

  “Well, there’s a troll down in that pub,” Paress started.

  “Ha!” Johnny barked. He looked at Cassie, “A troll! He’s gotta be talkin’ about Oghul!”

  “Yes…” Paress said, unsure of the joke.

  Cassie giggled, “We made the same mistake. His name doesn’t help— it sounds like a troll’s name. But no, Oghul is a man. A very large…unattractive man. But a man all the same.”

  “Really?” Was all Paress and Casten could say at the same time causing Cassie and Johnny to laugh some more.

  “Yes, really,” Cassie said. “I’d imagine by the way you’re talking about him, you didn’t actually tell him you thought he was a troll.”

  “No.”

  “Then y’did better’n us,” Johnny said with a grin. “We showed up, that ugly bastard comes in, gave us his big talk about bein’ the guy in charge and this one tells him, she says, ‘I don’t take kindly to following instructions given by trolls’.” Paress thought Johnny’s impression of Cassie’s far more civilized speech pattern was actually pretty good and he laughed.

  Cassie’s giggle turned into actual laughter, her entire face lighting up. She was even more stunning in that moment and Paress couldn’t decide if he was even more turned on or in love.

  “Oh my God,” Cassie said through her laughter. “He looked so hurt and crestfallen. ‘You think I look like a troll? I’m not a troll. I’m a man!’ He sounded so pathetic. Johnny had to buy him a drink on the spot to cheer him up. Of course I’d maybe feel more sorry for him if he wasn’t staring at my tits the entire time.” At that she winked at Paress, causing him to blush because he had to admit that he was just as guilty as Oghul.

  “Well, what’d ya expect?” Johnny said. “You wave those things around. People’re liable t’notice.”

  “I’ve said I could always put on a larger shirt that didn’t look like it was gonna split if I take too deep a breath,” Cassie said.

  “Well, let’s not get hasty…” Johnny said.

  “Pssh, yeah, exactly,” Cassie said with a laugh.

  “It’s all part o’ the strategy,” Johnny said with a self-assured air. “Worked on these fellers, didn’t it?” He nodded at Paress and Casten.

  “I’m sorry… strategy?” Paress asked.

  “The strategy whereby I dress like the universe’s biggest slut and while guys, and well, a lot of girls too, are checking me out, this damn cowboy uses the fact that they’re preoccupied to make his kill.” Cassie said, but not without humor. She licked her lips and said, “Kinda like what I did with you guys, I suppose. I kept you boys enthralled long enough for Johnny to blow in.”

  Paress couldn’t argue with that. He and Casten were putty in Cassie’s hands while Johnny moved in. Good thing they’re on our side, Paress thought.

  “See, she knows she’s hot stuff,” Johnny said. “She likes showing off what’s she’s got and gettin’ people hot ’n bothered. Hell, she’s the one who figured out she could kill her enemies while they were tryin’ to decide what t’ do with their hard-ons. I just figured I’d get in on it.”

  “Ah, so you’ve been involved in combat?” Paress asked Cassie. He knew that it was a Companion’s duty to help the Space Knight in all things, even personal combat— of course, Casten often helped him. But Johnny didn’t really seem like he needed the help.

  “I’ve been known to drop a bad guy or two,” Cassie said, patting her holstered sidearm.

  “Toldja she wasn’t just a pretty face,” Johnny said.

  Paress wasn’t sure how to respond to that so he simply nodded with an expression of appreciation, as if he’d just heard a winning chess strategy. Casten was doing the same.

  “But to get back to dear old Oghul,” Cassie continued, “he’s on the up and up. He actually does a pretty good job of keeping the peace around here. He’s basically the unofficial town mayor.”

  “He acts like some kind of organized crime boss and everybody pays him protection money,” Paress said. He was worried that was exactly what was going on and and these two were simply letting him get away with it. If that was the case, things were going to change.

  “Nah, I’d end ‘im, if that was happenin’,” Johnny said.

  “Yeah, we don’t like people who profit off the weak,” Cassie said. “Oghul’s family is one of the long-time landowners and merchants on this planet. They hire a lot of the people here and do business with the ones they don’t. So Oghul likes things to run smoothly. He’s a pretty fair dealer and the people like him. So that allows us to stay focused on the pirates. It’s actually one of the better deals in these ass-end-of-nowhere planets. But if the people felt oppressed, or if he was taking advantage of them, we’d have removed him real fast.”

  Paress had to keep from saying, “Glad to hear it!” since that would have revealed his suspicions about their motives.

  “We may look like the people we were sent to kill,” Cassie said with a smile, “but Johnny’s a Space Knight and I’m his Companion and we uphold Imperial Justice no matter what.”

  Paress smiled and nodded and shook Cassie’s hand and then Johnny’s. The dead eyes brushed past him and he had to resist shivering. He’d been subconsciously wondering what those eyes reminded him of and now he knew. It was almost a cliche, but Johnny’s eyes were like a shark’s.

  “We’ve come up against plenty o’ folks who think that maybe cuz I look like ‘em, talk like ‘em, hell, act like ‘em, that I am them,” Johnny said with a slight smile. “What they find out is that I’m a whole hell of a lot worse because I got righteousness t’back up my killin’. And I’m here t’tell ya, ain’t nothin’ feel better’n a righteous killin’.”

  He nodded toward Cassie’s amazing body and then his shark’s eyes grazed Paress’ again and Paress found himself helplessly drawn in to locking eyes with the man. “Not even fuckin’…” Johnny said. “Nothin’.” The smile grew into a grin so horrible Paress wasn’t sure whether to run or try his damnedest to kill the thing that had suddenly revealed itself.

  Johnny Vogel was the worst kind of murderer who reveled in his killing because he was fulfilling what amounted to a holy furor. Imperial justice was on his side and as long as he was killing the guilty, no amount of violence or terror would be enough to assuage his hunger for death. Paress glanced at Cassie to see a grim smile on her face and realized that he’d assumed maybe she was a moderating influence on Johnny since she was friendly and well-spoken. He was wrong; she was Johnny’s Companion and accompanied him in all things.

  And then he could easily imagine the two of them writhing together, fucking in the middle of a group of dismembered corpses, their bodies covered in blood. He worried he was actually seeing a vision of reality and the thing deep in his own powers stirred, welling up to destroy the monster in front of him. And then the insane thought entered his mind that with the monster vanquished, he could claim its Companion and lover as his own.

  As this thought flashed through Paress’ mind, Johnny’s expression changed slightly to one of longing for the challenge. It wasn’t that the cowboy could read Paress’ mind so much as he was good at feeling someone out. Behind Johnny, Paress could see Casten’s hand hovering near his gun and Cassie was doing the same. Cassie and Casten… Fate has a sense of humor…

  “I’ve seen the Universal Truth and heard the Overture…” Paress said in barely a whisper, as much to fend off his own inner demon as Johnny’s. “I’ve spoken to Dread Phantoms and I’ve heard about Elder Ahdoh…” As the memory of the music came to him, he felt stronger, buoyed up out of the darkness and filled with a light that suddenly made all of this irrelevant and filled him with peace. Johnny’s eyes widened slightly with interest.

  Paress suddenly knew exactly what to say. “The problem with being out here and doing all this stuff is you miss family. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my mom. I’d like to see her again.”

  Johnny quickly broke eye contact, the monster’s attention going elsewhere and the frighte
ning tension from moments before faded away. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Been some years since I seen my mama.”

  Paress almost laughed at the fact that of course a murderous cowboy like Johnny would be moved by thoughts of his mother. It seemed so perfect— like one of Casten’s movie plots. And that’s why it was so wonderful because yes, it was perfect. Maybe another kind of Universal Truth, Paress thought, the idea comforting.

  “Go see her when you leave,” Paress said. “Your Machine’s gonna need a couple months to be overhauled before your next assignment. So just go and see her then. Why not?”

  After a few moments of silently staring into the distance, Johnny simply said, “…yeah…” He lit a cigarette and slowly walked off on his own, lost in thought. Cassie watched him go and peeled herself off the motorcycle seat.

  “You’re gonna be a damn good Space Knight,” she told Paress. “Johnny and me— we’re stuck out here because it’s the only place we can be. We know it and you know it. It gives a chance for Johnny and me to exercise our ‘talents’ and do some good in the process. He’s too far gone to ever be in normal society and despite appearances, so am I. His mom lives at a big ranch he bought her on his home planet with all his Space Knight back pay. But even that place is a bit of a remote wilderness.

  “Taking Denxeiter to the Academy for his overhaul will be the first time we’ve been in civilization in a long while,” she said with a frown. “Johnny’ll be like a caged wild animal. So I think maybe it’ll be a good idea if the two of us do go to stay with his mom during that time. It might be his last chance.”

  Paress wanted to tell her that no, there’d be more chances, but Cassie’s sad smile said what they both knew: It was only a matter of time before Johnny’s bloodlust put him into a situation of unbeatable odds and he’d die in a blaze of glory. If he was lucky, his Companion would be by his side when it happened.

  Casten, who’d been listening to the exchange, put his hand on Cassie’s shoulder and gave her an understanding smile. They were Companions, doomed to follow their Space Knights and the best they could hope for was to leave the land of the living when their Space Knights did. Cassie patted Casten’s hand and in that moment, the beautiful red eyes seemed so weary and tired. She looked like she was in her early twenties, but Paress figured she was actually closer to fifty. What had those eyes seen in that half-century? Paress was less than half her age. What would his eyes see in the years to come?

  Cassie silently walked past Paress and Casten and followed Johnny down the street, the setting sun framing them in silhouette against a crimson and yellow sky.

  “What the hell just happened?” Casten asked. “Everything suddenly felt like a combination of the Dread Phantoms and when the Driinen attacked us multiplied by a hundred. I haven’t felt that scared in a long time. And then it was gone and now we’re watching them literally walk off into the sunset.”

  Paress exhaled. “He’s a mad dog that can’t be trusted around most people. Killing’s too much a part of what he is. He enjoys it too much. So the Empire moves him to the worst places to where he can do the most good while not accidentally killing the wrong people.”

  “Damn…” was all Casten could say. “And she’s basically become like him because the Companion needs to be able to stick with the Space Knight no matter what. So two killers living a hard life together.”

  Paress watched as Cassie caught up to Johnny and stood next to him, gently running a hand up and down his back. “There’s no doubt she enjoys killing by his side,” Paress said. “I just wonder if she was already programmed like that, or did she come to enjoy it over time out of her love for him?”

  He turned to Casten, “We’ve talked about this before a couple times, but watching them, I think maybe we’re lucky that we got paired up. Those two have to be together— there’s no possible way they can be with anybody else. They’re both in a prison. I mean, it’s a really nice prison in a lot of ways— he gets her of course, and they’re definitely on the same page as to who and what they are. But it’s still a prison and I feel bad for them.”

  Casten was still watching the two of them as Cassie laid her head on Johnny’s shoulder. “There’s something rather poetically beautiful in the tragedy of the whole thing,” he said.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Paress said. “But I’d still much rather watch the whole thing from afar than ever find myself mixed up in something like that.”

  “I hear ya,” Casten agreed. “So why’d everything suddenly get peaceful? I mean, you mentioned your mom and that got him thinking about his mom— I get that. But how’d you know the right thing to say?”

  “I really have no idea,” Paress admitted. “I could feel that thing inside me wanting to get out. The thing that ripped out that Driinen’s tongue. But then when I thought about that other stuff. Elder Ahdoh, the music, all that. It was like an affirmation and suddenly he just seemed like an open book.”

  “You’ve got telekinesis, but you can’t read minds…”

  “I know. But it wasn’t like I read his mind. I just suddenly knew about his history and how much his mom means to him. He’s from a planet that makes this place look like a pleasure planet for the rich. His dad died when he was a baby. Probably murdered. So it was just him and his mom. She did whatever it took so they could survive. She sold herself plenty of times and it wasn’t like she was a Painted Lady or anything. A lot of her clients did some pretty bad stuff to her.”

  Paress suddenly realized he was on the verge of tears as the details flashed in his mind. “Really bad stuff. I really could’ve gone without knowing this, but I do. His mom was strong. And so was he. They survived. And when he got the Blessing, he figured that was God giving him license to go get revenge. So for the first year after he was Blessed near the age of thirteen, he pretty much went on a revenge killing spree. The worse the offense against his mom, the more painful and slow the killing. He really grew to enjoy it.

  “His planet, being so remote, only had one deep space communication tower and it cost a lot of money to send a long distance message. His mom couldn’t stand it anymore, watching her son go under such a change— he’d finished killing the people who hurt her and was now basically being a vigilante. So she scraped together what money she had to get a message to the Academy to come get him and maybe turn him around.”

  “So now he’s a Space Knight, killing for the Empire,” Casten said. “That gives him purpose. But he’s still a killer— they couldn’t cure him of that.”

  “We’re all killers of course,” Paress said. “I don’t think I can really stand in judgment.”

  “No, of course not,” Casten said. “But there’s a big difference in feeling a sense of accomplishment at destroying a pirate ship and taking your Companion girlfriend on a torture/ murder spree, no matter how bad the dude is they’re hunting.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a thin line,” Paress said, letting out a slow breath. “We’ve gotta stay on our toes and not cross it.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Johnny and Cassie were on their way back to where Paress and Casten were standing near Johnny’s motorcycle. The two guys decided to chat about the bike’s design features so as not to be so obvious about what they’d been talking about moments before. Of course, they knew they weren’t fooling anyone but it was the thought that counted.

  Johnny and Cassie seemed back to their normal selves. “Alright,” Johnny said. “You fellers ready to go on this uh, orientation mission to get up to speed on what those Midnight bastards are doing?”

  “Lead the way,” Paress said.

  Chapter Two

  Paress and Casten had arrived at the 40th Periphery system in their base Hyper Battle Machine carrier #20, the I.F.S.N. Feuerlilie. The Feuerlilie, having delivered Allepexxis to its location, then jumped out of system on her way back to the combined Space Knight Academy and Imperial Navy dockyards at Third Avalon for a much needed overhaul and equipment update. Although the Feuerlilie was commissioned into the
Francescan Imperial Star Navy, her prime purpose was to act as the home to a heavy Hyper Battle Machine, currently Allepexxis; so while the Navy aspect of the dockyard took care of the main portions of the ship, the Academy aspect was responsible for the ship’s Hyper Battle Machine handling facilities.

  Because Allepexxis was capable of making lower medium range jumps on its own, a carrier wasn’t as much of a requirement at the 101st Frontier, where most systems were relatively close to each other. The Frontier was also accessible to other, more stable and civilized systems of Imperial space. Although still remote, these systems didn’t have any issues with piracy and the like as long as the lynch pin 101st Frontier was kept safe.

  Johnny, at the controls of #34 Denxeiter, had done much to solidify the Frontier against falling into disaster by making the 40th Periphery safe and then moving out and doing the arduous task of clearing the connecting systems that spread out from there. Because Denxeiter was incapable of making space jumps, it had to be transported by a starship for all interstellar travel. For the past ten years, Denxeiter’s transport was the converted escort carrier #139, I.F.S.N. Wespe, a small veteran ship of three decks that was just large enough to accommodate Denxeiter and the crew, but not much else.

  With Allepexxis able to access all of the surrounding systems either by single jump or a short series of jumps, it had been decided to send Johnny to a more remote corner of space where a carrier would always be needed due to the longer distances between systems. Allepexxis, meanwhile, would be well-suited to the task at hand by itself while the Feuerlilie was overhauled. After that, the ship would return to act as carrier so that Allepexxis would be able to hit the locations in one jump that on its own would take a series of jumps.

  Paress and Casten followed Johnny and Cassie back to the small military spaceport they’d landed Allepexxis at. They’d borrowed a utility vehicle to drive into town to find Johnny, and were now driving back with Johnny in the lead on his low-slung motorcycle, Cassie sitting behind him side-saddle and leaning against Johnny’s back with her long blonde hair blowing in the wind.