Lucifer's Star

by C. T. Phipps

  Making a mad dash across the cockpit, I rolled across the ground and drew away the enemy’s fire before I pulled out my proton sword. The weapons were named such because they could, according to spacer legend, slice the protons off a molecule. The swords weren’t quite that sharp, but they did come with an additional benefit, built-in shield generators, making them practical beyond mere weapons for dueling.

  Feeling myself surrounded by one for the first time in years, I proceeded to charge at the Chel warriors. Two fusion blasts were absorbed by my shield―barely―which allowed me to slash forward at the closest Chel, causing him to scream as his body was bisected in a single blow. I then stabbed forward into the second, pushing the weapon through its chest.

  The cloak around the Chel dropped and I saw an eerily beautiful woman staring at me through her face plate, blood pouring from her mouth, before her body slid down the proton sword, continuing until the blade emerged from her shoulder. It was a bloody, gory mess that made me want to throw up.

  That was when I heard another fusion blast behind me.

  Turning around, I saw the Chel I’d cut in half had pulled out a grenade with his dying breath and was holding it in his right hand, moments away from pressing the activation button. The Chel, a male this time, had been shot in the head with pinpoint accuracy.

  “Nice shot,” I said, before shaking the excess blood off my blade and sheathing it. I’d have to clean both later but that was hardly my biggest priority right now. Chel? True Chel? God above and below, it was a nightmare.

  Isla stepped up from behind her cover. “I try to keep up with my shooting. It’s a dangerous galaxy out there and prevention is the best medicine.”

  “The best defense is a good offense.”

  “Do you believe that?” I leaned down and gently removed the grenade from the dead Chel’s grip, attaching it to my belt.

  “I find the best defense is not getting into a fight in the first place.”

  Isla looked down. “That’s not always an option. It would seem the Chel truly are involved in this.”

  “And killed all of the people on board to keep whatever they were working on secret.”

  “Yes.” I said, looking down at the bloody mess, which was even now sticking to my boots, causing me to conjure other images.

  “Are you all right?”

  I took a deep breath and lifted my sword. “I’m more used to killing people from behind a starfighter’s controls.”

  “Do you ever miss it?” Isla said, walking over.

  I paused, unsure how to respond. On one hand, I wanted to deny it, but I’d been floating listlessly through life without any direction until I’d engaged those faux Chel privateers. Ones who had attacked Ida despite ostensibly being on the same side. On the other, I couldn’t help but feel sick at the memories of the people I’d killed.

  For a country I hated.

  For a cause that had failed.

  For nothing.

  “Sometimes,” I said, shaking my head. “I like to think war is an easy answer for people who want to feel like they matter to the universe. Do you know why they call me the Butcher of Kolthas?”

  “Presumably because you butchered Kolthas?” Isla raised an eyebrow.

  I gave her a sideways glance.

  “Sorry, flippancy is probably not appropriate.”

  “No, it’s not.” I covered my mouth to drive away the smell of the dead Chel’s innards before going to the ship’s controls and checking the records the old-fashioned way. I had sensed other presences on board the vessel but, thankfully, nothing which was in our immediate area. I wanted to know if there was any further danger.

  “Please tell me.” Her voice was cold now.

  “Kolthas was a space station,” I said, taking a deep breath. “The Commonwealth is a hegemonic empire for the most part, luring worlds to join it with promises of bread and circuses over military conquest. Despite having eight hundred worlds in Sector 7, the Archduchy hadn’t managed to establish complete control over it. The two hundred or so remaining worlds had turned to the Commonwealth for protection. Kolthas was what they constructed as a port and supply base for their administration of those worlds.”

  “This I remember,” Isla said. “The Archduchy accused it of being nothing more than a place to stockpile weapons and a refuel their capital ships in order to launch an invasion.”

  “Mostly because it was.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I looked down. “I don’t know anymore.”

  “Were you ordered to destroy it?”

  “No, I petitioned the royal family for the right to do it.”

  “So you started the war?” Isla asked, appalled.

  “If not Kolthas, then it would have been a strike on Albion itself.” I hadn’t been alone in being a Pre-Emptivist. Thousands of young nobles had been hopeful of a war with the Commonwealth. “I argued we could intimidate the Commonwealth into submission by showing our resolve closer to home. Fifty thousand innocent men, women, and children died that day. Collateral damage. The civilian casualties were a minor cost compared to the destroyed fuel stockpiles, docked capital ships, ammunition stockpiles, and lost military personnel—or so I told myself. It was also part of a much larger campaign. A great victory with zero losses on our side. What more could you want from a conflict?”

  “No conflict at all?” Isla asked.

  “Yeah, but I hadn’t been thinking about that.”

  I’d been demonized by the Commonwealth media for about a week. Unfortunately for the families of the victims, the Commonwealth’s propaganda machine had determined my father was the most likely to sign a surrender agreement now that war had broken out. As such, I’d had my life adapted to a dozen holos where I was the “worthy opponent” fighting various fictional Commonwealth flying aces. I should have been prosecuted for what I’d done, but there had been plenty of pardoned war criminals after Crius’ Fall.

  What was one more?

  “You need to know what kind of person you’re traveling with,” I said, looking down at the Chel corpses we’d just created.

  “I killed a woman for my identity,” Isla said.

  “What?” I looked back.

  Isla stared at me. “Not directly, but I knew what was going to happen. When I was on the run, Ares Industries sent a Reclaimer after me. You know the type, bounty hunters who specialize in taking down rogue bioroids. He was a retired one who’d been offered a significant bounty from my master. The fact I was traveling with multiple other bioroids, some military and others not, made me a doubly attractive target.”

  “Isla—”

  “Please.”

  Isla took a deep breath. “He killed us, one by one, as we tried to figure out a way to get back into an Ares Electronics facility to get our shutdown codes removed. In the end, he got all of them, and I had to pretend to be unaware I’d been a bioroid. I told him my master had made me think I was human so I would be even more terrified. Then I seduced him. I made him fall in love with me. I begged him to run away with me and he did—promising he’d protect me from the other Reclaimers and retrieve my shutdown code.”

  “What happened?”

  “He did,” Isla said. “Then I killed him. Then I murdered his sister for her identity.”

  I stared at her. “You do what you have to do to survive.”

  “Is that what you tell yourself?”

  “No, but it’s what I’ll tell you.” I didn’t love Isla, not the way I loved Judith, but I cared for her and wanted to see her happy. I was about to kiss her when the sensors I set for sweeping the ship came back with their results.

  There were four additional life-forms on board this ship.

  They were in the engine room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I turned around and headed toward the doors. Isla was surprised by my sudden movement and followed.

  “What’s wrong?” Isla asked.

  “More Chel,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Around the engi
ne room. They could be rigging this place to explode.”

  It wasn’t likely. They could have done that earlier since the ship was still intact and they could have blown it to pieces with everyone on board within moments of gassing the rest of the crew. That was part of the reason why I was so angry about all this. Blowing themselves up to hide their efforts would have honorable.

  This was simply murder.

  “Or simply prepping their escape,” Isla suggested, our earlier closeness passing. “After all, we only have Ida’s word the Chel pirates were actually her soldiers. It’s entirely possible she’s the one who sent them to kill these people. Either that or they were never her people at all and she’s just trying to mislead us about how much influence she possesses.”

  I closed my eyes, pondering her words. “No, I think she’s telling the truth. The Commonwealth is employing privateers to frame the Chel and there were actual Chel on board. Ones who decided to kill everyone here after forwarding and deleting their research data.”

  “What research data, though?” Isla asked.

  I paused. “I don’t know. I saw the labs in my mind.”

  “Let me download it and take a look. I might be able to make heads or tails of it with Munin given enough time.”

  “We don’t have any to waste.” I gestured to the sensors and gave her a look at the labs before going back to the doors.

  Isla uploaded the records of the security cameras anyway onto her infopad, then walked over to hijack the belt-sized personal force-field generator off one of the Chel. Opening the door we’d come through, I saw the hallway was now pristine with only a couple of mechs remaining. One of them was buffing the floor and another was polishing the walls.

  Several mechs marched out from the adjoining rooms and started removing the bodies of the dead Chel. Isla caught up with me and the two of us headed into the elevator and commanded it to head down to the engine room.

  “We should contact the others,” Isla said. “We barely managed to survive fighting off the other Chel. You don’t need to get yourself into another fight with invisible enemies by yourself.” She paused. “And you will be by yourself because I’m not an idiot.”

  I closed my eyes. “They won’t be invisible. Those stealth cloaks aren’t good enough to stand up to these ship’s sensors. I’m going to tie them to my infopad and keep a good idea of where they are. Second of all, I don’t necessarily want to get into a fight with these Chel. I’d rather talk to them.”

  I needed answers.

  “After you killed two of their comrades?” Isla pointed out.

  I opened my eyes and started to speak. “Well—”

  “After they murdered this entire crew of your countrymen?” Isla interrupted. “Including children.”

  “Fine.” I took a deep breath and tapped the side of my uniform. The comms patched me through to the others on board. “Guys, we’ve got hostiles. The Chel are aboard this vessel and there’s four in the engine room. I’m investigating now. Be warned, they have cloaking technology and personal force fields.”

  “Thank you,” Isla said, exhaling. “Clarice needs to be made aware.”

  William responded first. “I copy. We’ll meet you down there. Don’t get killed.”

  “Is Clarice all right?” I asked, remembering her extreme reaction to the Chel.

  William paused. “No. Hold position until we arrive.”

  I took a deep breath. “Copy.”

  The doors to the engine room opened seconds later, revealing lights that were completely out and the occasional sparking of a loose wire from panels, which had been shot with fusion blasts. It made sense as the engine room personnel often worked with spacesuits. It was possible they, alone, had been able to survive the initial chlorine gas attacks.

  “Great,” I muttered, closing the door and tapping the LOCKDOWN button. It was a feature in every Crius ship.

  I then moved to the side, not trusting the door to stop fusion fire. Isla did the same, checking her personal scanner and running it through the ship’s sensors.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “The ship’s sensors indicate they’re around the engine core.”

  “Great.”

  “Munin’s shut down the main drives so they can’t overload anything,” Isla reassured me. “Not that there’s not a hundred other things to do around here. There’s only four of them and we should be able to take them, though. We should ask for their surrender.”

  “And what? Assure them they won’t be charged with the murder of four hundred crewmen? That’s how many the logs listed.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. Then shoot them after we get everything we need.”

  I blinked.

  “We’re not lawmen, Cassius. We’re all here for our own reasons.”

  I paused. “Perhaps you’re right. Habits like delusions of honor are hard to break, though.”

  “Being a good person was the hardest desire of mine I had to let go of. It will only get you killed in this world. It’s why I’m here, I suppose.”

  I paused, needing a few minutes to calm myself and ground my sanity. “What do you get out of this? Working for Ida, I mean. The Commonwealth treats your people like slaves.”

  “Because we are slaves,” Isla corrected me. As a doctor she had to know I needed more than light conversation to keep me going, but I could tell she was willing to humor me. “But to answer your question, the same thing I’ve always wanted: a place in this galaxy to call home. A purpose. I’m not sure I want to be here anymore, though. Not if it means I’m going to be caught up in the latest pissing contest between the Commonwealth, the Chel, and Crius’ remnants. Why have you decided to stick around?”

  “Peace…and money.”

  Isla smiled. “How much money?”

  “A lot of money.” I debated my next question before deciding to throw it out. “Want to go with me when I get my payday?”

  “You have no idea how many men and women have made me that offer.”

  Well, that wasn’t encouraging. “Perhaps I’ll ask again when I actually have my fortune back.”

  Isla gave a half-smile. “Are you asking me to come with you as your friend, mistress, or doctor?”

  “I’m happy with any but I’d prefer all three.”

  But what about Judith?

  No.

  It wasn’t possible.

  She was good.

  People didn’t come back from the dead.

  Not good ones.

  Isla nodded. “As long as you understand I can’t be with just one person. I’m not, if you’ll pardon the expression, wired that way.”

  “As long as you’re okay with the same.”

  I wasn’t the monogamous type myself. I’d loved Judith more than anyone, but I’d found myself drawn to other women, just as she’d found herself drawn to other men. Perhaps I wasn’t so far from the free sexuality of the Commonwealth. I just preferred to express it with someone I cared about.

  “So why does Clarice hate the Chel so much?” I asked, looking over Isla’s controller at her scanner. It showed the Chel were moving but not toward us. They were moving in search-like patterns. I hoped the others arrived soon as it wouldn’t take long for them to arrive at the elevator, and if they had scanners, which they almost certainly did, we were fucked.

  “What has she told you?” Isla asked, as much to keep me calm as anything else. It wasn’t necessary. I’d been in worse situations.

  I’d just thought I was over them.

  “We just got to the ‘my family is a bunch of slavers’ portion of the conversation.” My tone was venomous, not for Clarice, but the Rin-O’Harra family.

  “You speak with such contempt.”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  Isla raised an eyebrow before looking back at her scanner. It was a reminder the Archduchy made use of bioroids.

  “I’ve changed a lot of opinions since my Crius days,” I said. “I wish I’d changed them sooner.”

  Isla seeme
d to accept that. Keeping her voice low, she said, “It’s not my story to tell but given she may start shooting up the place, you should know. Clarice became a mercenary after she was thrown out of Star Patrol. It wasn’t long, but she worked with Mason’s Raiders.”

  “The privateer group?” I knew a little about Mason’s Raiders. It was one of the hundred or more upscale mercenary organizations employed by the Archduchy and Commonwealth during the tail end of the war. They’d switched their loyalties back and forth between the two sides, always contracting for one job or another. Both sides had allowed it as long as they were remarkably effective at getting the job done—a sign of just how desperate matters had gotten toward the end. I, personally, would have had them all shot.

  “Yes,” Isla said. “Everyone was making a profit off the war in one form or another. All except the citizens. Clarice’s company were trying to rescue a damaged ship which had jumped into the wrong territory.”

  “And she encountered the Chel.”

  “Yes. They took her hostage after a ship they were trying to rescue wandered into the Chel’s territory. Their soldiers killed all of her associates and tried to extract whatever information they could from her. After they did, they tried to break her.”

  “She was tortured.” It wasn’t a question.

  There had been survivors of such encounters, especially from the war when prisoner exchanges were made, but they tended to be broken shells of their former selves. Some returned with a deep and passionate loyalty for their tormentors. A few had even gone on to become sleeper agents or obsessed with the Chel to the point of flying back to their space to rejoin them as slaves. The Chel Madness as it was called. Further fuel for their legend.

  “I’m not sure torture is sufficient a name for it, but I suppose governments have diluted the power of the word. The Chel possess the ability to manipulate senses as part of their genetic modifications.”

  “Manipulate senses?” I wanted to be clear on what she knew of their abilities. I’d never heard of this.

  “They can induce fear, anger, pain, love, joy, and pleasure. Pain worse than being flayed alive and pleasure greater than the most sublime lovemaking.”