by Jamie Hawke
“Madam!” a deep, raspy female voice said from behind us, and we turned to see a woman at the desk. Well, the silhouette of her, anyway, with just enough of a red glow to start being able to make out that she wore a dress with a high collar and had her hair up in a bun. “This is a place of business. Do you have business here?”
Trunk stepped forward, grinning. “Your finest for my man here, got it?”
She looked from him to Draino, and frowned. “I warned you last time—”
“We’ve changed, really. We promise.”
“That’s right,” Draino added.
A glance my way, as if my face belonged to someone important, and I nodded.
“Fine,” she said. “Your usual, will it be?”
“Please,” Draino replied.
The woman opened a small door in her booth, then started to lead us down the hall.
“How is this going to help us?” Charm asked in a whisper.
“Trust me,” Trunk hissed back.
The room the lady led us to was down two flights of stairs, a sort of bathhouse with a stone area in the middle where men and women were lying down on slabs and receiving massages from the white-coated staff. Some had floating screens in front of them, tuned into Planet Kill—what else would I expect? Others were sleeping, while a couple in the corner were getting hand jobs. One lady was taking on two guys at once.
Not exactly my scene.
“Calypso,” the lady called out, and one of the women who was standing among a line of women along the far wall stepped forward. She elbowed the woman next to her, and they both came over.
But Trunk ignored them, walking right past to an old man with red, receding hair, bent over the table getting a massage. No, not a massage I saw when we were close enough. One hand was on his back, but the other was working anal beads.
“Dad,” Trunk said. “It’s time to go.”
The man looked up, puzzled, a look of confused bliss and pain crossing his face, before waving off the woman. Pop, pop, pop, went the beads.
He took a moment, covering his obvious erection with his robes, and sat, looking at his disguised son, “Titus, this isn’t funny. What’s the meaning of you barging in here like this?” His eyes moved over to me, disdainful. “And with the likes of him?”
“Breaker, do you mind?” Trunk asked, gesturing at himself. I broke the illusion on him. He turned back to his dad with a rather nonchalant hand under the robes to ensure he was back in his glory, and grinned. “Like I said, Dad. We gotta go.”
The old man’s face went pale and I thought he was going to faint. When he didn’t, anger showing as he was about to lose his shit, Charm stepped in. “We don’t have time for this.” She blew a purple charm at him then grabbed him by the hand. “Come with us, now.”
“What’s going on here?” the lady named Calypso asked. I turned to see she’d already started jacking off Draino.
“Just thirty seconds, like I said,” Draino called out, but we were already moving toward the exit. “Come on!”
“Catch up, if you need it so bad,” I shouted, bounding up the stairs, images of what was going on with the planet’s defenses and the attacking ships cutting in. The planet’s defense wasn’t doing shit, as expected.
“Dammit, just… ehhhh,” he muttered, and I was pretty sure he’d just cum. Damn, that was fast. Kind of impressive. Or pathetic… I couldn’t tell which.
“Good ol’ Draino,” Trunk laughed, helping Charm to get his father up the stairs. “Status check?”
“Whatever’s happening, it’s bad,” I replied.
More alerts went off, and I started seeing messages that told of incoming ships. Sure enough, moments later Marine spacecraft were entering the atmosphere, attempting to take on the Nihilists. They weren’t successful with their normal shots, but seemed to have a sort of energy field weapon that could hold the enemy at bay, at least temporarily.
Still, this wasn’t good for our escape. The Marines would see us as an enemy, I imagined, and try to attack unless we convinced them otherwise.
Of course, I was still in the network, so likely had the power to do just that. We emerged back into the main room and hurried through the reception area before bursting out into the streets, where people were running and screaming, shots from above hitting the buildings and sending blocks of marble toppling down.
A man ran past me and stopped to stare in confusion. It was only then that I realized it was the man whose image I’d taken on, so it made sense on some level when he ran off screaming, “They’re cloning us! Alien invaders have cloned us!”
One of those moments where I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, but something else distracted me—toothbrushes! A very fancy corner mart had toothbrushes and toothpaste, along with all sorts of other goodies on display. Figuring that I was damn fast now, I spared the few extra seconds it took to dash in, grab a few and a bag, and run. The shouting of the store owner didn’t bother me, because come on, he was a rich elitist and I was a guy in urgent need of some teeth brushing.
I had several ladies to impress, after all. I needed fresh breath!
Halfway back into the hills, the first big explosion hit the city, decimating the area we’d been in moments earlier. I looked back, sparing the moment to realize all of those people we’d just seen—selling toothbrushes, swimming, getting head—all of them were likely dead now.
Talk about a downer.
As we ran, I felt horrible, wishing there was more I could’ve done. We were some of the most powerful supers out there, at least as far as I knew, and yet we couldn’t do a whole hell of a lot against these Nihilist assholes. At least, not when we didn’t have the means of crossing over to their worlds.
On the plus side, though, at least I didn’t feel guilty about stealing the toothbrushes anymore.
17
“Get your asses up here!” Twitch shouted through the comms for the tenth time, only now I was cresting the hill, able to see her with the last ship on the ground, the others that had remained behind hovering in a defensive formation in case the fighting came our way.
“Almost there,” I said, and waved, only pausing to glance back and see the chaos that was the fight in the sky. As ships exploded and went tumbling into the perfect mountains and waterfalls, destroying rainbows and the dreams of many, I had to ask myself what we’d thrown ourselves into.
Trunk and Draino kept on with our new friend, while Charm yelled, “Watch out!” and appeared at my side, pulling me out of the way as a line of bullets strafed the ground.
“Motherfuckers,” I mumbled, checking to see we had no holes in us and nodding in thanks. I turned to see the ship that had attacked, then threw lightning at it with my tempest. I didn’t expect it to do much, but when our ships behind me opened up as well, my tempest ability served to weaken the shields while the other shots hit strong, sending it crashing into the compound below.
We ran, making it to the ramp moments later.
“That was a Marine ship,” I said to Twitch as she followed me back in and raised the ramp. “Not the enemy.”
“When someone’s trying to kill one of ours, they become the enemy.”
“Fuck.” She had a point, but this wasn’t optimal by any means. “Get us out of here, fast. Please.”
“Nice to see you alive, too,” she said, already going for the bridge. “Aegriss, take off.”
I frowned in confusion, then reached for the wall as the ship jolted, clearly flying.
“She’s going to be pretty damn useful,” Twitch said with a wink. “As long as she doesn’t turn on us and kill us all in our sleep.”
“We’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
We joined the others on the bridge. Trunk’s father was just coming back to his old self, the charm apparently having worn off.
“Where the hell…?” He turned to Trunk, eyes wide when he saw the display and the images of the battle. “What’ve you done?”
“This isn’t us,�
� Trunk replied.
“Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s connected,” Shimmer pointed out.
“Actually, yeah.” Gale stood, holding the chair to stabilize herself as the ship rocketed away after the others, to escape from the fighting. “Them showing up like this, at this exact time.”
“But…” I was trying to wrap my brain around the idea, trying to figure out how Muerta could’ve orchestrated it all.
“Ranger could’ve sent a signal when he went through his portal. We know he was working with Orion Corp, but it’s possible he turned against them like Muerta did. If he wanted a war with the Marines, with Earthers—”
“He was trying to make a move to take over the Oram system while also taking out the Earthers,” Twitch said, eyes wide. “Holy shit.”
“And with Muerta, he could’ve coordinated it somehow, levering the Nihilists…” Again, I shook my head, still baffled. “But why the Nihilists? Or why Muerta, for that matter?”
“Unless there’s something about the way her power works with the Nihilists,” Aegriss offered, eyes focused on the screens.
Twitch gave me an impressed look. My android wasn’t so useless after all.
“Let’s go with that theory,” I said, then lunged for a seat as the ship swerved, its shields rippling.
“We’ve been hit,” Aegriss said. “Commencing evasive maneuvers. Shall I fire back?”
“Which side?” I asked.
“Does it fucking matter?” Charm asked.
I gave her a stern glance, then repeated the question. “Which side, Aegriss?”
“The Marines, Master.”
“Don’t call me that.” I took a seat, motioning for the others to do the same. “Evasive maneuvers, and return fire but with the intent to shoot them down, not obliterate them.”
“Roger that.” Aegriss went about it, communicating the message to the other ships.
“When the fuck is someone going to explain to me what’s going on?” Trunk’s father shouted. “And who are all you nut-jobs?”
“These are my new friends,” Trunk informed him. “And what we just did was save your life from some sort of invasion that’s just started. We’re not sure how the enemy got through, but I’m taking it they’re some sort of… aliens?”
“That’s right,” I replied. “Or, maybe… We’re not exactly sure of the nature of the Nihilists, but we do know they’re not from here or from Oram, and that they’re not easily fought off. They stay on this other sort of plane of existence, and the only way to really fight them is to join them on said plane.”
“What kind of stupid fucking name is Nihilists for a bunch of aliens?” Trunk’s father demanded.
I shrugged. “Does it matter?”
He glared, shaking his head.
“Exactly. Point is, they’re attacking. We think it’s related to us, in that they had a vague idea where we were, or how to find us, but it’s so much bigger than just that.”
“How so?” Gale asked.
Everyone turned to me for an answer, for some reason. I shifted uncomfortably under their gaze. “That’s exactly what we’re going to try and find out.”
Two other Marine fighters joined the first, our shots hitting their shields but not doing much damage. We were, after all, guard ships from the Abaddon Asylum, not meant for combat in this way.
“Care to take them out of the air?” I finally said to Gale, as we started to make our way to exit atmosphere.
“Gladly,” she replied, and started to conjure lightning and gusts from outside the ship, along with gusts of wind. One ship veered off, another was hit and headed down toward the ground, but the original ship stayed with us.
“Shit!” Shimmer exclaimed, suddenly steering down in a way that caused Charm, who hadn’t managed to strap herself in yet, to go flying up and hit the display, cracking it slightly before falling back to the ground.
“Dammit!” she shouted. She reached for me just as the ship lurched wildly again. I unhitched myself, grabbing hold of the straps with one hand and reaching for her with the other. This time, as the ship tried to throw her again, I was ready and pulled back, bringing both of us to the seat with the help of my level thirty strength.
As the ship leveled out, I flung Charm onto her seat. “Strap in!” I did the same for myself and called, “What’s going on, Aegriss?”
“Earthers would say ‘the shit hit the fan,’” she replied, steering to the right and then switching the view from the screens so that they showed a massive, semi-translucent ship to what was now our left. “These Nihilists you speak of have apparently gotten through, and it’s not just a few stragglers.”
I gawked at the image. This thing was nearly the size of the entire city they’d just destroyed.
“I—I don’t understand,” Trunk’s father said. “You all came to save me from this?”
Trunk frowned. “Not exactly.” Turning to Twitch, he said, “I want to get back to my ship.”
“When we’re clear, we can make the transfer.
“We wanted to take out Orion Corp,” Gale said. “That hardly seems the biggest of our worries at the moment.”
“You what?” Trunk’s father asked.
“That’s why we got you—we’re after a supervillain who’s going for Orion Corp. She means to destroy it, but there’s so much more in the equation, and even some stuff that we didn’t know about until now, apparently.” Trunk sighed, rubbing his temples and then adjusting himself, as he was so prone to do. “Dad, we need you to get us there, now. I mean, right?” He turned to us. “That’s still the plan?”
Twitch and I shared a look, Shimmer staring at the screen in contemplation.
“I think Muerta’s involved,” I said. “We at least need to find her to get some answers.”
“And then what?” Gale asked. “We can’t take them alone. The Nihilists, I mean.”
“The Citadel,” Shimmer said, eyeing Gale to see how that went over.
Gale took a deep breath, clearly not so keen on the idea, but she nodded. “And Andromida… can’t you make a portal back?”
“Excuse me?” Andromida seemed insulted by the idea. “We have Muerta in our sights, and this man here able to lead us to her. Not to mention all this other bullshit going on around us… and you want to tuck tail and run to daddy for help?”
“They’re right, though,” I cut in. “If we want to stand a chance, we have to see about getting help. My brother, his team… Whatever else the Citadel has to offer.”
She looked like she was about to punch me. “The best I’d be able to do is a portal back to where we came here. A return portal—and then, yes, we’d be able to use it to return to this location. But…”
“But what?”
“But I’m not going to. Not until we’ve dealt with Muerta.”
“Andromida…” Twitch started.
“No. We’re this close. I won’t let her slip away again. We take her out, then do it your way. Understood?” Andromida made eye contact with each of us in turn, daring us to try and challenge her. She was the one with the portal power, after all.
“It might help to have answers from Muerta before we go to the Citadel,” I admitted.
“Orion Corp,” I said to Trunk’s father. “You can get us there?”
He frowned, looking totally confused and not happy with his situation, but nodded.
“Then that’s the plan,” I said, giving Aegriss a nod to let her know to follow the man’s instructions. “We try to intercept Muerta, possibly teaching Orion Corp a lesson in the process, and then get to the Citadel to work out an attack plan.”
With that decision figured out, we made our way out of there. Next stop—the Orion Corp military complex.
18
It turned out that the man Trunk’s father knew who could get us to Orion Corp was the scoundrel who he’d paid off to get his place on a Paradise Planet. Meaning we had to make a stop by the small space station bar where he could be found, thus infuriating
Andromida even further.
One thing was clear—with all this anger coursing through her, she was going to need some damn good fucking when all this was over. Not just the type to make her feel good, to comfort her after finally succeeding in her mission. No, the type where she’d be scratching and biting me, probably drawing blood. The type where I’d be slamming her up against walls and she’d be pushing me back and… Charm was staring at me, clearly wondering what I was thinking about. She was all about me and Andromida getting together, with herself involved, but still, I didn’t want her to know where my mind had wandered.
Before she could ask me what I was thinking about, I blurted out, “I could kill for a mudslide.”
“A what?”
“Just a drink. I’m thinking about the bar we’re going to, wondering if they’d have it. Been a while, is all.”
She scrunched her nose and laughed. “You’re on duty, pal. Don’t forget it.” With that, she turned to watch our approach, the small space station reminding me of one of those baby toys with the curving metal and small circles and objects you move around it. This place had a rotating core for gravity, with the circular areas and pods moving about for easy transportation.
Marines in space needed somewhere to go and this was it, the place to be. Same went for Paradise Planet Elites who missed mingling with those lower than themselves, the employees of places like Abaddon, and even those with the mining stations. They could all come here and mingle. It would be a hodgepodge of space society, and I was looking forward to it. Too bad Charm was right. We were on duty, and wouldn’t have much of a chance to let loose. We didn’t have time, considering our pursuit of a deadly supervillain, the ongoing Nihilist invasion and the possible end of civilization as we knew it.
Nobody tried to question our arrival, which I figured was due to the fact that we were in an Abaddon vessel—though it might’ve just been that nobody cared. It was a ‘no questions asked’ kind of place. We docked our ships together, and met in the boarding zone.