Shadow Sun Seven

by Spencer Ellsworth

  “What is this abomination?” Z roars.

  “This is only the latest one.” The NecroSentry slides the door shut, and I become very aware that the three of us are stuck in here with a lot of volatile material, the Boss, and the NecroSentry. “There’s always Zarra coming here. I wanted to have a little talk with you two. See, the first kind of Zarra, they fight, they take their pay, and they leave, if they make it through the ring. Those are the ones with sense. The second kind, though, always seem to feel the need to come after me. If that’s your goal, well, we may have to call you the zygomorphic Zarra, for I will cut you in half.”

  “You’ve been saving that one,” I say.

  The NecroSentry grabs Z by the back of the neck and shoves him down to the ground. X he does not touch, but the Boss pulls out a soulsword and points it at X. “Come near me, and you’ll deal with one of these.”

  “We didn’t come here to kill you!” I shout.

  “I want to hear it zoom from the Zarra mouth,” the Boss says. “I believe you took an opportunity on Swiney. Plenty of people licked up the scraps on the floor there, heh, and I believe you are a bit, heh, scrappy.”

  “Oh, God,” I say.

  “Of course we came here to kill you!” Z says.

  What the hell? What is he doing?

  Z tries to stand, but the NecroSentry forces him down—nonetheless, he grits his teeth and squats, pushing up against the bony hand shoving him down. “I have sworn vengeance for my people and I have memorized your featureless face. This is the moment for which I have always waited.” Z bares his teeth. “I will fight with—” The NecroSentry cuffs him, a blow so hard it chips one of Z’s horns.

  The Boss actually laughs. Backlit by the running lights in the floor, reflecting on the stack of hyperdense cells, the little nondescript face could almost be scary. “Shame for you.” He points to me.

  “But this is not how it is supposed to happen!” Z says. Almost whining.

  “Is he lying?” Rashiya’s ghost says.

  I think so. As close as he ever comes to acting.

  “Tell me how it’s supposed to happen, and no zig-zagging, Zarra,” the Boss says.

  “I would fight each of your foolish fighters, and then I would challenge you, before all the station. Honor demands you fight me.” The NecroSentry cuffs him again, and this time he leaves a welt under Z’s eye, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

  “You really think I would fight you in front of the whole station?” The Boss laughs.

  “Honor demands it!” Z snarls. “You must!”

  “Why would you not?” X adds. “They are your people, and you owe it to them to defend your honor.”

  The Boss continues to giggle. “Tell me more about this fight we’re going to have.”

  “When we have won glorious battles, and more honor than any Zarra in history, we will fight each other, and the winner will gain the privilege of killing you.”

  The NecroSentry actually allows Z to stand up.

  “Sometimes I forget how much I love Zarra,” Boss Cross says. “Not a zero for my love of the Zarra. You won’t try anything until we’re in the, ah, fighting pit together.”

  “Of course,” Z says. “Do you think I have no honor?”

  The NecroSentry actually grunts something other than “Death.” “You believe this?” it asks the Boss.

  “I believe that Zarra will always do the honorable thing, no matter how stupid.” The Boss looks straight at Z when he says it. “I’m tempted to let you live, just to see what you do.”

  “You must let me live. I have sworn to defeat you.” The way Z says it, it’s a basic fact. You must clean this dish, because it’s dirty.

  “Huh,” Rashiya’s ghost says. “Nothing like appealing to someone’s prejudice to sell your case.”

  I stand and look between the Boss and Z.

  The Boss ponders, and then finally he chuckes. “Why not? We’ll start your fights tomorrow,” the Boss says. “You can finally wash. I was worried I’d have to kill you without you washing.”

  “Blood and honor to us all,” Z says. “I look forward to meeting you in the ring.”

  The Boss just smiles, and says, like it’s normal, “But just to make sure you don’t try anything, your manager will stay with me. In a cell of my choosing.”

  Hell.

  Well, I’ve still got an incinerator to shut down. The cell will probably be closer to the station’s brain.

  Rashiya starts to speak and I hold up a hand, and then realize that as far as anyone else can see, I’m holding a hand up to the dead man hanging from the ceiling, as if he were about to say something.

  Same difference. I talk most with the dead.

  I force myself to look past Rashiya at the Boss, the Faceless Butcher. “I’ll be fine.”

  -9-

  Jaqi

  I TAKE THE TOOLS back to the shuttle bay, having done what I could with the controls, though I think they’ve hot-rodded this drop ship so damn many ways I could work on it for years.

  Here in the bay, the Kurguls are still playing their favorite game of stick - the - drone - with - the - shard - stick. They all cackle when their latest victim screams.

  They also don’t see Toq, who, I reckon, snuck away from that dead dull discussion about the scriptures to get some food. He’s rifling through protein packs, on the wall of the hanger bay, not far from the circle of Kurguls. I walk over and put a hand on his shoulder and he freezes.

  “Hungry?” I say. I keep one eye on the yelling, cackling Kurguls.

  “Kalia says we can’t have anything till dinner. She’s so bossy.”

  “No arguing there.” I sigh and grab a few of the chocolate-flavored ones, which taste more like bulkheads than chocolate. I should have asked Araskar to grab me some of that Routalais chocolate, the stuff that a sentient won’t stop tasting for three days. Had it once and had the best three days of my life, aiya.

  On the floor of the cargo bay, the subject of their game screams again. And then, before I can shield Toq’s eyes, before I can react to even show I’m here, the Kurguls, all the drones, as if by some kind of signal, grab the poor fellow’s arms and tear them off. They dig into his carapace and rip off the vestigial wings. They thrust the hot poker into the poor guy’s eyes. And only when he’s had his tentacles ripped off and shoved down his little black mouth, only then do they notice me, staring in horror at the casual way they’ve just killed another sentient.

  “Female,” one says when he sees me staring. “What do you need here?”

  “What the burning Dark?” I say. “You just killed a fella! In front of a kid!”

  “You have no business here, female,” another one says.

  I turn Toq around and cover his eyes. “En’t you got no sense?”

  “There are many drones, and few queens. This is not a thing you should worry about, girl. Go back and wait on word from the cross.”

  Toq shakes in my arm.

  I can’t help it—in a move that reminds me a bit of Araskar, I put my hand on the soulsword at my waist. “You don’t do that business on this ship! Not with children around! You forget who led you to this catch?”

  “Girl, you are little trouble to us. You may have your cult, but a shard has put a quick end to many a cult. Stay out of our business.”

  They all break into cackles at that.

  Toq clutches my hand. “Why’d they do that?” He’s staring, horrified, but he’s seen enough in the last few weeks that this en’t quite moving him to tears.

  I lean down to him. “Listen up, boy. There’s scabs, and there’s folk. Them there—they en’t nothing but scabs. They’ll kill anyone, they don’t care a whit, to get a thing they want. Them Vanguard were the same sort. You and I—we’re folk. We want other folk to live their lives, to live right.” I can’t help thinking of what Swez said. Folk just want to take their check and live.

  Well, it en’t true of everyone.

  “I get it, Jaqi,” Toq says. “I know.�
�� He leans into me, for a little hug, and I take him in one.

  “Which one is Araskar?”

  “What?”

  “Is he a scab, or a folk?”

  Araskar. I think of how angry I was with him, thinking about how he could have stopped this all back at Bill’s. But then, he saved us, and he found about the only person in the galaxy who might understand my miracle, perhaps—in the heart of a prison, but still someone who knows the Dark Zone. “He’s—he’s folk now. Weren’t before.”

  “How come you yelled at him? Kalia says he can see into your mind.”

  Oh, kids. Crazing kids. Crazing, talk - way - too - damn - much kids. “Let’s go back to Kalia and Taltus.”

  “Okay,” Toq says. “If Araskar’s folk, we might need to rescue him.”

  “He’ll take care, fella. You just stick with your part of the plan.”

  -10-

  Araskar

  I’VE GOT ONE HOUR until Jaqi comes through the node. I don’t have my swords. Last night, I slept maybe fifteen minutes in my repurposed cell. It wasn’t just the NecroSentry grunting outside that kept me awake. Had it managed to go three minutes without “Death,” I would still have had a ghost pacing the room.

  She stands near me now. “Long night? Haven’t seen my pater sleep in years. You’ll get used to it.”

  I ignore her. She’s not real.

  “Not real, but you’re glad I’m with you, aren’t you?”

  Yes, I do. That’s the saddest part.

  “Look at how useful I was. You pulled all that information from my head.”

  “Memory’s blade, remember?” I mutter.

  “How could I forget?”

  Now, we’re sitting in Boss Cross’s private viewing booth, about to watch Z and X join the fights. “That’s mixed for crosses, it is,” Boss Cross says, pointing to the drink. “Don’t be scared, heh. If I meant you harm, I’d be armed, heh heh.”

  “Oh, hell,” I mutter.

  “He’s just trying to lighten you up. God knows I tried,” Rashiya says.

  He gets to his seat, flips on the display, and the latest fight comes on the holo. “About three times the booze that I’d give any other sentient. Added some raw thurkuk secretion—that’s the stuff would get the devil itself boozed.”

  I mime drinking, let it touch my lips. “Thank you.”

  “There’s your Zarra, right as red. Right as Red Peace. Ha!”

  On the holo, Z moves into the ring, and roars. He’s wearing only a loincloth, hands and feet bare, and he’s got one weapon, a short spear that won’t work well against the shield of his enemy, a huge green elephantine Rorg. Its long snout twitches, armed with a special flail.

  This level is mostly rock, but it’ll fool you—it has a number of traps, false places in the ground, which means both Z and his opponent are moving slowly. Geysers erupt randomly, bathing them in steam, but the top-of-the-line cameras keep the focus.

  The Rorg moves in closer, lashing out with its nose-flail. Z backs up in a circle, and then, with crazing speed, he bolts in, catches a blow on his spear, knocks it aside and kicks out at the Rorg’s feet. Z’s attacked a couple of hooks to his boot. They shred the green flesh of those elephantine, stumpy legs. The holoshow gives us a loving look at the shredded green hamstring.

  But then he trips. One of the holes in the ground catches Z, pulls him down. He takes a blow on the arm, stumbles up, backs away, going easy on the foot that fell through, hopping away in an undignified way, rubbing at the dark blood on his arm.

  “Tell me, then, my fellow cross,” Boss Cross says. “How exactly did you get hooked up with the zippy Zarra?”

  “Told you. Jumped ship at Swiney.”

  “I did some poking around, heh, as I do like a game of poker. Swiney was a full Vanguard division. You have rank?”

  “Not now.”

  “Good. I had rank once. Rank stinks. Stink is rank, heh, get it?”

  Okay, now I take an actual drink. A big one. Kills some of the headache, although my testicle is hurting again.

  How to get out of here? The NecroSentry is waiting just one chamber over, and Boss Cross is holding a shock stick at his waist. One hour.

  One damn hour.

  “You do stupid things when you’re drunk,” Rashiya’s ghost says.

  “I could use some stupid right now,” I mutter.

  Boss Cross talks again. “Your whole division was lost a few days later, I found through, ah, privileged information. Precious, principled privilege. So you got out just in time.”

  We’re interrupted by a loud grunt from the NecroSentry. He looms over us and growls, “Sixty blobs called in this morning! Sixty!”

  “The lab find anything?”

  “Death,” the NecroSentry says.

  “The blobs are going to die?” Boss Cross’s voice actually has a hint of emotion, and he casts a suspicious, if unremarkable, eye at me.

  “All will come to death.” Under Boss Cross’s stare, the NecroSentry says, “But this may not bring them to Our Necrotic Lord yet. A very mild version of the Rurica. We have reports of hallucinations and fights on the—” The NecroSentry taps a comm on its head. Although it’s got no visible ears, it still mutters, “What?” into the comm. “Another one?”

  “Go,” Boss Cross says, casting one wary eye at me. “Be back in three minutes.”

  The NecroSentry just gives a growl.

  “Short-handed?” I say.

  “A little flu for the Nboo. Tell me more about yourself. A few more drinks.”

  “You know it all,” I say.

  He waits. It seems he’s convinced he doesn’t know it all.

  “So, you’ve got this whole prison at your command? Fine assignment for a warden.”

  “Oh, everything’s automated, but yes, brain of the prison’s right through there.” Boss Cross nods, points to a nondescript black door along the wall. “Climb up there, you’ll be in the original brainpan of the beast, and the brain of the prison.”

  That confirms Rashiya’s briefing. A maintenance entrance to the control chambers from the upper levels.

  Down below, Z leaps in close enough that he can grab the Rorg’s serpentine nose, and chop it off with his spear, despite the flail that beats at his arms. Covered in equal amounts of Zarra and Rorg blood, Z whips the bloody nose into his opponent’s eyes, then kicks the Rorg backward—right into one of the pits, big enough to swallow him up. A geyser fountains up and the Rorg screams as he’s burned.

  Z stands over the Rorg while the wounded sentient woozily pulls his bloody self out of the hole, stands before Z, and roars.

  Then Z delivers a stabbing blow his opponent can’t catch on the shield in time.

  “Ooh! Now that’s a kill!” Boss Cross lets out a belly laugh that sounds as forced as everything else about him. “That right there will take him far!”

  He pushes a button and a Zuurian attendee appears near us, bearing a platter.

  Oh, shit.

  On the platter, vacuum-sealed in a little container, is a package of the pinks.

  “Ever had one?” he asks me, as he breaks his open. “No better way to forget the war. Take these, you might almost believe the Chosen One when he says us crosses were made for marvelous things.”

  Shit.

  “Together?” I say.

  “Told you I’m an old teetotaller,” Boss Cross says.

  He must have scanned me. Must be able to tell I’m hurting for these. Or maybe he knows more than he’s saying about me. Maybe he’s talked to John Starfire. Maybe the whole damn thing is a trap, and maybe, just maybe, Jaqi will figure it out and not come through—

  Now I’m crazing.

  I know what Araskar, the responsible soldier of the Reckoning, should do. Use the drugs as a distraction, to get into the nerve center of the prison and disable the incinerator and the mag-locks on the maintenance tunnels that will allow Jaqi and the kids to get in. The NecroSentry still isn’t back.

  But, you see, Araskar, the o
ut-the-airlock fool, who couldn’t save his friends or find a way out of this crazing situation, could take these. He could forget, for a second, Rashiya with his sword in her chest, asking him not to take her memories.

  “You might even get me to shut up,” her ghost says.

  Could just forget, for just a moment, forget the war again, instead of always having to come up with another clever plan, another way around death, when he doesn’t even want to live.

  I take a handful and drop them into my mouth.

  And I almost swallow.

  My mouth is wet and my skin is saturated in sweat and I can taste the damn things turning to ooze on my tongue and I want to swallow but I thrust them to the side, to my cheek. I take another handful.

  “Well, then.” Boss Cross stands up, and brandishes a shock stick. “Now that you’re relaxed, why don’t you tell me why the Resistance is so interested in a cross with your scars, and why your soulswords ran up a—”

  Then I jump on him, shove the handful of pinks down his gullet with one hand. With my other hand I seize his left hand, push the shock stick down.

  I keep his mouth closed. His slobber washes over my hand, but I keep him gagged. He groans and tries to talk but I keep a tight grip, shove his jaw closed. He bites his own tongue and blood drips between his lips. That jaw stays glued.

  He’s stronger than he should be, fighting me with the shock stick, trying to raise it. I shove it back, grab his wrist and push down, until the shock stick connects with his own body. He jerks, lurches against my grip before he manages to turn it off.

  The pinks in my own mouth are turning to ooze.

  I have to spit them out, or in a few minutes, I’ll be high and it’ll be anyone’s guess whether he or me will look a bigger idiot. I certainly won’t be able to keep this grip.

  I have to spit them out.

  Not swallow them.

  A faint stirring swirls at the edge of my mind, the headache leaking away into rising strings, Rashiya’s death vanishing into sweeping whorls of music.

  “Actually, when you’re high, it’ll seem like I’m really alive,” Rashiya’s ghost says. “Imagine the fun we could have.”