“Drop the knife,” I said, aiming my blaster rifle right between his eyes.
“You don’t have the stone—” Jean Luc sneered and I pulled the trigger.
The two of us blinked at each other—me stupidly, because my rifle had run out of charge, and him taken aback that I’d actually done it. I really should have watched my shots more carefully instead of just firing randomly down the corridor, but water over a bridge, and all that.
He twitched his body to the left and I promptly began beating him over the head with the barrel of my rifle.
Jean Luc staggered and used his already broken arm to block, but I was determined to turn him from ‘traitorous family member’ into ‘bloody smear on the wall.’
When he dodged toward the blast door, he had me fooled and I went to block him. But it was a feint, and he shifted he weight suddenly, thrusting upward with his vibro-knife.
I instinctively put my hand in the way of the knife aiming for my throat and I learned something: vibro-blades can go through a gauntleted power armored hand much easier than I ever would have guessed. But I also learned that with a knife stuck between the duralloy metal surrounding my hand, it was relatively easy to close said hand and jerk the aforementioned knife right out of my evil relative’s hand.
“You don’t know how much I’ve been looking forward to this,” I growled, punching Jean Luc in the face and then kicking him in the gut as he fell over. Even a man in cool-looking, drake-skin armor—no matter how intimidating his wardrobe—had no business taking on a man in power armor. Badass, super-villain of the spaceways or not.
“I can give you riches…power beyond your wildest dreams,” my uncle groaned, blood dripping from his mouth as he crouched on hands and knees on the floor.
“My dreams are pretty wild,” I sneered, giving him another good kick while he was down, “so don’t waste your breath. I’m not buying what you’re peddling.”
“You need me, Pipsqueak!” Jean Luc glared up at me, his good eye half swollen shut. “And the sad part is you don’t even realize how much.”
“If you alone could save the galaxy, would I serve you?” I said quoting, “I believe those were your words. But you know what Jean Luc? I’ve been doing some hard thinking, and I do believe I’ve come up with an appropriate answer to your conundrum: eternal slavery versus death.”
Jean Luc looked up at me with hate and murder in his eyes.
I leaned down and whispered in his ears, “Let it burn!”
“You’re a fool,” Jean Luc spat blood on my visor, “you’ve ruined everything! I am the warm and fuzzy part of what lives out here in the black.”
“Good night, Jean Luc,” I said, lifting up my foot to stomp him in the head and put an end to such a twisted piece of filth in human form. It was time for the hard goodbye, and I was just the man to give him his final sendoff straight to Hades!
“Jason!” someone yelled from behind me, in a voice I was familiar with but couldn’t possibly be here. The sound of that voice threw me in a way nothing else could, and I actually stopped what I was doing to look over my shoulder in shock and surprise.
“What are you waiting for, Protector?” Akantha’s aggressive, bloodthirsty voice urged me, her power-armored feet pounding on the decks and she ran up to me, “give me his head as a trophy after you finish him!”
I stared wide-eyed as three women strode up to me, accompanied by my old sword instructor, Duncan Teutel.
“Duncan?” I said faintly, my eyes going from one impossible sight to the other, until I finally fixated on the seemingly least impossible image. After all, I may not have seen him for several years, but at least the man was a professional swordsman.
“Jason,” said a voice I knew almost as well as my own, “you can’t kill him.”
“That’s right,” snapped the third woman of this group, who looked almost exactly like a younger version of the previous speaker, “if you kill him, I’ll be forced to execute this kill order on you and there’s nothing your pretty, blond-haired barbarian can do to stop me.”
Akantha made a growl of feminine frustration. “Let me kill her for us, Protector,” she said eagerly.
My eyebrows shot for the rafters at this last little gem. I may not know everything, but when someone threatens to kill me that generally indicates it’s time for the gloves to come off.
“Who, exactly, are you?” I asked, my eyes boring into the younger of the two brown-skinned, Caprian-looking women.
For her part, the woman who had just threatened to execute her kill order on me sneered derisively, as if the answer should have been obvious.
When neither of us would budge, the older woman finally sighed. “Her name is Crystal…she’s your sister, Jason.”
I started in shocked surprise, looking at the older Caprian woman fully in the face for the first time and then reared back, feeling betrayed. The hits just kept on a coming, and the worst thing of it all was both the Caprian-looking women—who could have been twin sisters with one of them placed in cryogenic suspension, for all the difference I could tell other than age—both had perfect, little, button noses.
So instead of demanding to know why my ‘sister’—a person I’d only ever met when I was too little to really remember her—wanted me dead, I focused on the more important things in this life.
“How could you get a nose job without me, Mom,” I said, feeling betrayed. “Mom, you promised; you said we’d do it together after I got my first job and earned the money!”
“Oh, son,” my mother, Elaina Three-Feathers said, looking at me with the kind of sympathetic eyes that only mothers have. Then my ‘sister’, a person I hardly knew, had to ruin it by butting in where she very much didn’t belong.
“That’s what you’re worried about; a stupid nose reconstruction?” Crystal demanded with scornful disbelief.
“Was I speaking to you?” I asked with as much courtesy as I could manage.
“Time to grow up, ‘brother’,” Crystal mocked me in response.
“Go fly a kite, Sis,” I scoffed, and was gratified to see her turn red with anger.
“Jason,” Duncan Teutel rumbled deep in his chest, his word a warning to watch my manners. As one of my teachers back at the palace, he’d always been able to make me feel an instinctive flash of embarrassment—even when I wasn’t in the wrong!
“Yeah, really, it’s time to man up and grow a pair,” Crystal shook her head before scoffing, “a nose job!”
“You know what, you’re right, Sis,” I said, waving my hand to indicate my still-bleeding form and my fallen Lancer, “it’s time to leave this little boys’ playground you’ve found me in.” I reached down and grabbed Jean Luc by the throat, picked him up, and slammed him against the wall. I was going to crush his throat and put an end to all of it. “It’s time to finish this job,” I roared.
“Jason you let go of that man this instant,” my mom’s voice cracked like a whip, “my son will not become a patricide.”
My ears filled with white noise before they started ringing, and everything seemed to come at me from a distance.
“No,” I said with disbelief, barely able to hear my own words. The other people behind me said something, but I couldn’t make it out from the ringing in my own ears. My arm slowly lowered as I lost the strength—or, more likely, the will—to hold the traitor up.
I looked over at Jean Luc. “What did she say?” I asked in a low voice, unable to believe what I heard.
“Apparently, I’m your father,” he said with a savage, bloody smile as he spat a tooth onto the floor, “but don’t worry…you’ll only ever be a nephew to me.”
“My father’s dead,” I declared, picking Jean Luc back up and throwing him off to the side where he hit the wall and landed with a thud. “You told me he died in the orbital bombardment,” I rounded on my mother.
“He did die,” she explained, “from a certain point of view. When he renounced his claim on the Throne and betrayed his duty.”
&
nbsp; “From a certain point of view?!” I shouted, my voice rising to shriek.
“Lower your voice when speaking to your mother,” Duncan Teutel said, meeting my eyes with his own. I recognized the trained killer hidden behind the guise of my sword instructor, but after what I’d gone through these past two years, it didn’t have quite the same effect on me that it might have once had. I could almost feel the craziness fill my eyes and flood my body as I cocked my head and matched him stare for stare—something I’d never been able to do before.
“Shush,” mom said, placing a hand on Duncan’s arm and their eyes met, “he’s had a shock; it’s okay.” I could almost see the love and tenderness fill the air between them, and I felt betrayed all over again. I’d had no idea the two of them felt this way. Worse, I was almost feeling jealous because with Akantha I figured it’d be a cold day in Hades before we ever have that kind of relationship.
“Become a patricide and you break one of the most basic laws of MEN,” my sister informed me.
“After everything he’s done to my people—to my home world—you would advocate not killing him,” Akantha flared, glaring at Crystal and then looked at me. “Kill him for me, Jason. You are the only one who can—this is one that needs to die.”
“He deserves to die,” I told Crystal flatly, “and if I don’t kill him here and now, then every person he kills, hurts or enslaves is on me. I won’t live with that.”
My mother started to reach for me, and then making a heart-broken sound she turned back to Duncan and buried her face in his chest.
My sister smiled, and it wasn’t a nice sisterly smile. It was an evil, ‘you’re wrong and I can’t wait until you mess up’ smile.
My mom just looked up at me from her death grip on Teutel’s shirt.
I felt torn. I mean, I wanted to kill Jean Luc. Akantha wanted me to kill him. My mom and…’sister,’ on the other hand’s arguments didn’t particularly sway me. If they hadn’t told me, then I would never have known he was my sperm-donor, and even after they told me I didn’t see how I could let him live just because he was a slightly closer blood relation than I had thought.
On the other hand, I’d never considered trying to kill someone in front of my mom while she pleaded with me not to. As I was learning through firsthand experience, the power of revenge had nothing on breaking your mother’s heart by becoming a patricide right in front of her.
This was one of those ‘rock and hard place’ situations. Honestly, I needed to either be left alone to get the job done, or have one less woman involved. I didn’t mind Akantha egging me on, but I really did mind my mom showing up and seeing me at my worst.
“How is it even possible he’s my father?” I growled, when what I really mean was ‘how was it possible my mom had lied to me ever since I was old enough to ask who my dad was?’ I didn’t really want an answer. At this point I was pretty sure nothing I heard was going to make me feel better, and anything I could dream up only made things worse.
I had to make a choice, and whichever way I went I was going to get burned.
Then I heard a sound that at any other time would have made my blood run cold, but at this exact moment was sweet music to my ears.
Popping my face mask, I reached over and grabbed my wife by the arm. She resisted at first, but quickly caved and metal clanged as I pulled her close and leaned forward. She popped her face mask and our heads touched.
“I brought your family from Capria,” she told me after a brief silence.
“Best gift ever,” I assured her, not having to worry about what King James or the loyalty-testing parliament could do to my mom was going to be a great relief off my mind after I got through this current crisis I was sure. Assuming I got through the crisis, of course.
The smile she gave me lit up the room as far as I was concerned.
“How would you like to watch the bastard die,” I whispered, tilting my chin toward Jean Luc.
The kiss I got in response was staggering, and quickly answered that question.
“Disgusting,” Crystal finally said, breaking the mood.
I took a step back and then bent down to pick up the vibro-knife.
“Finally seen reason, Nephew?” Jean Luc chuckled, crawling up the wall and reclaiming his feet.
“Mom doesn’t want me to kill you,” I turned to Mom. “I won’t kill him mom,” I assured her. Then, grabbing hold of the scruff of his jacket’s neck, I picked him up.
“Protector!” Akantha sounded angry and betrayed.
“Jason!” Mom said, looking worried. It took me a moment to realize she was worried for me, and not for the piece of human trash in my hands.
“Put me down,” snarled Jean Luc
“Gladly,” I said, thrusting him through the blast doors.
“What is this?” Jean Luc demanded, staggering before regaining his balance.
I tossed his vibro-blade through the man-sized opening in the blast doors.
“I promised Mom I wouldn’t kill you, and my wife that she’d get to see you die,” I grunted, reaching over to manually close the blast doors enough that he couldn’t get back in, and yet Akantha could still watch.
“I’ll escape this ship, and when I do—” Jean Luc started direly.
“Enjoy the bugs,” I gave him a shark-like smile, “and since I gave you a weapon and set you free to make your own way…that doesn’t qualify as murder.”
Jean Luc stared at me blankly, so I pointed behind him and even the little family reunion behind me began to notice what I’d heard almost a minute earlier: a swarm of soldier and Marine Bugs crawling down the duralloy corridor towards Jean Luc, a man equipped with only a single vibro-knife. And possibly his hidden, finger blaster, I reminded myself as my hand went reflexively to my neck.
“You can’t do this to me,” Jean Luc roared, “open this door!”
I just smiled as the Bugs came closer.
“Let me back in there,” Jean Luc shouted, the sound of his voice causing the Bugs to swarm forward faster, “if you try to kill me I’ll only come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine!”
“Dream on, loser,” I said.
The Bugs were almost on him, so he reached down to pick up the vibro-knife before putting his back to us and turning to face the swarm.
“Ta-ta, for now,” I said.
Jean Luc’s voice twisted with rage, “Death is but a door; time is but a window; I’ll be back, Nephew,” he screamed. “Do you hear me, Nephew? I’ll be back!”
He took down the first two soldier Bugs with a vibro-knife to the head, but after that the more powerful Marine Bugs arrived, and the only screaming was from my Uncle as they tore him limb from limb.
“Only in the afterlife,” I told him in the instant before he stopped screaming.
I turned around to see that except for Akantha—who looked disturbingly excited by the carnage—everyone was staring at me with surprise and even a little bit of horror, including my ‘I’ve got a kill order’ sister. The only one who didn’t seem particularly horrified, excepting Akantha who looked like a girl who’d just got a Valentine’s Day gift from a secret admirer, was Duncan Teutel.
“You’ve become a hard man in your time away,” he said with a nod to me.
“Try trying to hold a ship, a crew, and the whole Confederation in the Spine together with nothing but duct-tape and rubber cords sometime and see how that works out for you,” I said, unable to summon the level of caring that I should have.
He nodded, and I saw a measure of respect in his eyes I had never expected to see.
“We’ve won,” I said, feeling a sense of relief and accomplishment that I hadn’t been expecting. A lot of people comment that after getting their revenge they felt hollow and empty, and that might be true for some. But all I had to do was look into Akantha’s smiling face and I didn’t feel hollow; I felt like I had just accomplished what I’d set out to do. I felt like I was finally home, after a long campaign filled with death and destruction. I f
elt like it was finally over.
“You still have to destroy that Mother-ship,” Teutel reminded me, “she’s bigger than all your ships put together, and there are still pirates out there.”
“We’ll stand at a distance and pummel her from outside her range. If it takes a week, there’s still nothing the Bugs can do about it,” I said, considering and then dismissing the concern. Yes, we had to be careful. Yes, it needed to be done and yes, the Bugs were still a threat and no victory was really complete until you’d actually won. All that said, with their engines destroyed the Mother-ship wasn’t going anywhere. “As for the Pirates, if they don’t run, we’ll winkle them out before too long.”
“If you say so,” Teutel said evenly.
“There are a hundred and one problems waiting for me tomorrow,” I said, leaning on my wife in what was more of a slump than a hug. My strength seemed to be leaving me; must have been a post-victory adrenaline dump of some kind. “And by ‘tomorrow,’ I mean just as soon as I get back onto the Prince. But as of right now, we did what we set out to do: we won.”
I think Duncan tried to say something and then my mother also, but my side was hurting where I’d been stabbed through my armor and my hand was all covered with blood where Jean Luc had stabbed through my duralloy gauntlets.
I just needed to lean against my wife, close my eyes, and take a few long moments to appreciate our accomplishments.
The last thing I remember was a thud as something large and metallic hit the floor.
Maybe I’d been hurt worse than I thought?
The End
The Following is a sneak peak of Admiral Invincible, Book Six in the Spineward Sectors Novels.
Chapter 1: Sweety…it’s time to wake up.
You’d think the first thing a man should hear upon awakening would be something pleasant, and in many cases the voice of a man’s wife would be bumped to the top of the ‘pleasant things to hear’ list. Too bad mine didn’t.
“When will he wake up?” asked the icy, cold voice of my beloved Sword-Bearer.
Admiral's Revenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 54