by Aaron Crash
She nodded. “Hurry, Blaze. I’m losing my shit.”
“Not yet, baby. Not yet.” Blaze sprinted from the room. He charged up the stairs to the top deck, threw open the secret weapons locker, and there, right there, were boxes of hydrogen shells.
Blaze clicked on comms. “Okay, family, report. Bill, Fernando, Ling, give me some good news.” Calling them family felt right now. He just hoped he didn’t lose any of them.
Bill clicked, and Fernando translated. “Bill hates you, but he thanks you. You got him to the bridge, and he is running routines to expunge Xerxes from every part of the internal computers. We have the ship. And Xerxes is in the Etrusca ruin around the unmapped neutron star. Bill refers to it as the death star, but I told him that name was already taken, all rights reserved.”
“How are you and Ling?” Blaze asked, sliding on twin crisscrossed bandoliers of hydrogen shells. He checked their VHIs, and both seemed low.
“I have removed the bullet from Ling’s shoulder. We both aren’t in pain, but we have lost blood, and I, personally, don’t recommend crucifixion. It is very disconcerting.”
“Sorry, Fernando. Ling, you good?”
The Meelah responded. “Yes, but I am perplexed. We did not kill all the vampires. I’m wondering where they’ve run off to, but doubtless, we’ll see them again. I’m ready to rescue Elle, but I think you are going to be dropping Trina off at the colonizer first.”
“You and Fernando take a minute to rest. I’ll be right back.”
Ling chuckled. “What is it you always say? Oh yes. I will rest when I’m dead. Now, I am scanning the Etrusca ruin, mapping it out, finding Xerxes and coming up with contingency plans. When we go in, we’ll go in hot.”
“Hot like the sun.” Blaze smiled. “And you’re right. We’ll sleep when we’re dead. Get on with your bad self, Ling.”
“I am so very, very bad,” Ling said. “As in badass, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Blaze said.
Fernando clicked. “Humans and their slang. It’s embarrassing that with such imprecision in their language, the Clicker Empire did so poorly against them during the Monkey War.”
“It’s called the Bug War. And you never know what a Human might say or do,” Blaze said. “Keeps you guys on your toes.”
“Be careful, Gunny,” Ling warned. “Those vampire colonists are still out there.”
“Let ’em come. I’m fully loaded. Xerxes and his bloodsucker buddies didn’t find the secret weapons locker. We have a full supply of hydrogen shells. We have enough star power to light up this little pinche corner of the galaxy. Blaze out.”
Blaze dashed back into the cargo bay.
Lying next to the three remaining starcycles, Trina hadn’t turned yet, and she was conscious. She looked at him with her vampirically black eyes and smiled wearily. “Going my way, sailor?”
Blaze scooped her up and set her on a starcycle. The nanotech adjusted to enclose around her legs and secure her into position. Blaze got on, and the miniature robots did the same for him. Both in armor, helmeted and with oxygen, they blasted out of the Lizzie Borden through the nanotech gate and streaked toward the colonizer.
No sign of vampires or Xerxes. Plus, the archduke of necrotechnology hadn’t created any new monsters to throw at them yet. But why? And what was the demonic pendejo doing to his sister?
Blaze gunned the starcycle and swept it around, streaking across the surface of the colonizer. The hibernation pods would be at the very center of the miles-long spacecraft, right in its belly. The Galway Bay was a hundred years old if it was a day.
Again, the name seemed so familiar. “Hey, Trina, why do I remember the Galway Bay? I was never very good at history, but I can’t shake the feeling I’ve heard about it.”
“It disappeared about thirty years ago. Just…vanished. It was one of the great mysteries of space travel. One minute it’s on its way toward the Oregonian outer rim, going far out to colonize New World space beyond the Americatus Quadrant, and the next, it was gone. How it got here, I have no idea.”
“Thirty years,” Blaze mused. “That’s when the 0n1x singularity event happened. When the Onyx Gate was opened. If some demon vampire from the abyss found the colonizer, he could have turned them all. But you’re right. How it got here, tens of thousands of light years away, is anyone’s guess.”
“Xerxes probably teleported it here. But some think the Etrusca ruins were stargates, though we have no proof. We know so little about them.”
Blaze let out a breath. “And after what happened to us back at the other one, well, the mystery deepens. We’ll see.”
“Try not to breathe,” Trina said in a feathery voice. “I can smell it through your armor. I can hear your blood. God, your heart is so swollen with blood. It’s thudding in my ears, driving me crazy. Maybe…maybe I can suck a little of your blood. Just a little. Your burns smell so good. Maybe just a little…suck?”
“Hold it together, Trina. Almost there. Almost there.”
Blaze dodged a few control towers sticking out of the surface of the gargantuan ship and then saw an opening, a door thrown wide. He buzzed the starcycle around, entered the ship, and tore through corridors, one after another after another.
“You have so much blood, Blaze.” Trina started out talking, but ended up finishing her thought telepathically. You can give me some. Just a little suck, Blaze. I need your blood. I need just a little suck.
Blaze ignored her growing madness. His armor would protect him from her initial attack, and if she went for his jugular, he would have to end her life with either Ugly Betty or his ax. He opened comms. “Ling, I need help finding the hibernation pods. Can you find me in the Galway Bay?”
“Roger that, Gunny,” Ling said.
“Don’t call me Roger,” Blaze quipped.
“Aww, witty banter. Trina is changing, isn’t she? You do the banter thing when you get nervous.”
“Hibernation pods, Ling. Focus.”
Just a little suck, Blaze. You know you want me to.
Her mojo was working on him. If he gave her a little blood, it wouldn’t be a big deal. With how big he was, he had about two gallons of blood. He could spare an ounce or two.
Ling’s voice jarred him back to his senses. “Take the next left. Then a right. Then you’ll be in the central core. There should be a sphere-shaped room with one thousand, two hundred, and fifty pods.”
Blaze focused on maneuvering the starcycle through the dark corridors, the light from his helmet and the central headlight working together to cut through the gloom. Any door could open and pour out other bloodsuckers. And the colonizer had children, even babies, onboard. He’d had to hack through vampire kids before, which unnerved him. Goddamn Onyx and goddamn demons and goddamn vampires.
Blaze sped through a narrow door and into the central hibernation section. It was sphere-shaped, dotted with round glass pods that were reinforced with platinum-titanium steel bands. Various silver-colored hoses were attached to the capsules. Inside, beige cushions offered the user a comfortable couch for hundreds of years of sleep.
Trina drove her fangs into the armor of his neck.
Blaze hit the ejector setting, sending her spiraling out from behind him. He stopped the starcycle next to a pod, hit the open switch, and thank God, there was enough electricity in the circuits to pop it open. But then the IPC engineers made the colonizers to last hundreds if not thousands of years.
Trina spun for a minute and then burst from her armor. She was in her ratty, torn business suit, and she was a full-on vampire. Her eyes, her mouth, and her lips were black from the Onyx energy flowing through her. And yet, her VHI was above zero. Her vampire abilities let her live without breath in the frigid vacuum of space, which was about four hundred and fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Yet, technically, she wasn’t dead, so Elle might be able to help her.
Don’t fight me, Blaze. You can make love to me while I drink your blood. You’d like that. What’s a lit
tle pain when I could give you so much pleasure?
The animal part of him couldn’t find a problem with her suggestion. Might be a little tricky in a zero-G environment with no oxygen, but he’d find a way. He loved her freckles and wanted to kiss every one of them across her lithe frame.
She dove toward him, her fingers now tipped with obsidian, razor-sharp talons.
Blaze didn’t go for his ax or his shotgun. He let her come. “You’re right, Trina. I’ve wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you. Come and get me. I have a lot of blood in me, and I’ll give it all to you.”
Delight lit up her face as she soared in.
At the last possible second, Blaze grabbed her and threw her into the pod. She was so new to being a vampire, so full of a dark thirst for his blood, she didn’t react right away. She had obviously believed his lies and was waiting for him to join her inside.
When he slammed the capsule closed, her eyes showed hurt. What are you doing, Blaze? I thought you were going to join me in here.
“Sorry, baby, but I never mess around with women crazier than me. And you, right now, are pinche insane. Good night, Trina. We’ll be back for you.”
Blaze triggered the hibernation protocols. A gray gas flooded the pod. Trina’s black fingernails scratched up the inside, but the glass held. Her movements began to slow as the chemicals started their work in lowering her vitals, which proved she still had a little Human left in her.
The gunnery sergeant switched his display to show the VHI digits to the thousandth decimal place. He watched Trina’s vitals tick down until they reached zero. As the initial chemicals subsided, Blaze pressed forward to see the auditor sleeping on the cushions inside the pods. He watched as the Onyx energy faded, and her veins returned to normal. Her lips went from black to blue to pink. A minute later, she looked like she was merely sleeping.
But she had changed. She had come for him. Blaze wasn’t sure they could help her. It might have all been for nothing.
But he couldn’t think about that. Using his display, he summoned the starcycle, which had drifted away. It roared up, and he caught hold. The nanotech enveloped his legs, and he went streaking away, back the way he had come.
He threaded his way through hallways, crept around corners, then dashed through straightaways.
He slowed when he saw something floating in the hallway that led to the way out.
It was a vampire baby in a pink jumper.
It opened its mouth in a silent hiss, showing needlelike teeth.
Blaze had to take a moment to remind himself it wasn’t a baby. The infant had died at least thirty years ago. He was just seeing a baby-shaped ball of pure evil.
The gunny knew, however, that the dark energy inside the infant would speak to him.
It did, but it didn’t use its voice. The voice that jarred his skull was his sister’s.
Run, Blaze. You can’t win. You must leave me and save yourselves.
And then he heard his sister scream.
TWENTY-FOUR_
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Blaze sent a ball of glowing fusion energy into the baby floating in the middle of the hallway. He didn’t even slow down to see if he’d disintegrated the thing entirely. He gunned his cycle out of the colonizer and shot forward, heading toward the Etrusca ruin.
“Hey, family, new plan,” Blaze said through comms. “I’m going for Xerxes. You guys are invited to join me. I’m thinking Bill drives the Lizzie while Ling and Fernando attack on starcycles. It will give Xerxes multiple targets.”
Silence met him. He’d stunned them. “Talk to me, guys.”
Ling went first. “A neutron star is one of the densest objects in the universe. The gravitational pull of the star should be pulling us in and then crushing us, but it seems to be muted by the Etrusca ruin around it. At the center of the ruin is a hollow cone-shaped opening that leads to the star. Already debris and spacecraft swirl around it. I’m wondering if that ruin is channeling the gravity into a type of whirlpool. It’s unclear. However, Xerxes is inside the structure, near the edge of the cone. Your sister is there as well. We have her signal. VHI at ten percent.”
Blaze winced. That was bad. However, it meant she hadn’t been turned into a vampire. Yet.
Elle’s voice filled his head. Please, Blaze. Leave me. I won’t survive this, but you can.
He dodged a futon and a great pile of fused metal. Silverware—forks, spoons, butter knives—clacked against his armor and the cycle. He found an opening of empty space and opened the throttle. Ling fed him the data, and he saw his sister and Xerxes as well as a completely red blotch of Onyx concentration. The vampires had retreated to the Etrusca ruin to guard the archduke of necrotechnology.
“Elle, can you hear me?” Blaze asked through comms.
I can. Her voice didn’t come through their communication system but through his mind. Was it her or was it a vampirical trick?
“You know me. You know I won’t stop. I can’t. So shut up about me leaving.”
The voice in his head turned vicious. You always were so stupid. It was your fault Mom died. And no wonder I spent years stealing your girlfriends. You’re so pathetic, you can’t keep a woman. And of course you’d be thrown out of the Astral Corp. You’re worthless as a leader, and you’re going to get everyone killed.
The words were daggers in his chest, but of course they were. Elle was trying to piss him off and get him to leave. And if it wasn’t her voice in his head, which was likely, it was the vampires’, trying to destroy his morale.
Blaze smiled wearily. “That’s me…a total fuck-up in love and even worse in hate. Say what you will, but I’m not giving up.”
Why try to save me now? For three years you’ve let me destroy myself with Onyx magic. You don’t care about me. All you care about is your pathetic quest to close the Onyx Gate. Do you really think a loser like you can save the universe? Talk about delusions of grandeur. You’re a terrible big brother. You couldn’t protect me from Xerxes. You can’t protect anyone. Cali is locked away. Trina is a vampire. Bill was chopped into pieces and both Fernando and Ling were shot. You suck.
“Doesn’t matter, Elle. Nothing you can say is going to stop me. Nothing. And Xerxes, when I find you, I’m going to show you the real meaning of hell.” He gunned the bike faster, streaking across the surface of the Etrusca ruin.
Blaze felt a blast of energy erupt from the center of the structure. The wave rippled through the garbage and sent dead starships spinning.
For a second.
Then everything was pulled toward the top of the Etrusca ruin in a rush that created a whirlpool of trash and starships being sucked through the cone at the center of the structure and into the rotting star. Instead of fighting against the pull, Blaze opened it up and went faster. He dodged a Clicker medical ship, ducked under a Meelah explorator, and then had to go up and over some kind of IPC marketing ship with flickering holograms promising better and cheaper products. Whatever.
Another colonizer on the end of the miles and miles and miles of debris tumbled toward the star, caught in the vortex. Coupled with the Galway Bay, that was ten miles of starship. And yet, the thousand-mile structure below dwarfed both.
Still no sign of vampires. No, they were down below with Xerxes. It was one man against a thousand vampires, and yet, Blaze liked the odds. They didn’t realize who they were dicking with.
“Ling! Fernando! Bill!” Blaze called out. “I’m going in. Might be stupid of me, but Humans are all about chaos and poor decisions. Can you read me?”
Nothing but static returned. His signal might’ve reached them, but he couldn’t hear anything back. The region around the neutron star made everything iffy and treacherous.
Starships were striking the other colonizer, smacking into it, but not bouncing off. Xerxes was making another toy. Blaze did a quick scan. A hundred ships around the massive vessel glowed with Onyx energy. Whatever Xerxes was building, it was gonna be big.
Blaze would ju
st have to get to the archduke before he finished his latest diabolical project. The gunnery sergeant had the guns on his starcycle, Ugly Betty, and his ax. He had full ammo. And he was going in.
He didn’t pause at the event horizon of the cyclone of space garbage. He hit that edge of the cone inside the ruin and kept on going, flying down through the hollow center, surrounded by trash and derelict spacecraft.
Xerxes came on comms. “Whhhat if I’m lying, Gunnery Sergeant Ramirez? Whhhat if I don’t know anythhhing more about the Onyx Gate, Granny, or Arlo? Whhhat if this is just an elaborate trap to kill you as I’ve been instructed by my lord and master?”
“Take your best shot!” Blaze roared.
He spun down through miles of the ruins. All around him were hunks of metal and plastic, a bicycle, and pieces of spaceships. All hurtled down toward the neutron star, drawn in by the thing’s massive gravitational field. All of the trash would be destroyed by the dying energy of the star corpse.
Yet the Etrusca ruin must’ve been doing something to the physics of the region. Otherwise, Blaze would already have been crushed. Yet he was still alive and breathing. It would be a one-way trip though. He wasn’t going to be able to ride up out of the gravity whirlpool at the center of the structure. Too much force to go against.
Oh, well. He’d deal with that after he rescued his sister. And he had a dangerously risky plan brewing in his jar of a head.
He checked the schematics Ling had sent him. There was a mile-long entryway into the structure, then a hallway leading to a mess of corridors. He changed his trajectory. The starcycle protested, the engine red-lining as he and the bike were drawn toward the star waiting to destroy them below.
“Come on, baby,” Blaze growled. “Come on! Come on! Come on!” He knocked into a Terran car, bounced off part of a Clicker hive room, and then zoomed toward the opening. He wasn’t going to make it. He was going to miss the gateway into the ruin by inches.