by Joseph Pryce
The room nurse, a petite young woman with curly hair that was dyed pink named Aria, glanced up in surprise from the romance novella that she happened to be reading from her Info-plate.
“Commander Patuma? You are awake? Thank the Creator!” She hopped up from her chair and ran her hand over the control panel of the life support machine. “Temperature lowering to an acceptable level”, she nodded appreciatively. “Skin graft and bone repair….sixty percent complete”, the apple faced nurse peered closer at Patrice’s face which was partially covered by an opaque facial reconstruction mask and examined the right side of her ruined face and skull.
Patrice’s right eye peered in frustration at the nurse because she was making attempts to speak but was unable to move her jaw.
“You must try not to speak right now, Commander Patuma. The Reconstructor still needs a little more time to repair the muscle and bone in your jaw. You suffered quite a lot of damage in the explosion, commander. You are very fortunate to be alive”, the nurse smiled good-naturedly and patted Patrice gently on her bandaged left hand. “You just rest now. I will advise Doctor Kawaya that you have regained consciousness”.
Patrice watched Aria leave the room then made another frustrated attempt to sit up in the bed but the effort was too much for her injured body and she collapsed
into a deep sleep. She slept for two days straight and awoke quite suddenly to find herself staring at a man with an unruly uprising of kinky grey hair and an unkempt grey beard with a face that looked very much like her own. Patrice’s eyes which had lost their bloodshot opacity, narrowed in barely contained anger once she recognized whom her visitor was.
“What are you doing here, Harma?” She asked him flatly.
The tall slender man was dressed in an old shabby brown business suit that had seen one too many days. The cuffs on the pants were slightly tattered and the elbows of the jacket were faded. The ankle high brown dress boots that he had on were clean but scuffed beyond repair. He appeared as if a man that at one time might have been very prosperous but has since fallen on hard times.
“Hello daughter”, Harma attempted a smile but it vanished from his face once he realized that Patrice had no intention of returning it. “Your face is looking much better than it did yesterday when I was here. It is almost completely healed”.
“I asked you what you were doing here”, she said coldly.
Harma picked up the chair that Nurse Aria had been sitting in two days previous and pulled it closer to Patrice’s bed.
“Do not sit down. I am accepting any visitors. Just tell me what you want and leave”, Patrice instructed her father.
Harma blatantly ignored his daughter’s order not to sit and dropped down gratefully into the chair with a sigh.
“I am an old man, daughter. I need to sit down from time to time”, he replied again trying to smile at Patrice.
“What do you want, Harma?”
“Well for one thing, I want you to be respectful and call me father like any good daughter would”, he replied sternly.
Patrice snorted derisively in his face. “Call you father, you say? I have not had a father since I was nine years old”.
“That is not true, Patrice”.
“It is very true”, she shot back with disdain. “Once mother died you had no more use for me except to use as a human punching bag on the nights you drank your fill of wine. Which as I remember was almost every night”.
Harma stared at his feet in embarrassment because what Patrice said was true.
“That was a long time ago, Patrice. I was a different man then”, he told her sadly. “I was so depressed after your mother died…..angry and withdrawn. I know that I should been a better father to you. Why can’t you just forgive me?” He glanced up from his boots at Patrice expecting to find sympathy but all he found in her face was rancour. He noticed a slight field of short stubble sprouting from the top of her newly repaired scalp. The skin there that had been severely blackened by the fires of the explosion was now returning to its original dark brown colour.
“Your hair is growing back”.
Patrice forced herself to sit up in the hospital bed in an effort to make herself on eye level with Harma. “Damn my hair! You would dare ask me for forgiveness?!” She shouted. “After everything that you did to me?” The life support machine began to emit a loud beeping noise at the first sign of Patrice’s elevated blood pressure levels.
Nurse Aria dashed into the room through the sliding doors, her face a mask of concern. She gave Harma a quick severe glance before stepping past him to check the monitor on her patient’s machine.
“Mr. Patuma, remember what I informed you before allowing into the room? Commander Patuma’s condition is still quite delicate at the moment. It is important to her full recovery that she not become too upset or agitated”, Aria scolded.
“I am fine, nurse”, Patrice snapped impatiently. “Please leave us”. Aria glanced again with concern at the illuminated level bars on the life support’s monitors.
“Are you sure, Commander? I can always ask your father to leave”, she offered helpfully.
“I am sure nurse”, Patrice responded curtly.
Aria turned to leave and was slightly upset at Patrice’s tone of voice toward her. She threw Harma another severe glance, convinced he was the reason the commander was so upset.
“Dr. Kawaya will stop by to check on you within the hour, commander”, she informed politely.
“Tell the doctor that I intend to leave this hospital in the morning, Nurse Aria. I don’t give a damn what his recommendations are”, Patrice said in a tone that booked no discussion.
“Of course, Commander Patuma”, Aria replied. I cannot wait to hear what Dr. Kawaya says when he hears that. She thought to herself as she left the room.
Patrice waited until the room doors silently slid shut before turning irritably to face her father once again. “So what do you want, Harma?”
Harma opened up his arms in a conciliatory manner and sighed. “Despite the fact that you hate me, Patrice. I am still your father. I came to see you because I was concerned for your health”, he replied remorsefully.
Patrice energy was waning and she was growing tired of the conversation. She wanted to be rid of her father so she could go back to sleep. “How much do you need this time?” She asked him directly.
Harma could not meet her eyes for the shame. He glanced once more at his boots and replied, “More than the last time. The bank has foreclosed on my tavern”.
“The bank would not have foreclosed if you used your profits to pay your debts instead drinking, gambling and whoring”, Patrice shot back.
“Patrice, I——“, he began.
But Patrice she cut him off before he managed to finish his sentence. “Just get out, Harma! I will wire you the credits tomorrow”.
Harma stood up. He seemed lighter like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders perhaps because Patrice did not make him beg for the money. “Feel better, daughter. I promise that I will visit once you are out of the hospital”, he told her.
“No. You will not. This is the last time that I ever want to see you. Do you understand me?” Patrice asked him fiercely. “The next time I see your dour face cloud my doorstep. I will shove a sword through your belly”.
Harma met her eyes and saw the utter contempt she had for him. He knew inside that Patrice did not threaten idly but he made a final attempt to placate her.
“You do not mean that”, he replied light heartedly.
Patrice threw him a dismissive wave. “Just get out! Now! Before I change my mind about giving you the credits”.
Harma replied with a silent submissive nod of his head and walked through the room’s sliding doors without looking back.
Later that night Patrice was haunted by dreams of her father beating her with a metal dining chair when she was just eleven years old. In the dream her father was a living flaming creature ten feet tall and shouting at her in some incompreh
ensible language she could not understand and the stink of burning flesh consumed Patrice. Then quite jarringly her father was replaced by Grutta and her long green hair was burning in flame, her skin paler than the face of the moon. The Volgag slashed wildly at Patrice with her battle-axe splitting open her head. Red blood and white puss gushed out but Patrice did not die. Instead she drew her sword and chopped Grutta to pieces until there was nothing left of the Yanide tribeswoman expect her severed head laying at Patrice’s feet, it’s bulging green eyes looking up at her with hatred.
“Come closer, alien”, Grutta whispered hoarsely. “I want to tell you something”.
Patrice dropped her blood stained sword to the ground and crouched down. She pressed her ear up to Grutta’s mouth.
“You aliens came to our world thinking that you could kill us all…..but you will never be able to kill us all….one day all six of the clans of the Coldlands will unite together and destroy all three of your kingdoms”, Grutta croaked into Patrice’s ear. Then Grutta’s eyeballs transformed into a thousand maggots. A long green deadly looking viper immediately shot forth from her mouth and bit Patrice on the face.
Patrice woke up screaming from the dream.
SLUM VILLAGE
TRANE MUDD
Trane could not remember exactly who it was that first called him by the name Mudd but the nickname had stuck with him since before he could remember. Not that Trane minded it though, from what is mother had told him he had been born in the muddy streets outside of the brothel that she worked in Slum Village.
The small city had a population of one and a half million souls and was situated directly on the borders of both continents of the Three Empires and The Cold Lands. With such close proximities to two such different social and economic institutions and only separated by the Ebony Sea, which happened to be one of the planet’s busiest waterways, Slum Village had a highly cosmopolitan community. It was the only city in the world where the First World descendants and the Volgags mixed freely, resulting in hundreds of inter-marriages and mixtures of both cultures and traditions. In the outside world The Three Kingdoms and The Five Tribes may have been at war but here in this city, peoples generally got along the best they could.
The pub is half empty tonight. The young man thought silently. That is odd. This place is usually rammed at week’s end.
The first thing he had noticed when he walked in that night was that Apple Annie was not working the bar which was most unusual because the charming bartender worked seven days a week. Trane would hard pressed to remember the last time he did not see her in the pub.
Annie is always here. He thought warily to himself. He glanced about but neglected to see anything else amiss about the pub other than that. Old Man Coltrane was sitting at the corner table with his young wife Amalla, who happened to be twenty years his junior. Big Dutty Dentrik was seated at the bar downing pints of Black Zulu Ale as he did on most nights and Bad Busha was playing the ancient video slot machine near the pub’s stain glassed oval shaped window located near the side entrance. Her silver edged blaster rifle sat dormant in its black leather holster strapped to her left thigh.
Trane unconsciously ground his teeth together as the pub door’s slid shut silently behind him. It was only something he did when his stomach sensed trouble about.
But everything appears normal. He thought. So what the devil is my problem?
Trane cast a sidelong glance at Busha with bemusement and watched the big woman feed the battered grey gambling device her weeks’ worth of wages. Busha was by far the biggest woman that Trane had ever known. She had thick hips and solid thighs that had been rumoured to have killed at least a dozen men during her lovemaking. Busha earned the nickname “Bad” from her days as a mercenary because she had the reputation of sooner killing a hostage than holding them for ransom. After being released from seven years of incarceration at The Doom’s End Royal Penitentiary, she decided to put her gun for hire days behind her and became an ordinary dock worker.
“What say you, Busha?” Trane greeted the tall woman.
Busha looked up from the slot machine’s video display and grinned at him with gem and diamond encrusted teeth. It had cost her a pretty penny to have the bejewelled inserts created but spending extravagantly on nonsense was something that she had often done in her mercenary days. “What say you, Trane?” Where is Hiero tonight? That rat scullion owes me one hundred credits”.
“I left him at Adora’s”, was his reply still feeling slightly at unease. Something is amiss. I can feel it. But what?
Trane sauntered over to the bar and slid onto a stool next to Big Dutty. The leather on the red stool was old and cracked and poked at his rear when he sat on it but at least it felt familiar to him. The hairs on the back of his neck were prickly with anticipation.
“What say you, Dutty?” Trane waved over Black Peaches who happened to be Annie’s younger sister. She had the same flawless chocolate coloured skin as her sister and the same slanted eyes the colour of hazelnuts. She was absolutely breathtaking to look upon.
“What say you, Trane?” She greeted him with a bedazzling smile.
I say I would love to put one into you, girl. He thought lustily as his eyes fell on Peaches brown full perky breasts spilling out of her low cut red blouse. But he knew as every other man that congregated at the Black Sun Pub knew, that Peaches belonged to Baba Starr, the pub’s owner and Slum Village’s most powerful gangster. Baba did have a wife and six children that lived on a large estate in Sunburst City but Peaches was the woman he went home to every night.
“Pint of the black, please”, he asked her casually.
“Of course, precious”, she replied with a saucy wink. He is such a spicy looker. Too bad I never had the change to give him a shag….Oh well…..I’m going to miss him. She thought idly as she passed Trane his pint.
Trane caught a certain look in Black Peaches eye as he took the drink and his hand stealthily moved to the pearl handled butt of his blaster protruding from the small of his back under his long black leather jacket.
Dentrik nudged Trane with one of his big muscular arms. “You see Hiero today? That bastard of yours owes me two hundred quid”, he said already half in his cups.
“I left him at Adora’s”, Trane’s eyes followed Peaches as she disappeared into the back room.
“He owes me two hundred quid”, Big Dutty repeated.
“I know Dentrik. You’ve already said”, Trane kept his eyes fixed on the back door but Peaches never reappeared.
“Where is Apple Annie tonight?” He asked Dentrik quietly.
“How the bloody hell should I know?” Dentrik shot back and downed the rest of his ale and slammed his glass down on the bar.
“Peaches! Get me another!” He called out. “Where the hell is that woman?”
“You have your pistol with you, Dentrik?” Trane asked the brawny man with a whisper.
Big Dutty was too drunk to pick up on Trane’s wariness.
“Of course. Why? You have trouble?”
“Maybe”.
That immediately sobered up Dentrik. His eyes moved to the back door that Peaches had walked through minutes ago. “Where the hell are you, Peaches?!” He bellowed.
The reply to Dentrik’s query came in the form of a masked woman with long multi-coloured braids wearing black body armour leaping out of the back door. She had two wicked looking blasters in her hand that she fired directly at Trane.
The blaster’s vivid red energy beams narrowly missed killing Trane and instead ripped up the bar’s well-worn wooden surface to shreds.
Trance roughly shoved Dentrik to the floor in an effort to get him out of harm’s way and in one fluid motion, managed to let off two shots at the silver haired assassin. The first shot burned a hole in the woman’s chest and the second melted the flesh from her face.
Dentrik bounded unsteadily to his feet and exclaimed, “What the bloody hell?!”
Coltrane and his wife cowered under their pub tab
le in fear. Bad Busha had barricaded herself behind the slot machine gripping her double barrelled rifle in her hands in time to witness four heavily armed men wearing black armour kick in the front doors of the pub and open fire with their blasters. Their deadly energy beams struck Old Man Contrane and Amalla under the table and instantly set them on fire. Their death screams were terrifying and loud but did last long before they deceased. Busha fired a blast at the four men armoured men but her shot went wide and ricocheted off of the far wall.