Prime Valkyrie

by Michael-Scott Earle

  I should have sent Madalena or Lux to take these fuckers out, but I wasn’t used to having a crew who were warriors. The two women with me weren’t just warriors. They were super soldiers with advanced armor and weapons tech. We’d taken the six Magate Order fuckers out in less than three seconds, without firing our sidearms, and the women hadn’t even looked concerned.

  I didn’t hear anyone in the ship’s hold, but that didn’t mean someone didn’t have their crosshairs on the crate where I hid. I forced my tired legs to coil underneath me so I was crouching, and then I quickly peered around the corner. A spray of bullets slammed into the metal crate a half second after I moved back. The angle of the shots and the sounds from the weapon gave me a pretty good idea of where the fucker was positioned, and I spun around so I could dive out from the other side of my cover.

  I raised my revolver, stretched out into a dive, and aimed the iron sights toward the shooter. He was crouched on a catwalk some six meters high on the back side of the hold. The distance between us was at least sixty meters, I was tired, in mid-air, and only had a fraction of a second to aim, but my instincts told me my aim was good, so I squeezed the trigger of my massive handgun. These were the regular rounds that Lux obtained for me, and while they weren’t armor piercing, they still felt hot as fuck, and it seemed like a three-meter-long flame erupted out of the barrel of the weapon.

  The shooter practically disintegrated when the bullet hit him. Each limb went in a different direction, and blood sprayed across the catwalk. His rifle bounced out of his dead hands, hit the catwalk, and then fell to the floor of the hold, and I heard a shout come from a stack of crates in the far corner of the ship’s storage room.

  I rolled to my left and put a pile of crates between my location and where I thought the last fucker was. The ship’s hold was a mess of stacked crates, cages, and shipping pallets. It was practically a maze of cover I could use, and I would have never allowed Persephone’s hold to reach such a disorganized state. These fuckers were lazy, and now it was going to cost them their lives.

  I moved to my left and eyed the next crate that I planned to sprint toward, but then I felt Madalena enter the hold behind me. The sensation was odd since I knew where she stood without actually looking or hearing her. I did turn to look though, and I saw the brown-haired woman leaping onto the stacks of crates. She raced across the tops as if they were level ground, and I sprinted to the next crate so I could cover her advance.

  The fucker at the back corner of the hold leaned out to shoot at Madalena, but I already had my revolver pointed in that direction, and a three-meter long flame of anger shot toward him. I’d been aiming for his chest, but he was a good eighty meters away, and my bullet hit his rifle instead of my intended target. His weapon exploded in a spray of metal, and he screamed with surprise.

  Then Madalena landed on his shoulders, and the man crumpled to the ground. His head bounced off the floor of the hold, and then it ping-ponged off her fist, back into the floor, and into her other fist. I guessed he was unconscious, but her punches might have killed him. Either way, he was out of commission, and the Prime Valkyrie rose gracefully from his chest.

  I turned to the hold door and saw the Magate Order men limping toward me. Lux had her pistol trained on them, and the slave women were dragging a few of the men who were either dead or unconscious.

  “Line them up over here,” I told Lux as I pointed to the side wall of the hold. Lux didn’t reply, but the men heard me, and they followed my orders.

  Madalena dragged the man she’d just beaten over to the group. Then she turned to the slaves, pointed to an open spot some four meters behind us, and told them to stand over there. I didn’t know if the women understood English, but they seemed to get the idea and moved without complaint.

  “Lux, search the rest of the ship for anyone else,” Madalena said.

  “Yes, Prime Valkyrie,” the ebony-haired woman replied with a nod that made her pigtails dance. Then she pivoted away from the group of slavers and ran toward the front of the ship.

  “You fucks took my friends,” I said to the slaver with the broken leg. “It was from a world named GUAAY - 23 - c.”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  I pushed the barrel of my revolver against his broken leg, and the man hissed with pain.

  “It was a world named GUAAY - 23 - c. Have you heard of it?” I asked as I pulled back the hammer on my revolver.

  “Fuck--”

  I pulled the trigger and the man’s knee disappeared. There wasn’t even any blood or bone. It was just the roar of my gun and enough fire to cauterize the wound.

  He screamed, and I turned the smoking revolver toward the man who Lux had pushed to the ground earlier. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and I pushed the barrel of my revolver into his groin.

  “It was a world named GUAAY - 23 - c. Have you heard of it?”

  “Please don’t shoot,” he begged as his friend screeched. The women were also crying behind me, but it was hard to tell if they feared what I had just done, or were thankful that their enslavers were being punished.

  “Last time I’m going to ask you. GUAAY - 23 - c. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yes! Shit! That’s one of our best haul planets. We don’t sell those women here though. Red Eye - 13 is too small.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, I--” he gasped when I cocked the hammer back on my revolver. “Shit! Shit! I think it’s Fayfaix Station!”

  I turned to Madalena, and she shook her head. The movement combined with her emotions to communicate to me that she didn’t know about the station.

  I pointed my revolver down at the screaming man I’d just shot and pulled the trigger again. The blast of flame melted his face off an instant before the bullet turned his head into a skull donut.

  Now there was no more screaming.

  “Try again,” I said as I pressed the smoking revolver back into the other fucker’s crotch. The barrel made a hissing sound as it touched his robe, and his face turned the same shade of white as his clothes.

  “Okay! Could also be Jey-Lune Station! That’s another big one we visit!”

  I knew Madalena had heard of the place, so I felt a bit of relief drip into my exhausted shoulders.

  “Sit the fuck down,” I pushed the man with my revolver and he fell back to the ground next to the other one. “Which one of you is Captain?” I asked. Eve’s mind reading had always made interrogation quicker, but a large caliber weapon tended to be a good truth serum.

  “He was,” the man said as he pointed to the corpse of the man whose head I just removed.

  “Who is second in command now?” I asked.

  “Uhh, him.” He nodded to the man Lux had pistol-whipped in the face. Most of his teeth were missing, and blood was pouring out of his mouth. He was all sorts of unconscious, but I knew plenty of effective ways to wake up people.

  “Where did you get these women?” I asked the man I’d been talking to.

  “Planet called Aurain - 15 - b. Listen, if you want them, you can have them. Just please, don’t kill me.” The man was crying now, and I had to push the beast in my stomach down. He wanted to rip this man apart.

  “Prime Valkyrie, the ship is clear,” Lux’s voice came through Madalena and my transponders in stereo.

  “What is your location?” Madalena asked.

  “The bridge.”

  “Check the navigation systems for the location of Fayfaix station, Jey-Lune station, and Aurain - 15 - b,” Madalena ordered.

  “Yes, Prime Valkyrie,” Lux replied.

  “I’m going to talk to your new captain,” I growled to the man who I had been speaking with. “Just to double check your story. If you say anything while I am questioning him, I’ll kill you slowly.” The man nodded at my words, and I stepped over to the man who Lux had clubbed with her pistol.

  I leaned down and pushed my still smoking revolver into his right eye socket. He started to scream when his flesh
burned, and his face jerked away.

  “Wake the fuck up!” I shouted, and the man’s other eye popped open. He tried to crawl away from me, but the wall of the hold was there, and the back of his head smacked into it.

  “Where did you get these women?” I asked as I pointed back over my shoulder.

  “Uck yooooo--” he started to say through broken teeth, but I pushed my revolver into his mouth. It probably wasn’t hot enough anymore to burn him, but he started screeching anyway.

  “I’m going to ask you again, asshole, and if you don’t answer me, my bullet will make a giant hole out the back side of your skull. Which planet did you get these women from?” I pulled the revolver from his mouth, and the motion yanked one of his broken teeth out.

  “Auuuuraaain - 15 - b,” he choked out as blood ran down his chin.

  “Have you heard of GUAAY - 23 - c?” I asked.

  “Yaaa.”

  “Where does the Magate Order sell the slaves from that world?”

  “Fayfaaaaix Stassssooon,” he guggled, and I saw the other man sigh with relief.

  “What about Jey-Lune Station?” I asked.

  “Noooaaaw,” he coughed. “Too far from GUAAY - 23 - c. Wooould eee tee mons avel.”

  “Three months Travel?” I asked, and the man nodded. “How many light years between GUAAY - 23 - c and Fayfaix Station?”

  “I onnly did un once. Ook eee weeks.”

  “It took you three weeks?”

  “Mayeee longeerr,” The man coughed.

  I did some math while my heart slammed in my chest. Then I double checked it. I’d spent a few days recovering from my injury and saving Madalena’s crew. Then I’d spent five days on Nordar - 13 - a. Throw in another thirty-six hours or so for Persephone’s warp drive to rest, and then add in travel time to Fayfaix Station. Depending on how far away it is, I might actually reach the station before the Magate Order got there from GUAAY - 23 - c.

  A trickle of relief flowed through me, but I tried to fight against the optimism. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and then have them destroyed. But I hadn’t factored in Persephone’s warpdrive speed. Her hyperdrives allowed her to do a light year in twenty-four hours; much faster than most other starships, but her warpdrive could do forty light years in a single hour, for almost two-and-a-half hours. She could cover a vast distance in a very short time.

  And Persephone also had a folding drive.

  My friends and I hadn’t figured out how to get it to work again, but maybe someone in Madalena’s crew could use it. If we could get to Fayfaix Station in a few minutes, we would surely be there before the slavers that took my friends.

  I turned to look at Madalena, and she surprised me with a smile. It looked sincere, and I guessed she had been feeling my emotions.

  I was about to ask if Lux had figured out the location of the Fayfaix station, but then I heard her voice across our transponders.

  “Prime Valkyrie, I have found the locations in their navigation systems.”

  “How far away is Fayfaix Station?” Madalena asked.

  “Forty-two light years,” Lux replied.

  “How far away is Aurain - 15 - b?” I asked.

  “It is eight point five light years from here, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Lux,” Madalena said. “Return to us.”

  “Yes, Prime Valkyrie.”

  “The four women you sold to the men in the red caps,” I said as I turned back to the Magate Order fucker who didn’t have his face broken. “Were they from Aurain - 15 -b?”

  “Ya. We bought them from the natives there. Paid them in food.”

  “Mikhael, what is your status?” I asked into my transponder.

  “They have not left yet, my lord. I will alert you when they do.

  “Do any of you speak English?” I asked the group of scared women.

  “I do,” one of the women said as she stepped forward. Her skin was tan, but she had big blue eyes.

  “We are going to return you and your friends to your home planet. Okay?”

  “Adam?” Madalena asked, but I ignored her.

  “We might not be able to do it immediately, but hopefully in a few weeks,” I continued.

  “Are you being truthful?” the woman asked as her bottom lip quivered.

  “Yeah. We will. First, we need to save your other four friends. Lux is going to take you back to our ship so that you can rest, and then we’ll leave the station.”

  I gestured to the raven-haired woman as she stepped into the hold, and she tilted her head slightly.

  “You are taking them back to Persephone,” I said to Lux, and she turned to Madalena. The Prime Valkyrie nodded, and then the darker-haired woman made a slight shrug.

  “Come with me,” Lux said to the group. The blue-eyed woman translated into what sounded like Spanish, and then the women lined up to follow Lux. I counted six of them, but we still had plenty of space on Persephone.

  “We are going to Mikhael,” I said to Madalena, and the woman nodded.

  “What should we do about them?” she asked as she gestured to the Magate Order men kneeling on the ground.

  I turned to look at the men, and the beast in my stomach roared. Was I a part of him? Was he a part of me? Perhaps it didn’t matter anymore.

  I was no longer a human.

  If Madalena thought I was sent by a god, maybe it was time to start acting the part.

  “We will bring them justice,” I said as I fired my revolver at them.

  Chapter 15

  “Mikhael, we are heading to your location,” I said after I killed all the Magate Order slavers, reloaded my revolver, and holstered the still smoking weapon on my hip.

  “Understood,” he said. “I’m at the Second North harbor.”

  “We will be there in under ten minutes,” Madalena said as she moved toward the exit of the Magate Order vessel.

  “I’ll alert you if they leave,” he replied.

  I followed Madalena through the hold, into the docking tube, and then through the tunnel leading to the harbor. Lux’s group had just turned the corner to the right, but we made a left so that we could join Mikhael.

  “Are you sure you wish to do this?” Madalena asked after we’d walked for half a minute.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked. “You gain nothing from helping four more slave women, and we waste time.”

  “I’m surprised you can’t read my emotions,” I replied, but I didn’t look at her.

  “I can. It is why I ask.”

  “I want to help people. I was a slave once. I can’t save everyone in this station, but we can save these ten women, and bring them home. We can spare the thirty minutes to change the lives of four women.”

  “Even if it costs you your friends?” she asked.

  “We are going to get there early. Didn’t you hear him? GUAAY - 23 - c is three to four weeks from Fayfaix. It’s been less than two weeks since my friends were kidnapped, and it will take us a few hours to get there.”

  “Once Persephone’s warpdrive resets.”

  “Or, we can use the foldingdrive,” I replied.

  “Hmmm,” Madalena said as she looked at me. “We should not speak of such things now. That technology is dangerous.”

  “Does your ship have one?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “We have much to talk about--”

  “After we save these women,” I said.

  “The Magate Order slaver said they bought the women with food. Perhaps they were already slaves on their world.”

  “I’ll let them decide. If they want me to take them home, I will. If not, then I’ll figure out what to do with them.”

  “This task delays finding your friends.”

  “We still have to wait for the warpdrive to cool. Also, I can take them home afterward. We have space on Persephone.”

  “That is true,” she said, “but we might be injured or killed saving them.”

  “Or we’ll get to kill a lot
of slavers. I didn’t think you were the kind of woman to back down from a fight.” I turned toward her with a smirk on my face.

  “No,” she said as she smiled at me. “I do not back down from conflict, I am the Prime Valkyrie.”

  “Okay,” I said as I averted my eyes from her smile. Damn, she was already beautiful when she didn’t smile, but my head had started to spin when she did smile. Spending more time with her was confusing me, and I wondered if I should have kept Lux with me, and sent Madalena back to Persephone with the six slave women.

  But that would have been foolish. Lux was incredibly skilled, but Madalena was a true battle goddess.

  We threaded through the harbor’s outer perimeter tunnel and avoided walking into larger mobs of slavers. We passed several groups of Red Eye - 13 security soldiers, and I half expected them to try to arrest us for killing the Magate Order slavers, but none of them gave more than the usual glance at Madalena.

  We found Mikhael leaning against the inner wall of the harbor lane, and he made a short nod toward the tunnel on the opposite side of the main avenue. “I thought they would have left a while ago, but they just sent a pair of their men out.”

  “Where did they go?” I asked.

  “That way,” Mikhael said as he pointed to our left. “They looked as if they were in a hurry. I think they forgot something important. I believe that as soon as they get back, the ship will leave.”

  “And he’ll open the security door for us,” I said.

  “That too,” Mikhael smirked. “I missed all the fun on the Magate Order ship. I’m glad you are doing this.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, even though I didn’t know for sure if he was thankful that I was going to free these four women or kill a bunch of slavers. The man seemed a bit more lighthearted than the rest of his crew, but he was still hard to read.

  “Do you have a plan?” he asked.

  “Run in, kill them all, grab the women, and then return to Persephone,” I said.