by J. Naomi Ay
“Just a moment,” he told her and stopped walking. He leaned against the wall and listened. He blocked out the noise of the building, the voices and their thoughts. He listened only to the sky. He felt the sound of the cloud, the disturbance of the molecules in the atmosphere; he felt the presence of ships, of beings, many beings.
“What's the matter?” his wife asked.
“Ships,” he said. “Coming here.”
A great feeling of dread sank into his stomach, a terrible foreboding. They were coming here for him. He would not be able to have his meetings today nor would he speak to Berkan or Dickon tonight. There were creatures coming for him and he did not yet know who they were or why they wanted him.
His head pounded, his migraine erupting as bad as it ever could be. He was unsure how strong he was now, if he would have the strength to fight them off in his fatigued state.
His wife was speaking to her Admiral on her cell. She was thinking of thousands of ships coming down from the sky, not yet knowing they were coming for him. The Spacebase could not respond. The ships had immobilized the Spacebase, and the Landbase was too small to fight off anyone.
He needed to speak to Berkan, to Thad. He needed the ship, the project. He wanted Thad here. The lift doors opened and there was Thad.
“Hey, what do you know,” Thad said. “I thought I was getting off at the cafeteria on 2 and instead I'm here on 6. Did you summon me, Master?”
“The project,” he said. “Ring Berkan immediately and tell him to send the project.”
“Uh, okay, Boss,” Thad replied. “You want it even if it's not ready? Berkan's probably still asleep.”
“I don't give a fuck,” he snapped, his body tensing, his head feeling as if it were about to crack. “Wake him up and get the fucking ship here and tell Berkan the project had better work or...”
“What ship are you talking about?” his wife interrupted. “Spaceforce is sending the Lexington and the Sealth. They'll be here within 40 hours. I'm going back to the base.”
“No,” he snatched her arm., “no, you must stay here.”
“No!” she tried to shake him off. “Shelly's going to watch the baby. Admiral wants me back to assist.”
“No. You will stay here.” He told her this and she glared at him with hatred in her eyes. He let go of her arm.
“I'll call you,” she said as the lift doors opened. Markut, the Captain of his guards arrived with his Andorians and his Mishnese men.
“Do not let her leave the building,” he told them in Mishnese. He knew they would obey him. The ships were surrounding his buildings. The air hummed with their propulsion. They were lowering themselves into the parking lots, the lawns and walkways of his campus.
“What the hell is that?” Thad said, pointing out the window as the alien craft glided past.
“A pod,” Senya said or perhaps he just thought this. Their voices were in his head now. There were many of them, thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even more and they were outside his building. They were calling to him in whispered voices. Their whisperings weighed heavily upon his shoulders, pushing him down and stealing his strength, what little remained. His head felt as if it weighed in tonnes, his blood slowed, moving through his veins as thick as mud.
“Senya!” His wife's voice pierced through the whisperings. “What's the matter? Janet? Jason? Somebody help!”
“Your Royal Highness? Sir?” It was Markut shaking him.
The lift doors opened, the stairwells opened and the creatures were there surrounding him. The whispers merged with screaming voices as he slipped to the floor, his head feeling as if it had ruptured.
Then, there was heat, tremendous heat. He felt his skin burn and tear, his muscles and organs split. He felt it all from a distance as if he had left that body yet again, though this time he had not. He felt his blood spilling as the creatures lifted him and took him away. They were carrying him reverently as if he were their god. He was too weak even to fight this. There were too many of them.
As if from far away, he heard the mayhem on the 6th floor as they departed. Markut was dead. Most of his guards were dead. Shelly, Janet and the baby were hiding in his office and his wife? Thad and Jason were holding her as she screamed his name. She did love him.
They were taking him to their ship. He didn’t know why as the creatures had no thoughts beyond that. Instead, he concentrated on his wounds. His left lung was burnt. The lower lobe pooled with blood and would soon collapse. There was another burn near his groin, severing the common iliac artery. He can no longer feel his left leg. They must have intended to hit there for if they had missed by only a few millimeters, they would have severed his aorta and he would already have been dead.
He assumed they didn’t want him dead. They were carrying him into one of their ships because they wanted him for something. He was bleeding profusely and his body was shutting down. He could feel the tremors taking over, the cold that came as wicked as the heat had only moments before.
They laid him on a table and whilst the ship departed, a creature began to work on his wounds, stemming the flow of blood. The whisperings said, they must keep the body alive for a while longer. He did not feel anything but the cold and he knew soon he would depart this body again and be able to see what had become of him, see what these creatures were.
After a short time, he was moved again, this time on the table, to a larger ship. He could not follow the twists and turns of the path they took as his senses had nearly shut down by now. The bleeding had stopped but there had been too much and he feared there had been organ damage. He could repair it. He knew he could, he had done it before and given time he would. He did not think they would give him time though. They did not want his body alive. He surmised, they wanted only his brain and with his brain would stay his soul. He would be trapped there forever.
“Kari-fa,” he swore, though no sound emerged from his lips, which had turned a purplish blue. He looked forward for reassurance. He thought his body would not die. He had seen himself, his wife, his son, Taner, Berkan, even Sorkan in the future, but now all images had turned to mist. The visions were distorted and fading.
“Kari-fa,” he swore again. The future was changing. This was not how it was supposed to be. This was not why he was sent here. What powerful evil force had risen and changed the future he had been sent to assure?
He was wheeled into a large room where the whisperings echoed off the walls. He left. The body lay near death on the table, the brain shutting down to a faint blip on the monitor above the head as he hovered about it in the room. Now he saw who had taken him, creatures of spongy bodies with long appendices and long narrow hairless heads. Their brains were small, receptors really, and the transmitter was in the room there with him.
Preserved in a chamber of nitrous oxide, there was a brain which controlled these creatures, their ships, and their entire lives. The brain was showing hardening on the occipital and temporal lobes. It was dying. If it died, the creatures would all die and there were millions of them throughout this massive complex of pods and ship.
“Where are we going?” he asked the transmitter brain, though he did not speak.
“To their home, Andromeda,” the brain replied and with its first word, he knew who controlled it. “You must return to your body so that your brain may be extracted and replace me. I will not live much longer and your body is dead now too. You have been chosen to succeed me.”
The brain spoke lies as he knew it would. He had not been chosen to sustain these creatures from Andromeda. His mission was in the other galaxy and he must complete it or neither of them would be able to return.
“Do not fight my master,” the transmitter brain said and then another voice called out to him.
It called his name but not the name that he was known by now. It called him by his real name, a name that was known only to the most powerful voices of Heaven and the most evil voices of Hell.
“The Andromedean creatures need you,”
it said. “You are their only hope. They will all die without you.”
He felt the tug of the evil voice’s persuasive power but that power was lost on him for he had met it many times and always had overcome. He did not care about these creatures who were nothing more than drones. Still the evil voice tried, honeyed and thick with the false charm.
“You have no choice now,” the evil voice said. “See how your body languishes. You cannot return to it. You cannot go home because your mission is unfilled. It is your fault. You have become too attached to your mortal being and now, look how you have squandered it. You have killed it, Mika. Stay here. Stay and serve this purpose for which I have selected you.”
He hovered over his body. It was not dead. They had to keep it alive if they wanted the brain, but the brain would be useless without his soul. He could wait for it to heal and then he would find a way out of there. The longer he waited, the more he would heal and the stronger he would become again.
“Don’t wait,” the transmitter brain said. “If I die first, it will be too late for you.”
He would wait and he would think how he could escape from this place in his body.
The creatures surrounded his body. There were many of them. They crowded into this room as if anxious to see him. The creatures touched him. They caressed his body, poking their long fingers in his mouth, his anus. They licked his skin and kissed his blue lips. A ripple of revulsion passed through him and the evil voice taunted him.
“You have spent too much time as a mortal. You have developed all the failings of a mortal man.”
Anger burned inside him, consuming him as the creatures feasted upon his prone body. The darkness, the hot and cold place from whence the evil voice came, beckoned him. He fought to control himself. He knew he must control this or he would never succeed. He had fought this evil before and he won. He must stay strong now or he would be lost forever and he would belong to the evil voice.
The evil voice laughed in his mind. What a great victory it would be for the Evil One to pull him down forever into Hell.
Chapter 22
Berkan
“What?”
I thought I heard my name. I looked up and glanced around my office seeing nothing in the shadows but my furniture. I turned my attention back to the screen. The ship was performing as designed but it was still too far away. I sent a note to the captain encouraging him to travel faster. Push her to her limits if need be.
Again, I thought I heard my name.
My father's face appeared on the screen. “How much longer?” he demanded.
“A few more hours still,” I reported. “She was four sectors away. There were numerous squawks too. She's still in beta testing, you know. I'm not certain she'll be able to do what needs to be done.”
“We haven't gotten anything else but spaceplanes,” my father barked. “We need battleships, not transports!”
“I know.” My stomach churned with acid. “Isn’t that why Senya was building her in the first place?”
“What about the Alliance? Will they be sending ships?”
“No. Thad said Spaceforce Command would not authorize a Starship for a single person.
My father roared like a lion.
“They don't know who he is,” I reminded my father.
My father let loose a string of obscenities.
“We should have recalled him here long before now. He should never have been allowed to live there. I want the MaKani and the baby back here immediately. They are to stay locked and secured in the Palace from here on out.”
“I have already sent a spaceplane to fetch them. Luci will care for the baby, but knowing Katie, she will want to be on the ship. She will want to find him.”
“No! I absolutely forbid it!” My father yelled. “It is the King's command that she stay in the Palace. We have thousands of guards who can find him and I will tell her that when she arrives.”
The vid went black. I checked the status of the ship and the project. Two hours away and from there, who knew how long and to where we would head.
“Berkan.” This time I was certain I heard my name, like a whisper as if the door swished opened or closed. I looked across the room at the conference table and for a moment it almost appeared that Senya was sitting there. He was naked and his skin was blue. There were gaping wounds in his chest and abdomen. “Berkan,” he said again. “Help me.”
My stomach lurched as my knees went weak. I nearly lost my bladder.
“Help me, Berk. Help me.”
“Senya?” I squeaked. “Are you dead?”
“Send the ship, Berkan. Andromeda. They are taking me to Andromeda.”
“It's coming, Senya,” I shouted. “It will be here in two hours and then we will come rescue you.”
“Use the EMP, Berkan.”
“We don't know if it works yet,” I shrieked. “It might disable our own ship.”
“Use the EMP, Berkan.” The image faded a little.
“Stay with me, Senya! Stay here. Tell me where we need to go and what we need to do.” I ran around my desk to the table and reached for him as if by grabbing his hand, I could hold him here. I grabbed nothing, just empty air. “Senya?”
After two hours of interminable waiting, I was called by my father again. “Is your ship here yet? There are hundreds of Royal Mishnese Guards ready to go aboard.”
“It is arriving momentarily,” I replied. “I shall meet you at the space dock.”
I was going to go along. I didn’t know where my bravery came from. Frankly, I hated space travel and spent most of my interplanetary flights well sedated with alcohol and if that weren’t enough, tranquilizers.
Never the less, I grabbed my attaché, my netbook, my wallet and my keys as if they were to help in this endeavor.
I boarded the spaceplane on the runway outside my building. A short time later, I was in orbit at the SdK dock watching our ship glide in to view. Tail number 2 was in the neighboring construction bay, already a skeleton, soon to become as beautiful as her sister, unless something happened to Senya, unless he was dead. Then what would become of all of us?
The snaking companionway tube that connected the ship to the airlock, like an enormous umbilical cord, floated past the window where I stood. A moment later, I heard a loud hiss as the tube was pressurized and filled with air in preparation for boarding. I watched my father’s troops disappear down the tube toward the ship as I made a few last calls to my staff, Luci, and my mother. I said goodbye to my mother just as my father emerged from the airlock and waved at me to hurry up and come aboard. I was just about to do so when one of our spaceplanes soared across my field of vision and rounding the base, it headed into the lower docking bay. A few moments later Katie, the baby prince, and Thad came running up from the lower docks, followed by a retinue of Katie’s Andorian servants.
“You're not going anywhere without me!” Katie screamed at me as if it were solely I demanding our departure. The baby bounced in her arms and laughed as if this were a great adventure for him.
My father stood in front of the airlock, blocking it's entire entrance, barring Katie from crossing his path. “You, Madame,” he ordered. “Must turn around immediately and go to Mishnah.” He pointed his finger at the blue planet orbiting below. “You are to stay in the Palace until this unfortunate affair is concluded.”
“The hell I will,” Katie responded, glaring at my father. Thad stood behind Katie patiently waiting. He glanced at me. I shrugged.
“We do not know where we are going and we are traveling in a ship that is untested. Your safety, Madame, will be very much at stake. His Royal Highness, had he been here, would undoubtedly insist that you remain safe and in the Palace.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Katie smiled as she replied. “His Royal Fucking Highness knows damn well that I am an Allied Spaceforce Captain and I have logged more light years crossing this galaxy than any of you people combined. I am more qualified to search this quadrant than you, Captain Loman,
and I guarantee, in your condition, you’ll be down with space sickness within one hour of being out there.”
“Actually, our new environmental control system eliminates most causes of space sickness,” Thad remarked. “We haven’t had a single instance among any of our test crew in how many hours of testing, Berk?”
“Shut up, Thad,” I mumbled.
“I’m sorry, Madame,” my father stated in a voice that would cower anyone in the Royal Guard. “You will return to the Palace. It is the King's command.”
“I’m sorry, Captain Loman,” Katie replied in a voice that I imagined would cower anyone in the Allied Spaceforce. “I will not. Tilia!”
One of the Andorian’s ran forward and took the baby from Katie. “Take care of him.” She leaned over and kissed the prince on top of his head. He reached up and grabbed a handful of her curls, putting them in his mouth.
“When will you be coming back, MaKani?” the Andorian asked as Katie extracted her hair from the baby’s grip.
“I haven’t a clue,” Katie replied. “We don’t even know where we are going yet.”
“Actually,” I cleared my throat. “We are going to Andromeda.”
“Andromeda?” Katie demanded. “How do you know?”
“Uh…” I cleared my throat again. “Senya told me?”
“What?” My father frowned and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Was that before or after the squid dudes kidnapped him?” Thad asked.
“I think after,” I said. “It was just a few hours ago.”
“That’s definitely after then,” Thad nodded. “The squid dudes took him what? About seven, eight…”
“What the hell nonsense are you spouting?” my father declared. “We are wasting precious time here. Goodbye Madame.” My father turned to board the ship. “Berkan, come along if you are coming,” he called over his shoulder. “Andromeda.”
“Stop!” Katie commanded. “I am coming. I am his wife, which means I am the MaKani and now you are going to listen to me. I have been to Andromeda and it wasn't pretty. We barely got out alive and we were in an Allied Class A Starship. I doubt you or any of your pathetic Mishnese spaceplanes have ever been past the fourth quadrant let alone had to deal with anti-matter fields and worm holes every other click. Besides that, every one of those spaceplanes out there in that bay belongs to me and I say that Thad and I are coming or nobody will go!” She pushed her way into the airlock, past my father, who raised his eyebrows in stunned amazement. Thad followed her into the companionway.