Theogony 1: Janissaries

by Chris Kennedy

  “Quick!” ordered Calvin. “Get back to where you were and look like you’re still chained up.”

  The prisoners had just finished returning to their shackles when the door opened. A soldier in red led the way, followed by Blin, a tall muscular man, and another five soldiers. “I have brought a friend to talk to you,” said Blin, stopping in front of the ambassador. He looked over his shoulder at the other man, who was carrying a variety of cutting tools. “My torturer will hurt you a lot less if you tell me what I want to know now, rather than making me beat it out of you. You will still get hurt, of course. It wouldn’t be any fun if you didn’t. It will, however, not be as bad.” He looked at Cristobel Contreras, sitting next to the ambassador. “I’m going to hurt you just for fun and to teach you some manners. I probably won’t even ask you a question.”

  “Hey Blin!” Calvin shouted. “Why don’t you start with me?” As all of the locals focused their attention on him, Calvin commed, “Take them from behind!” Top, the twins and Yokaze left the wall behind the soldiers and began sneaking up on them.

  Blin walked over to stand in front of Calvin. “I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to attract my attention if I were you. Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn.” Seeing Deadeye next to Calvin, he squatted down next to her. “I almost forgot about you,” he said. “You look like a lot of fun. Perhaps I’ll start with you...” He ran a finger down her face and across one of her breasts. He smiled in anticipation. Calvin saw that most of the soldiers were smiling and licking their lips as well. Obviously, this was not their first visit here.

  “NOW!” Calvin commed, and the Terrans surged forward to attack. Four of the soldiers went down in the initial attack as Top and the twins each grabbed one and slit their throats with knives they had picked up from the tables. Yokaze had been chained near the fireplace, and the poker he had removed from the fire made a hissing noise as he stabbed it through the back of a fourth. The soldier went down screaming.

  Realizing the prisoners had escaped, Blin was faster than the rest and bolted for the door, only to have it slammed shut by the lizard princess before he could get to it. He turned on the princess with a snarl, hoping to take her hostage, but found his way blocked by Cristobal Contreras. “You have already done enough to this lady,” said Contreras. “No more.”

  Blin smiled. “At least I will have the pleasure of killing you,” he said as he drew his sword. Contreras backed away as Blin made a backhanded cut at his head, narrowly avoiding the strike. Blin stepped forward, following him and driving him back.

  Seeing the Chilean in trouble, Top took the sword of the soldier he had killed and lobbed it to him. “Cabo!” he cried, as he lobbed it over the oversized torture table that stood between them. Contreras reached out and caught the sword, narrowly avoiding a sweeping cut that Blin tried to land while he was distracted. Sword in hand, Contreras faced Blin. “The pleasure of killing will be mine,” he said and advanced on Blin. The room was immediately filled with the sound of steel on steel as both men directed cut after cut at the other.

  It was an even fight, with Blin’s years of experience matched by Contreras’ augmented speed and strength. They traded blow after blow, each man parrying the other’s best attacks. Finally Contreras saw an opening and delivered an overhead cut. Blin had intentionally left himself open there, though, hoping that Contreras would try it. As Contreras’ sword descended, he raised his to block it and swept Contreras’ sword aside, slamming it into the stone table next to them. The sword shattered into several pieces, leaving Contreras holding the hilt and about six inches of blade.

  Completing the block, Blin delivered a backhand stroke on the suddenly defenseless Chilean, and his sword whistled through the air toward Contreras’ neck. Bracing himself, Contreras put up his left arm, bent at the elbow, and intercepted Blin’s stroke on his forearm. There was a meaty slap as the blade struck his arm and stuck. Contreras yanked his arm back, drawing Blin closer. All he had was six inches of blade, but that was enough as he jammed the remnant of his sword through Blin’s throat. Blin’s eyes went wide in shock and surprise, and he gurgled something unintelligible. Contreras pulled him even closer and spat into his face. He watched the light leave Blin’s eyes and then cast him aside like garbage. “Bastardo!” Contreras said as he shoved the dead man away.

  He turned toward the princess and did a sword flourish that was undiminished by its lack of blade. Bowing, he swept the sword hilt to the side with another flourish and said, “Cabo Segundo Cristobal Contreras, at your service, m’lady.”

  The princess stared at his left arm, which still had the sword imbedded in it. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  Contreras looked down at the sword as if seeing it for the first time. “That? That is nothing but a scratch in the service of m’lady,” he said elegantly as he bowed again.

  As Blin began trying to flee, the torturer looked up to find Yokaze blocking his way. The soldier held the fireplace poker in a defensive position, centering himself. The torturer looked down at the basket of knives he was carrying. He shifted the basket into his left hand and grabbed one of the knives. Without looking up, he hurled it at Yokaze with all of his might. Yokaze waited, and the poker twitched and knocked the knife away. Annoyed, the torturer picked up a second knife and threw it. Again, Yokaze batted it away.

  Top came up alongside him. “You go left; I’ll go right,” he said.

  Seeing a new person entering the fight, the torturer picked up another knife and threw it at Top. Top flung up his arm to protect himself, unable to dodge it. Just before it hit him, a hand appeared as Yokaze reached over to pluck it from midair. “No,” Yokaze said, “you are fighting me.” He flipped the knife into the air, caught it by the blade and whipped it back at the torturer.

  The torturer’s eyes grew large as the knife sped toward him. Dropping the basket, he tried to knock the knife away. He missed, and the knife completed its final spin, burying itself in the center of his chest. The torturer looked down in disbelief at the expanding red stain before falling to his knees and then face first onto the ground.

  “Kuso,” said Yokaze.

  “Wha...What?” asked Top, still amazed at the reprieve. “What was that?”

  “I said ‘shit,’” Yokaze replied. “It was a bad throw. It should have hit him in the heart, two centimeters to the right.” He shook his head. “The knife was poorly weighted.”

  As the torturer threw his first knife at Yokaze, the last two soldiers faced off with the twins. The soldiers, armed with swords, had a big advantage over the twins, who only had knives. They drove the twins back, trying to make their way to the door and escape. Suddenly, the one facing Good Twin gave a startled cry and fell to his knees. As the soldier slumped forward, Good Twin could see a butcher knife sticking out of his back. Deadeye stood on one leg behind him. “That’ll teach you to kick a girl when she’s down,” she said as he fell.

  In her anger, she didn’t see the other soldier turn from his fight with Bad Twin. The soldier saw the unarmed girl, and drew his arm back to slash her with his sword. Seeing what was about to happen, Bad Twin dove forward and tackled the soldier. They rolled on the ground, first one on top, then the other. Finally, they stopped moving, and Bad Twin got up. He left his knife where it was, embedded in the soldier’s chest.

  The fight over, the Terrans bound their wounds and armed themselves with the soldiers’ weapons. Contreras approached Top. “Could you do something about this, por favor?” he asked, holding up his left arm.

  Top’s eyes bugged out as he saw the sword embedded in it. “Doesn’t that hurt?” he inquired, mesmerized by the blood dripping off of it.

  “More than you could ever know,” Contreras replied through gritted teeth.

  Top inspected the injury. At least it hadn’t severed the artery, or they’d have had a different problem. “It looks like it’s partway into the bone,” he commented. “I can pull it out, but it’s going to hurt a lot.”

  Contreras looked to see i
f the princess was looking. “It already hurts a lot,” he said when he saw she wasn’t. “I’d be very pleased if you would remove it.”

  “That’s funny,” said the German, Hans Fleischer, joining the group, “well, not ‘haha’ funny, but interesting funny. When we got our implants, the medibot said that we were going to have carbon nano-fiber bonded to our skeletal structure. I asked if we’d be able to stop a blade with our arm. It said, ‘you might be able to stick a knife through your skin, if you tried hard enough, but probably not through the bone.’” He cocked his head and looked at the sword embedded in Contreras’ arm and concluded, “Well, I guess we now know.”

  Top pulled a pressure bandage out of his pack and gave it to Hans. “I’ll pull it out, and you slap this on.” He carefully wiped off the hilt so that he could get a good grip on it, then looked at Contreras and said, “You may want to close your eyes.”

  Contreras took a deep breath and then blew it out. He looked at Top and said, “I’m ready.”

  Top pulled as hard as he could, and the sword came out. Fleischer quickly covered Contreras’ arm with the bandage, but not before he had seen the bone within the wound. “Ach,” said the German, “we need to get you back to the ship.”

  TSS Vella Gulf, Epsilon Eridani ‘a’ Orbit, May 4, 2019

  “I don’t like this,” said Captain Deutch. “They’ve been gone too long. If they were going to break out, they should have done it by now.”

  “Yes sir,” said Lieutenant ‘Night’ Train. “They should have communicated with us by now. They said they were captured and were going with some soldiers, but then all of a sudden we lost communications with them.”

  “Take the rest of the men,” said Captain Deutch, “load them onto a shuttle and get down there. I don’t care about any stupid Prime Directive shit. Find them and bring them back. We’ll sort this out with superior firepower.”

  “Yes sir,” repeated Night. “My thoughts exactly.” He turned to Master Chief O’Leary. “Let’s go Master Chief. We’ve got some men to rescue.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  Under Remurn Castle, Remurn, Epsilon Eridani ‘a’, May 4, 2019

  The twins led the group back up toward the castle. As the tunnels were about five feet wide, they could walk next to each other with their blunderbusses at the ready. The group had discussed trying to disguise themselves in the soldiers’ red uniforms, but the only Terran that was close to the local complexion was Contreras, and he was out of the fight with his left arm bound to his chest. He also walked a little unsteadily from the pain and loss of blood, as did the two lizards who depended on Top and Gurp to keep them going and Deadeye, who needed Fleischer’s assistance to walk. It was definitely time for some help, thought Calvin.

  As they exited the torture chamber, they passed another hallway that held the dungeon’s jail cells. Eight rooms lined the passageway, four to a side.

  Good Twin asked, “Do you want us to let these folks out?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Calvin. “There could be a good reason why they’re locked up down here.”

  “Or there could be a bad reason, too,” interjected the princess. “When my husband-to-be came here, he had 40 of our best men with him. I would like to see if any of them are still being held. Maybe they could help us.”

  Calvin doubted that anyone held there for more than ten days was going to be much of a help; instead, they would probably only slow them down more. Still, he didn’t want to leave anyone down here if he could help it. He knew he would have to tell her about what had happened to her fiance’s men, but wanted to put that off as long as possible. “Sure, take a quick look,” he said.

  Leaving her fiance to the care of Top, she walked down the hallway. As she looked into the rooms on both sides of the passageway, she shook her head. They were empty. Reaching the end of the side tunnel, she stiffened visibly. Crap, thought Calvin, she’s found what’s left of her men.

  The Princess turned to look at Calvin. Although Calvin was no expert reading the lizards’ expressions, he could tell it wasn’t good. “It’s the queen,” she said.

  Calvin jogged over, expecting to see another lizard, but instead found a human woman in her late 30s. Although she had probably been pretty earlier in life, her time in the cell had not done anything positive for her. She looked emaciated, and her eyes were blank as she looked toward the cell door.

  “The queen?” asked Calvin. “The queen of whom?”

  “This woman is the legitimate ruler of this land,” replied the princess. “Do you know nothing of what has gone on here for the last year?”

  “No,” said Calvin, “we are from farther away than you can imagine, and we just arrived. We know nothing about this land, other than the fact that we need to get out of these dungeons now before someone comes to find out where Blin and his buddies disappeared to.”

  “A year ago,” the princess related, “at a formal dinner between this land and my own, Stref’s redcoats came in and massacred nearly everyone. The only ones they didn’t kill were the queen and me. They use the queen to get the new king to do what they want, and they used me to get close to my mother and father so that they could take over our land as well. Stref is evil, and his men carry out his evil wishes. It is only a matter of time before he kills the boy king here and takes over for real. His brother currently rules my land. I do not know what horrors await when Stref takes over; I fear my people will become nothing more than slaves.”

  “So, there used to be good relations between your countries?” asked the ambassador.

  “Yes,” answered the princess, “our countries used to be very close, and trade was good. Stref doesn’t like our kind, though, and has engineered all of this so that he can take over our land. The development of gunpowder and guns gave his redcoats the ability to defeat our men in battle.”

  “What do you think, Lieutenant Commander?” asked the ambassador. “Is there something we can do to fix this?” “They might make excellent allies if we help them,” he continued via implant, “especially the therapods.”

  “If we can get back to the ship, it won’t be a problem,” replied Calvin. “We just have to get to where we can contact them.” He smiled at the princess. “We have guns of our own at the ship, and powerful friends that will help.”

  Calvin unlocked and opened the door to the queen’s cell. He went in and bowed. “Hi m’lady,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time to explain, but we’re here to help. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  The queen said nothing and only looked at them blankly. The lights were on, Calvin thought, but no one was home. He took her by the arm and helped her up. “I’ll take care of this one,” said the ambassador, coming into the room. “You just get us out of here!”

  Calvin looked at the twins. “Let’s go,” he ordered.

  Shuttle 01, Epsilon Eridani ‘a’, May 4, 2019

  “Shuttle 01 is cleared for departure,” said the Vella Gulf controller. “Stand by for release.”

  “Shuttle 01 is cleared for departure,” confirmed Captain Park Ji-hun, the shuttle’s weapon systems officer. “We are standing by.”

  From where they were sitting in the cockpit, the shuttle’s crew could hear the clamps release, and then they felt the blast of compressed air that pushed them away from the ship.

  Oberleutnant Hans Hohenstaufen, the shuttle’s pilot noted, “We’re spaceborne at 1537,” for the shuttle’s log, as Captain Park transmitted “We’re underway,” to the troops in the back of the shuttle.

  “It’s an interesting crew,” remarked Night to Master Chief O’Leary, who was sitting next to him in the back of the shuttle. “We have a Luftwaffe pilot, a South Korean WSO, and the whole mix of us in the back. It’s a brave new world...”

  “I don’t give a shit who’s piloting the damn bus,” replied Master Chief, “as long as they put us down safely. Nobody kidnaps my platoon leader and my men and gets away with it. Nobody.” He started goi
ng over his equipment one more time, as if he intended to shoot someone right now.

  Night chuckled to himself. It hadn’t been that long ago that Master Chief hated all officers. The fact that he mentioned Calvin before the troops was very interesting to say the least. As Night thought about it, though, he found that he agreed with the Master Chief. Calvin was one of the best officers he had ever met, and quite possibly the best. No shitty little backwards world was going to kidnap him while the rest of the platoon was around to have a say about it.

  “Lieutenant Train, can we stop just before we get there?” asked the sniper, ‘Tiny’ Johnson. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Under Remurn Castle, Remurn, Epsilon Eridani ‘a’, May 4, 2019

  Calvin knew that the locals would come looking for them before too long and was starting to get nervous. He had been getting garbled transmissions from the ship for a couple of minutes, but not strong enough to make contact. They had already run into two separate patrols in the dungeons, but contact had occurred at hand-to-hand range and they hadn’t had to shoot the blunderbusses, which would have alerted the rest of the garrison.

  While the Terrans had dealt with the patrols, Bad Twin now had a knife wound running down his left arm. It wasn’t deep, but it had taken a few stitches to close. The bleeding had stopped, for now, and he had refused to be taken from the front line with his brother.

  As they reached the final staircase, the static finally cleared.

  “Lieutenant Commander Hobbs, Vella Gulf,” he heard.

  “Hobbs here,” he replied. “We are free and are almost back to the surface. We are requesting immediate evacuation. We have six wounded, including two of the local therapods and the queen of this continent.” He had another thought. “Um...all three of those locals are royalty, if it makes any difference.” He doubted that any of the normal protocol for bringing distinguished visitors onboard would need to be followed, but it was probably better if the ship’s CO was aware that they were coming.