The Golden Viper

by Sean Robins

  Tarq burst into laughter. “The look on your faces! Jim’s hair looks like an Afro, as if he has been hit by lightning, and Oksana was practically drooling all over the floor.”

  I ran my hand through my curly hair. I’d let it grow long after Operation Royalty. Maybe it wasn’t such a good decision.

  Oksana gave Tarq a hard look and started patting her sidearm. “One of these days…”

  Kurt leaned forward and stared at Xornaa, anger flashing in his gray eyes. “You do this again, and you and I are going to have a problem.”

  “You’ll have to get in line, buddy,” I told him.

  “Seriously, it isn’t my fault,” said Xornaa. “Commander Tarq is my boss, and I honestly thought you were used to his pranks by now.”

  “Well, this is the first time he pulls a prank that involves an erection,” said Venom.

  I could swear I blushed.

  Captain Wood’s voice reverberated in the room. “What’s going on? What’re you all talking about?”

  “You really should have been here in person,” said Tarq, still grinning like the idiot he was. “Everyone, meet Xornaa. As you have just noticed, she possesses considerable telepathic powers.”

  Kurt paled and looked like he wanted to run for the door. “You brought a Xortaag who can read minds to a room with us?”

  Tarq shook his head. “Relax. She cannot read your mind. She can make you tell her what she wants to know, but she needs to touch you for that.”

  “From a distance, I can feel a person’s state of mind; for example, I can tell if they are happy, sad or frightened, but that’s about it,” she added.

  I was still pissed, but it was always difficult to stay angry at Tarq and his silly practical jokes for long, and we had more important things to discuss. “So, Xornaa, how did you find out where the MFM controls are?”

  “I hacked into the Xortaag database and found a man who worked there.” Xornaa batted her luxuriant eyelashes at me. “I picked him up in a bar and took him to a place I’d rented in the city.”

  “I thought Xortaags didn’t do this sort of things,” I said. “Don’t you people have sex only for procreation?”

  “That’s accurate, but no one can say no to this.” She humbly pointed at herself. “Anyway, once we were alone, he told me everything we needed to know, including the location of, eh, MFM, SFD, and the subspace communication center.”

  “And what’ll happen if he mentions to someone that a woman pumped him for sensitive information?” Kurt narrowed his eyes.

  “I killed him and dissolved his body in acid,” said Xornaa.

  Kurt, Oksana and I exchanged an uncomfortable look. It was a bit chilling.

  “Just kidding. I made him forget the encounter. Anyway, those assholes really believe they’re gods. It’s about time someone reminded them they weren’t,” said the woman, disdain and hatred dripping from her every word.

  “Why do you hate your own people so much?” I asked.

  She waved her hand dismissingly. “Long story.”

  The meeting continued for another hour or so, and we discussed all the details relevant to Operation Free Alora. My PDD beeped. It was a message from Tarq that read, play along.

  Then he said, “By the way, Jim, the other task force is progressing as planned. You will receive a full report in a day or two.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded in agreement.

  “What other task force?” asked Kurt.

  “There is a second task force which is attacking Xortaag targets as we speak,” replied Tarq. “It consists of the Talgoinians, the Vanaaries, and us.”

  Kurt didn’t look happy. “Why is it the first time I’m hearing about this?”

  Tarq shrugged. “You did not need to know. Jim knows, because at some point in the future we might have to coordinate our efforts.”

  When Tarq announced the meeting was adjourned and left with Barook and Xornaa, I asked Kurt, “You and Oksana haven’t met Captain Wood, have you?”

  “How could we?” he answered. “With us aboard Serenity and her apparently living on Invincible’s bridge?”

  “Captain Wood,” I raised my voice. “I’d like you to meet Colonel von der Hagen and Major Zelenko. How about a drink?”

  “Sorry, Colonel,” she said. “Extremely busy here.”

  That accent!

  “I could make that an order,” I said.

  “You can’t order me to do anything aboard my own ship.”

  I played with my wedding ring. “I can demote you, appoint another captain, and then order you to come have a drink with us in the mess.”

  Captain Wood sighed. “Will meet you there at twenty hundred, for exactly fifteen minutes. Wood, out.”

  “Stand-offish, isn’t she?” asked Kurt.

  “Well, she is British,” I said.

  Oksana giggled, and Kurt gave me a look.

  “Oh, come on!” I protested. “Saying something that’s one hundred percent true isn’t racism. Like saying the Japanese are hardworking, the Germans are disciplined, and the Canadians are nice.”

  Kurt pretended to cast bait using a fishing rod; then he started reeling in the imaginary fish he’d caught.

  “You know what you will find if you google stereotypes?” asked Oksana.

  “A picture of me?” I answered with disgust.

  “No, stupid,” she said. “You’ll find the word racism under related words.”

  On our way to the mess, Oksana told me, “I see you’ve started wearing your wedding ring again.”

  I stared at my hand for a long second. “Yeah. It looked silly to keep wearing it around my neck.”

  Kurt put his hand on my shoulder. “Baby steps.” Then he added, “How’s the book going?”

  “You’re writing another book?” asked Oksana. “What’s this one about?”

  A couple of years before the Xortaag invasion, I’d written a book (an international bestseller, no less) about my missions during the “Civil War”, when I became a flying ace. Come to think of it, it was my experiences during the war that prompted MICI to choose me as the commander of the fleet. “Another autobiography, this one about the Xortaags’ attack and how we kicked them out.”

  “The main hero of the story and the savior of humanity, of course, is His Highness here,” Cordelia chimed in.

  “Well, it is an autobiography,” I answered. “I’m stuck though. Just can’t think of a good title. I’m trying to choose between Winterfell and Tarq’s Gambit.”

  We entered the mess hall. It was a smaller replica of the one in Winterfell—luxurious, with wooden dining tables and very comfortable upholstered chairs, all white. Several crew members were there, eating, drinking and talking, but they all hushed their voices when they saw me walk in.

  “I have the perfect title for you. Picture this.” Kurt theatrically waved his hands in front of his face. “The Crimson Deathbringer.”

  I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Dude, pretentious much? That’s a terrible title. Also, do you really want me to name my book after Maada’s space fighter, the one he used to kill Liz and Keiko?”

  A flush crept across Kurt’s cheeks. “Sorry. Didn’t think about it that way.”

  I patted his back. “Don’t worry. Being creative is difficult. Not everyone can be an illustrious author like me.”

  “Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought,” murmured Oksana.

  “Only a pompous ass keeps quoting things no one else understands,” I countered.

  Kurt smiled. “Seriously, look who’s talking.”

  “I meant literary quotes. Movies are cool.”

  “Let me know when the new book is out,” said Oksana.

  “Miss Speed-Reader here devoured my book in half an hour,” I told Kurt. “Memorized it, in fact, with her freakish photographic memory. And you, supposedly my best friend, haven’t even read it yet.”

  “I’ve watched the movie,” said Kur
t defensively.

  We sat in a corner.

  “Why are you writing another book?” asked Oksana. “I don’t imagine you have any particular use for money, under the circumstances.”

  “Writing keeps Venom quiet,” I answered. “Also, I’m supervising Liz’s charity. You know, the one for New York orphanages. We’re planning to expand and provide for all the orphanages in the world, so I can actually use a few hundred million dollars.”

  My first book—Nights of Thunder—had sold a few more million copies during the past few months, with me being the savior of humanity and all. I’d donated all the proceeds to Liz’s charity, but we were still way short. The Xortaag invasion had left millions of orphans, given that the couple of hundred thousand soldiers who died defending Earth were a small fraction of the total human casualties.

  Seven hundred million.

  I still couldn’t wrap my mind around that number.

  “Who’s Venom?” asked Cordi.

  I ignored her. I wasn’t going to try to describe my imaginary friend, slash subconscious self, slash alter ego, for an AI. Plus, if she knew I talked to myself inside my own brain, she’d make fun of me for the rest of my life.

  We’d just started drinking (Kurt had a Paulaner beer and Oksana drank vodka, and these guys had the nerves to give me a hard time about stereotypes) when Captain Wood joined us. She was a small woman, maybe 5’6”, in her mid-thirties, with short blonde hair and baby-blue eyes. I introduced her to my friends and asked her what she wanted to drink.

  “Tea, Earl Gray,” she answered.

  “Captain Picard much?”

  She looked at me. “Who’s that?”

  I gasped and feigned horror. “You don’t know Captain Picard? Does starship Enterprise ring a bell?”

  Kurt smiled. “I can already see the two of you will get along famously.”

  “Not really,” said Wood. “I don’t watch TV. I grew up with eight brothers and one sister and got married when I was nineteen. I have a life.” She paused a second. “Or at least, had one.”

  Kurt opened his mouth to ask a question, but I gave him a shut-the-hell-up look.

  I tried to change the subject. “Tell these guys how you ended up being the first human captain of a starship in history.”

  She shrugged. “I was a submarine captain with the Royal Navy. We were engaged in a military exercise off the United States’ West Coast. When the Xortaags attacked, we ended up staying in an American naval base for a few months, waiting for orders that never came. When we received the message to kill the Xortaags, I put my crew back together, and one look at our CIC monitors told me where the battle was going on.”

  She paused to pick up her tea from a tray carried by a small robot. I finished her story. “Barook noticed them approaching SH-1. Using the coordinates sent by him, Captain Wood and her crew flattened nearly a third of the city using the submarine missiles.”

  Kurt and Oksana looked at her with newfound respect. “The Xortaag laser turrets couldn’t stop the missiles?” asked Kurt.

  “By the time we arrived, most of them were already destroyed.”

  I added, “When we were looking for people to man our fleet, MICI determined the people most suitable to run a starship are navy personnel, so, voilà.” I pointed at her. “Also, her first name is Ella. Sounds kind of silly that we three call each other by first names but keep calling her ‘Captain Wood.’ ”

  “By the way, before I forget, what was that about another task force?” asked Kurt.

  “Beats me,” I said. “I knew the Akakies were trying to put together an alliance of spacefaring species against the Xortaags, but this was the first time he mentioned that to me. He’s up to something. I’ll ask him after Operation Free Alora.”

  Ella left us after exactly fifteen minutes. “Impressive woman,” said Oksana.

  “Does she seem traumatized to you?” I asked them.

  “What? No,” said Kurt. “Maybe a little sad, but certainly not traumatized. Why?”

  “Let me tell you what happened to her during the Xortaag attack on Earth,” I replied.

  Ella Wood stared incredulously at the TV screen, where Kurt von der Hagen (the infamous terrorist!) explained that Earth had been under occupation by an alien race for months.

  Ella was alone, in a cheap motel room, wearing her Royal Navy uniform. She couldn’t remember how and why she’d ended up in that room. Worse, while she had some scattered memories from the last few months, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d talked to her husband or teenaged twin daughters. Ella ran to her PDD, dialed a saved number, and heaved a sigh of relief when her husband answered. “John! Thank God! How are you? How are the girls?”

  At first, John didn’t answer; then he burst into tears. He sobbed unceasingly and kept mumbling something Ella couldn’t make out. And when she did, her blood turned into ice in her veins. She desperately tried to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, unable to move, as the words she’d just heard kept reverberating inside her skull, getting louder and louder every second, until her brain was about to explode. Her legs folded, and she collapsed onto the floor, stunned, staring blankly at her PDD.

  “I buried them both.”

  There was a gunshot on the other end of the phone line.

  “Her twin daughters were killed due to brain aneurisms caused by MFM during the Xortaag attack,” I said. “And to make things worse, she never even found their bodies. Only her husband knew where he’d buried them.”

  “That poor woman!” Oksana pressed a hand against her breastbone. She looked a little pale. I’d probably reminded her of her sister, whom she’d lost during the Xortaag occupation.

  Kurt put down his drink. “What’s your point?”

  “None of us came out of the Xortaag invasion smelling like the proverbial rose.” My voice broke for a second. “We all lost someone. I lost Liz, right after we got married. You lost Allen and Keiko. Oksana—”

  She raised a hand and stopped me. “I really don’t need you to remind me who I lost.”

  “And yet, a few months later, we’re all functioning more or less normally. Yes, the loss still stings like hell, but look at Ella, for example. She lost her husband and both her daughters, and four months later she’s here, commanding a starship. When Keiko shot me down during the war, I needed three months of intensive therapy!”

  Kurt tugged at his goatee. “You think the Akakies have something to do with it?”

  “You remember Tarq said they were planning to use MFM a few minutes every day to send out soothing messages? I think they used the machine to brainwash all of us into forgetting what we’ve lost.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you think it’s a bad thing?” asked Kurt.

  “Because it’s a reminder that they still control MFM. It’s still on orbit and very much active, and it’s going to stay there for a few decades. We’re allies now, but who’s to say one day they won’t use MFM against us?”

  “There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men: all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers,” said Oksana.

  I was confused. “Does that mean you disagree with me?”

  She glared at me. “Yes, it does. Read a book, seriously.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it expands your horizon and—”

  “Not why read a book! Why do you disagree?”

  She sipped her vodka. “You remember Tarq saved us, all of humanity, from certain annihilation, right? I think he’s earned our trust.”

  “For the record, I love the funny little alien,” I answered. “He’s my Tonto, and before you ask, yes, I’m the Lone Ranger in that comparison.”

  “I’m pretty sure he thinks you are his sidekick,” Cordelia pointed out.

  I continued, “But as Allen once put it, he didn’t do it out of the kindness of his heart. One could argue he used us to defeat the Xortaags.”

  “I can’t believe you quoted Allen,” said Kurt. “But I agree with you. I also thou
ght it was weird that everyone on Earth so eagerly voted for a central government. It took my dad half a century to convince people to have a federal one while keeping their independence.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “And you think it’s merely a coincidence that the candidate who shouted loudest against the Xortaags was elected as the new president?”

  “Don’t tell me an alien power has interfered with our election results,” said Oksana. It was hilarious when she said it with a hint of a Russian accent.

  “With all that said, what do you think we must do about it?” asked Kurt. “You know Tarq says the MFM satellite system can’t be destroyed or removed.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know, but we must find a way to deal with this MFM thing as soon as the task force mission is complete and we return to Earth.”

  Shortly after, Kurt and Oksana said they had to go back to Serenity. I went to my quarters and did what I did most nights: I watched a movie (I was in the mood for a love story, so I chose Deadpool 2) while half my brain kept thinking about the comments Liz would’ve made if we were watching it together.

  I looked at the right side of the sofa, where Liz would’ve been sitting, empty now except for her pillow—still carrying her scent—that I’d brought from our quarters in Winterfell. A longing so intense that it manifested itself as pain in my heart overcame me. I pictured Liz the same way I’d last seen her, in her flight suit, and let deep, deep sorrow wash over me. Guilt followed misery’s steps, as usual. It was all my fault. If I’d killed Maada when I attacked him, Liz wouldn’t have died. She would be alive if I were a better man.

  “I miss you three thousand,” I whispered.

  “This is creepy,” said Kurt, looking at four Kaldooks prostrating before him and praying hysterically in the empty streets of SH-3.

  The Kaldooks, Alora’s native inhabitants, were humanoid, except for four extremely long and slender arms. Kurt, Oksana, and Xornaa had just got off the vehicle the Xortaag woman had commandeered by approaching its driver, touching his arm and asking him to give it up. They were in SH-3’s “slaves” residential area where thousands of Kaldooks, who ran the city, lived. It was right before dawn, and the streets were deserted, except for these few poor souls. The neighborhood consisted of several residential blocks—brown, dull, cheap-looking buildings that reminded Kurt of the old photos of Soviet Union cities.