Cynthia- Empress of the Stars

by James Patrick Warner

  Finally, Admiral Royal spoke up. He was the oldest of them and was the one I was most concerned with winning over. After all, with them on my side, I could hardly lose.

  Captain McDowell, I am curious about your “sister”. You, ma’am, do not have a sister. She was killed in a traffic accident. This is a matter of record.”

  Caught. Oh well.

  “Admiral, you are right. I do not have a blood sister any more. However, unknown to me, Intel took the brain and spine from the accident and turned her into a brainship. The rest is rather complicated and not very relevant to the current situation. I have adopted Cynthia as my sister; we can leave it there for now. The situation is complex and I feel that she could better explain it to you after our meeting. For the time being, although she has no official registered status, please consider her as my appointed First Mate aboard this ship. This is her true status for now.”

  “But Captain, this ship is not human made. Nor for that matter did it come from any technology I am aware of. Isn’t it possible that Cynthia is an alien?”

  “Yes, Admiral, all that you say is possible.”

  Admiral Wright, who had been talking with Fred who was sitting next to him, broke in. “Captain McDowell, you are right. That subject, while interesting, is not germane. Just how do you intend to gain control of the fleet, neutralize the rebels and put order back into the galaxy, if you’ll pardon a hackneyed phrase?”

  “Admiral Wright, I intend to work from the top down. By putting you back in control of the ships of the fleet and protected in HQ, I trust you will be able to regain firm control of things.”

  “A fine plan. So what do you intend to do?”

  We talked for six more hours before I finally got them convinced we could do it. I put them all to bed at last to sleep on what we had discussed, as we were all getting too tired to do any more effective planning. Besides, I wanted to go to bed with Fred so bad I could taste him.

  The others slowly left the room, little conversations floating down the hallway to the berths. One thing that was a real plus on the WitchCraft: the beds were all tremendously oversized.

  Finally, Mike and I were alone in the galley, sipping our drinks, staring at each other. We had watched Caryn and Fred walk out of the galley, She adroitly steering him toward her cabin, all the while holding him in rapt attention to her conversation. I guess I was ready as I’d ever be. And I had to admit Mike was very handsome and intelligent. And single, of course.

  So it was our turn at last. “Mike?”

  “Cynthia, I...”

  I thought about how great he’d be as a daddy. I needed to find a surrogate mother!

  “Oh, come on handsome. I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time.”

  Chapter 12.

  Failure

  I awoke in absolute, dead silence – a deafening silence; a numbing silence. Where was my sister, Caryn? Where was my ship, Merlin? I could neither hear nor feel their constant presence in my mind. My head hurt. I touched my forehead – blinding pain. What was wrong with my head? It was covered with bandages! And, what the hell, it was totally dark – not the night time dark where you can sort of see a trace of something here or there – nothing – a complete void. Was I blind? And where was Caryn? I tapped on the surface next to me and could not hear it though it felt like padding of some kind. Was I deaf, then, too?

  But where was Caryn and Merlin and the Parent repair stations? They had been with me forever, it seemed, and now I was alone and afraid and dammit, I hurt! What the hell was going on? Where was I? How did I get here?

  Well, I wasn’t one to lay around being scared for very long. I was a woman of action! Whoa – when I tried to sit up all the nothingness around me began to spin and the PAIN. Fearing I would fall from whatever I was laying on I settled back down on my front and the spinning slowed and stopped.

  Okay. I couldn’t get up just yet. Apparently my head needed to heal before I could trust my legs to take me exploring where I was. But, I could think. How had I gotten into this mess? I was pretty sure I wasn’t dead.

  After a very long time it all began to come back – little bits at a time like a pulp sequel of a million issues. But it came back sequentially, more or less, so I had a long time to wait to find out just what happened to get me in this state.

  I remembered it started out in the Admiralty Academy. I guessed it was the beginning of my life. Poor guess though.

  Chapter 13.

  Operation Empress

  I felt the Pirate’s eyes traveling up and down my body, wishing he could ravage me. I was not in the mood. I gave him a severe glare. He grinned and got up off the chair and reached for my chest. I knocked his hand away, hard.

  “Hey! I just wanted a little feel. It’s been a long time.”

  “I can imagine. I think your time is better spent figuring out how to get a whore at the starbase. I’m not available.”

  “Oh, I know. The Admiral has designs on you, slut. But you wait, the rest of us will get our chance.”

  I wasn’t too sure what he was talking about, but my imagination was quite able to fill it in, with lots of grisly details. Just then we arrived at the starbase and the Pirate picked up his armor and left the ship, looking back at me longingly. He bumped his head on the sill of his one-man shuttle getting in and swore while the door closed.

  Now I was alone for the moment. It was time to make the makeup change I had been planning. I went to my room and stripped. I died my hair black with lavender streaks. I put on an outrageous costume so skimpy it left virtually nothing to the imagination, except a few hidden pockets. I put a mini-blaster in one and a controller for electronic devices in the other. The controller could interface in a moment with any electronic handheld or tabletop device, including a blaster and a communicator, as well as an entertainment system.

  I had picked out the costume carefully for this mission. I was going to go in and challenge the Empress or Emperor or whatever to a dual and become Shawna, the Empress of the Stars, like in the holo I saw at Meph’s house. Failure was not an option. I took the name from my friend at the Academy and the costume from what little intelligence we had about the Pirate society. I felt like I was going to a Halloween party.

  Cynthia McDowell as Shawna – Empress of the Stars

  Merlin was towed to an out-of-the-way berth far from prying eyes in a construction zone at the far end of the military portion of their spaceport on their main planet. This was just fine for me. I finished my costume and had Merlin find the Imperial Palace for me. Then I grabbed a small bag with clothes and essentials and headed out of the ship.

  I couldn’t believe my luck. No one in the escorting fleet had announced our arrival and this part of the starship dock was still under construction. They hadn’t put a guard on my ship yet. I guess in their excitement of capturing us they forgot. There was a security guard at the entrance to the construction site, but he was only stopping people from coming into the construction area. I walked out like a regular customer and hitched the first metro train toward the city center.

  People didn’t stare too much at me. Just what any normal tall beautiful woman would gather from regular riders. The clothing people wore was an unbelievable variety of what looked like costumes for a holo show about Martians. There was no conductor or ticket man. And it was not automated to collect fares. I figured it was an honor system, just like many such rail systems on Earth and someday Caryna. I didn’t know my picture had been taken when I got on and logged in their central computer. Ignorance is bliss.

  I got off at the central plaza, a large square nicely landscaped place with thousands of people walking to and fro, in and out of buildings. There were uniformed and armed military police at each building entrance and a few walking around the plaza. All the buildings faced the plaza with grandiose multi-story entrances in the generic universal architecture of government buildings. Funny how all government buildings had basically the same style throughout history and from star system to star s
ystem. Must be something deeply planted in all the species of the galaxy.

  “Where are the government offices?” I asked a handsome police officer. He looked me over appreciatively. I hoped he wouldn’t get into a conversation. I hadn’t learned much of the language yet.

  He pointed to a large building behind me. “That one. How about your number?”

  “We can talk when I return,” I said and walked toward the two story tall transparent doors. Inside was a three story atrium well landscaped lobby, central elevator hall and directions to every sort of governmental office possible. Merlin continued to translate for me, via the implant in my head. And I was a quick study.

  I found the office for the Empress. Of course she wouldn’t actually be here, but it would do for my purposes. I rode an elevator to the 200th floor, which was occupied by civil servants serving the Empire and Empress. I knew from my brief studies that it was possible to challenge the Empress to a dual and replace her. It was an antiquated system from centuries before, when the Pirate Empire was only one star system. But the citizens, the military (who really ran the show) and the government employees enjoyed the blood sport.

  Sometimes when an Emperor or Empress was growing old and feeble, the challenge was a mockery. But sometimes the defender was young and strong and so was the challenger. These battles were holo’d to the entire Empire and there was a lot of money that changed hands betting on the outcome. It was deliciously barbaric and perfect for my purposes. I only hoped the fight was reasonably fair.

  I walked into the foyer and the receptionist took one look at me and motioned me to what looked like a ticket window at the far end of a hallway to the left. Merlin translated still, though I was assimilating the language quickly through our link. It said in brightly lit and colorful letters, CHALLENGERS. I stood in a short line behind several muscular women, as scantily clad as I was. When each one stepped up to the clerk’s window she was given a short form to fill out, gave a hand print to a computer screen and told the day and time of her challenge. And that was it.

  I had to assume the Empress would eliminate any serious challengers long before the date of the challenge came around. Why not? She was the Empress and had the support of the military, as well as her own personal guards. I figured I would have to hide out to stay alive long enough to make it to the challenge. It would not help that challenges were only held once a month, which gave the Empress’s crew a lot of time to eliminate threats.

  Just as I stepped up to the window Merlin called.

  “Sorry to disturb you Captain, but there are a crew of men here that apparently intend to try and open me up.”

  “That’s okay. If you feel threatened, warp out to one of the unguarded planets or moons and wait there. Try not to kill any of the natives.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  I was loath to lose the close proximity of my ship, but logically, Merlin could be as much assistance a light year away as next door. I decided to find somewhere to stay after I completed the registration procedure. Not having any money was a problem, but I figured I could find someone to let me hang out for a few days. What I would have to give in exchange didn’t bother me too much. It was for a good cause.

  I gave the clerk at the window my name and age and other physical statistics. She looked bored out of her mind. I got from Merlin the address of the post office in the central government district and used that as my mailing address. I agreed to check in daily for information updates. And that was it. No fingerprint, no eye scan, really simple, just a photo.

  I checked in with the Challenge Office the next day after a long night sleeping in an abandoned truck cab, and was shocked to see I had been moved up to the next challenger position. Something was going on. Either the Empress was due to be deposed, or I had been found out and was being set up for early extermination. The Challenge was to be at the end of the week, only three days from today.

  I went to a library and found a book about the history of the Challenges. It was bloody; there were pictures of the Emperors, Empresses and challengers after the battles and sometimes you couldn’t tell who had won, both were cut to shreds. There was a pictorial history of the weapons traditionally used for the Challenge and generally they were swords of some kind or other. I crosschecked with the pictures of the battles and noticed that winning Emperors and Empresses always had a wicked looking knife as well as the traditional sword. And one of the swords recently used had a spring-loaded dagger in the hilt, which had been used by the current Empress to dispatch her latest opponent – definitely something to watch for.

  The current Empress was just a few years older than I and was currently having an affair with the Captain of her personal guard. That was going to be sticky, unless he had tired of her and wanted to get rid of her. Ah politics, always the same in human and non-human civilizations alike.

  I found a room with a woman who was a civil servant in the Space Forces offices who agreed to let me crash for a couple of days. She was a few years younger and had a boyfriend, requiring me to sleep on the couch. He had propositioned me the first night and I told him to enjoy the girl he had. He was not the least bit remorseful about threatening his relationship because he was a soldier and didn’t expect to have a family life anyway. I had to nearly break his arm that night, but he finally got the point and went to bed with his girl. He didn’t harass me after that. I guess he just needed to know the ground rules.

  I pumped the girl, Brylee, about her job and the comings and goings of the ships at the spaceport. She didn’t know a lot but was happy to have a friend to talk with. She had apparently been lonely even with a boyfriend, maybe because all he was interested in was sex, food and sleep, in that order. She was a bright girl, though and had a lot of promise. I hoped I would not have to kill her in the mayhem I was planning for this planet.

  Shawna, The Challenger

  The Challenge was held in the center of the city’s government square. A square fight ring about 20 meters to a side and bleachers were set up. About five thousand people could sit around the fight ring and another two hundred thousand could watch the strategically placed holo monitors around the square.

  After registering with the ceremonial guard, I walked to the challenger’s tent and tied up my hair. I got into my fencing outfit and looked over the choice of weapons I was given. There were curved swords, straight swords, long swords and short swords. There was even one that looked like a samurai sword, with matching dagger. I favored that one and tested it out on the armorer. The time for kindness and mercy was past. It neatly cut his head off with no hesitation or sticking. I wiped his blood off and noticed out of the corner of my eye the approving look from the military guard posted with me. I was Shawna now, the future Empress and was ready to do battle for my throne.

  The soldier escorted me to the ring. I could see the Empress was also scantily clad and her outfit was bejeweled as fit the ruler of an interstellar empire. She had the same sword she had used to kill the previous Challenger. Our entourages took us to the center of the ring and the announcer said his prepared speech.

  Empress Kunge cut his head off with a quick move as he finished his last word, obviously showing off her skill and intent. His head rolled to the edge of the ring, spurting blood. The crowd yelled their approval. This was going to be a real treat for these bloodthirsty Pirates. I hoped mine would not be the next head to roll.

  My escort gave me a comforting slap on the rump and left me there in the center of the ring with this bloodthirsty, well-experienced killer. Well, she didn’t know I had killed more Pirates than she had even met in the past years. Maybe it wasn’t with a sword, but I would have come here with or without the Admiralty’s mission orders. I was as ready as I would ever be.

  I expected her to play with me a while, making small cuts here and there to weaken me, then after the crowd was on her side, dispatching me with a flourish. This was not how it was going to go.

  I struck first, a quick slice to her sword arm that just nicke
d her enough to draw a bead of blood. She looked at me in surprise and shock. The crowd gasped. I had gotten her attention now. She knew it was going to be a tough fight.

  There were no bells, no breaks, nothing to stop the battle except for just plain taking a breather. I knew I had much more endurance than she did and the few little nicks and cuts she managed to get past my defenses healed up in short order. I don’t think she noticed right away. But when she did, she made a killing move that brought us up short, face-to-face, sword-to-sword.

  “What are you?” she demanded in a whisper.

  “I am your doom. The next Empress of Phylos,” I responded with a sadistic grin. Phylos was the name the Pirates gave to their Empire, as well as the home world I was on now.

  She tried to stab me with the stiletto in her pommel, but missed and only grazed my arm, giving me a long gash. She tried to cut my head off with the reverse swing of her blade but I caught it with my sword. We stood there for what seemed like an hour, though it was only a minute or less.