“Get in there, buddy, and don’t you move, okay?”
Boomer was whimpering and trembling with fear. Kevin insisted by pointing his finger toward the newly made depression, and the trusting Beagle obeyed.
A second later, Kevin felt something smack against his back, and his translucent green shield lit up like a Christmas tree.
“You won’t be able to get too many hits like these before the shield fails,” said the voice.
“Copy that.”
Kevin turned and started running away as more blaster fire screamed past him. Their vector gave him a good idea of where his attacker was, so in between shots he turned and aimed his blaster in a reflex motion and depressed the trigger.
A blue energy bolt exited the weapon and hit the Kregan. An orange light glowed around him.
“He’s also shielded?” protested Kevin.
“I would think so.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“Remember, your personal shield can only take a handful of hits before it collapses.”
The shield deflected a second bolt headed for Kevin’s shoulder. Capacity was already down by a third.
“This is the shittiest rescue in the history of the world, I hope you know that?” screamed Kevin as he jumped to dodge the next salvo of incoming laser fire. “If I get out of here alive, I’ll kick your ass.”
“Your motivational speech doesn’t exactly incentivize me to work any faster.”
“How long?”
“Forty-five seconds. Give or take a minute.”
“Oh, come on!”
Another shot hit Kevin in the leg. Again, the shield did its work. A familiar female voice inside his head cooed.
Shield integrity down to fifty percent.
“Mira? Is that you?”
Hello, Kevin, miss me?
Kevin ran and hid behind a boulder.
“Bet your ass I did. Tell me, how do I gain an advantage over my attacker?”
This weapon is intuitive. It pretty much does what you think. So the bigger your imagination, the more powerful you can make it. Remember your experience on board my ship? Well, this is similar. Just think of what you want and let the weapon do the rest.
A corner of Kevin’s mouth arched into a grin. “Now you’re talking.”
Kevin waited for the next salvo of enemy fire to impact on the boulder before he slipped out of cover, aimed his blaster at the Kregan, and thought rocket-launcher boom. A massive blue bolt of plasma shot from the blaster and hit the Kregan with an enormous explosion. It sent the alien spiraling high in the air.
Rapid-fire, thought Kevin. Super-fast streaks of blue energy shot from the blaster into the still falling Kregan assassin, draining his shields. But it took too long.
Force push, bitch!
A powerful, focused shockwave blast smashed into the Kregan and sent him tumbling over a hundred meters.
“I love this thing!” exclaimed Kevin.
I’m afraid ‘this thing’s’ power source is now fluctuating. It won’t be able to shoot for a while, said Mira.
That wasn’t good news, but Kevin’s hunter had been temporarily taken out of the fight, so hopefully, the power would be restored before that changed.
“How come you’re here? I thought you had perished with the Thalamos.”
Long story, but I’m the operating system for the probe, so I hopped on board the blaster as well. I thought you could use the assist.
“Good call, I’m so glad you’re here.”
In place of an answer, static saturated Kevin’s inner ear.
“What the hell?”
“A nearby field is interfering with the weapon,” said a staticky high-pitched voice. “Mira is offline.”
“Why haven’t we been beamed out already?”
“Trust me, I’ve been trying, but that newly activated field is affecting my ability to get a perfect lock on you and your—dog.”
“And does the lock need to be perfect?”
“Well, that depends if you want to share DNA with your dog, perhaps end up with a mixture of his features and yours, I could try an unsafe beam out, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Yeah, me neither! What do I do?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to defeat the Kregan warrior.”
“I was afraid you were gonna say that. Worst. Rescue. Ever.”
“Look on the bright side, Kevin, you’re still alive.”
“Will the weapon work? Or am I supposed to just scare the Kregan to death with my ugly mug?”
“I could drain twenty-five percent of your shield to fix the power fluctuation, but you’ll probably only get a shot or two out of it. Depending on what you come up with, that is. I would not recommend your explosive or shockwave firing solutions though.”
“You’re killing me, you know that? Don’t answer that. Here goes nothing.” Kevin looked at the crater hoping he would see Boomer safe and sound before sprinting toward the Kregan who was only now getting back to its feet.
The moment the Kregan saw him coming he raised an arm and blaster fire resumed. Kevin did his best to zigzag slightly as he approached the Kregan.
“Why aren’t you firing?” asked the voice.
“Not now!”
Two more blasters bolts collided with Kevin’s shield and it flickered. He was only a couple of meters away from his target when he decided to end his mad run by skidding again on the grass. The next couple of incoming shots missed by mere centimeters. Once Kevin was nearly upon the Kregan massive warrior he thought—
Lightsaber.
The blaster morphed back into a cylinder, and the blade made of burning plasma shot upward, and as Kevin slid between the Kregan’s legs, he slashed most of the warrior in two.
Sparks shot from his lightsaber and burned his fingers, causing him to drop the weapon. He jumped back to his feet, his heartbeat playing a speed metal version of the Star-Spangled Banner as he looked at the Kregan who remained on his feet but didn’t move. Smoke rose from its body, and a small breeze delivered a strong smell of burnt flesh directly into Kevin’s nostrils.
As his dropped cylinder exploded in front of his eyes, Kevin hoped with all his heart that he had killed the Kregan warrior. He swallowed hard.
“Are you dead, Mr. Kregan badass murderer?”
“I can no longer detect a Kregan life sign in your direct vicinity, however, I’m getting a strange reading,” said the voice.
Kevin approached the Kregan and walked around him. The Kregan looked half-humanoid and half-bird like. Kevin’s slash had burned most of his upper body and cauterized the wound as it passed through. The Kregan looked dead alright, but Kevin noticed a blinking red light on its right chest piece, and soon the blinking doubled with an ominous beeping sound that filled Kevin with dread.
“Does this mean what I think it does?”
“Run, Kevin! Run fast!”
3
Kevin sprinted toward the crater while the beeping turned into a continuous tone that got higher in pitch with every second.
“Get us the hell out of here!” screamed Kevin.
“Initiating transport sequence,” the voice said.
Suddenly, Kevin’s legs left the ground and he was thrown into the air from the shockwave of an explosion coming from behind, just as his vision filled with green light streaks. He felt intense heat radiate through him before everything changed.
Still in midair, he was no longer in the forest clearing but inside a ship. Gravity grabbed him instantly and he fell hard, shoulder first, onto the cold, hard metallic floor.
“Arrrrrg!” he screamed, unable to contain the feelings of intense pain on his right side.
The next thing he saw froze his blood. A tall humanoid robot walked toward him. The metallic clang echoing around him was reminiscent of old sci-fi horror movies he loved watching on movie-marathon nights.
Fuck, is that a terminator? I’m so dead.
Kevin instinctively raised his arm to cover his hea
d. The robot aimed at Kevin and before Kevin could say or do anything more, he was engulfed in fog and particle foam. Some entered his mouth and burned his eyes upon contact.
“What kind of killing machine is this?” exclaimed Kevin, his eyes closed shut from the painful sting. “Are you still there? Help, I’m being attacked by a robot!”
“Calm down, it’s not attacking you; he’s putting out the fire, you were still in flames upon arrival.”
Kevin blinked multiple times, and even though his vision remained blurry, he saw the robot turn around and walk away. Kevin got up, holding his painful shoulder as the foam dissolved into nothingness in seconds. Kevin tried the best he could to dust himself off.
“Where am I?”
“Well,” said a voice on his left side. “You’re on my ship. Welcome aboard the Osiris.”
Kevin’s vision was slowly returning and he looked toward the familiar voice, the same one that had guided his escape from the Kregan assassin on Earth. What he saw made no sense, so he tried vigorously rubbing his eyes, but that didn’t help.
There sat a blue, long-furred cat with deep-green eyes, hovering on a purple pillow.
“What’s the problem, Kevin?” the talking cat asked.
“You—you’re a talking cat?”
The cat frowned. “What’s a cat?”
“So, let me get this straight. You guys have big space warships, fully aware Artificial Intelligence, but you don’t have mirrors? Because you,” said Kevin pointing a finger at him ”you’re a CAT! A talking one, at that.”
“I think you must have me mixed up. I’m a Sphynx.”
For a moment, Kevin wondered if he really had left his bed for that walk or if he was having a trip of a dream. He pinched himself and the pain feedback surely felt real, as did the resulting red mark on his arm.
“Where’s Boomer?”
“What’s a boomer?”
“My dog, pet. . .where is he?”
“Oh, the computer detected small foreign organisms on him, so he’s being decontaminated as we speak.”
“Boomer has fleas?”
“Give me a second, Kevin. I’m having trouble understanding some of your vocabulary.”
The cat held up a paw and a holographic sphere appeared on top of it; his other paw began interacting with the holographic controls within the sphere, which rotated, blinked, and changed colors with each new input. Shortly after, a green holographic picture of Kevin’s bust appeared to the side.
“Hey, that’s me!”
The cat’s tail raised as a finger would to request silence. “Hang on for just a second.”
What the hell is he doing?
“Sure,” conceded Kevin.
The cat highlighted Kevin’s brain on the hologram; it turned orange. A couple more commands resulted in a beam shooting from the holographic brain directly to the cat’s head. Lines of green code superimposed inside the cat’s eyes, giving him a crazy look. Crazier than he already looked that was. He was a talking cat after all.
The beam ended and the cat’s eyes blinked yellow for a brief moment.
“Mmmm, that’s better,” said the cat. “Yes, Boomer has fleas, and no, I’m not a cat, though I can now see why you would think so. I suppose there are obvious genetic similarities between our two species.”
“What? What did you just do?”
“I’ve uploaded some of your memories into my own mind. Technically an implant, we Sphynx are a little fussy about letting anything. . .how should I phrase this—foreign, get directly into our bodies, don’t take it personally.”
Kevin tried to let all of this sink in and only answered the cat with a nod and dumbfounded blinking. Eventually, he had to ask.
“Okay, talking cat that’s not a cat, I’m not sure I understand everything here, but it’s okay. What’s your name?”
“Zironakolovitich-hel’am’ekat’nantatum,” and then the cat added a burping sound at the end.
“Huh…gross, and could you repeat that?”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to remember, but you can call me Ziron for short.”
Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Whatever you say, Zee.”
“Ziron.”
“Yeah, I just decided to shorten it more. I’m still trying to count the syllables of your name. And I’m curious, did your dinner not agree with you or was that burp part of your name?”
“That sound is actually defining my gender.”
“Which I assume is…” but Kevin let it trail off.
“Male, of course.”
“Right. What would it had been if it was female?”
“According to the data I got from your brain pattern injection, I don’t think you want to know.”
Kevin made a face and farted hard. “Something like that?”
“How the hell did you know? Though technically, we don’t make that much noise, we do, however, significantly change the atmosphere around us in doing so.”
“Just a wild guess,” said Kevin as he covered his nose. “Yeah, and you’re not the only ones.”
Every strand of fur on Ziron’s body stood straight up and his face tensed, he blinked his large almond-shaped eyes as if he were trying to clear a burning sensation.
“That’s pretty potent, what are you being fed?”
“Ah, you know, the usual diet, burgers, pizzas, hot pockets, and loads and loads of cheese—everything the body needs.”
Ziron’s eyes blinked yellow for a fraction of a second.
“I would posit that the content of the gas cloud you’ve unleashed probably means you’re providing your body with excess waste, but we have, as you say on Earth, bigger fish to fry.”
“So, when your eyes flash like that? It means your accessing my memories?”
“That’s correct.”
“Can I block you from doing this? It’s a little creepy. And I don’t remember giving you my consent, Zee. You know on Earth we have rules about this kind of stuff.”
The cat emitted a strange sound that Kevin realized was probably the Sphynx’s version of a laugh.
“Stop it, why are you laughing?”
“No, you apparently live under the impression that your privacy is your own in your world. It’s very cute. But, you’re right, I’m sorry. And, no, you can’t block me, as I’m not accessing your brain directly.”
“Then what are you accessing? I don’t get it.”
“When you connected with Mira onboard the Thalamos, it recorded your brain patterns and memories. I’m basically accessing a backup of your mind that’s about a week old.”
Part of Kevin knew he should be mad, but on the other hand, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Away from his troubles on Earth and back into the fray in a galaxy far, far away. And Ziron had just saved his life, so he decided not to push the issue.
“That’s pretty neat, I guess. But enough chitchat, you say Princess Kanyanna is in trouble.
“It’s Princess Kalliopy. What’s with you and remembering that name? Look, it’s easy: Ka-lli-o-py. It’s a wonder your mind was so compatible with Mira’s prototype AI.”
“When you’re done taking potshots at me, would you mind telling me what happened to her?” Kevin scratched the back of his head nervously. “How has she been doing? Did you two talk about me?”
“I’m not exactly her best buddy, Kevin, and if I’m reading your body language correctly, and I think I am, you’d better remove those silly notions that you and the Princess could be an item. She’s the ruler of a confederate that spans over twenty galaxies, three hundred plus inhabited planets, and more races than I care to count.”
Kevin could feel a tingling in his neck, and his face grew red.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ziron’s eyes blinked yellow again. “I’m only gonna say this once on the matter, in terms you can understand: Out. Of. Your. League.”
“Told ya, dunno what you’re talking about,” Kevin said as he tried shrugging naturally,
but it ended up being awkward, as he cramped up and the pain in his shoulder flared again. “Ouch…”
“You’re injured. Let me help you.”
“Yeah, the shoulder’s been hurting since I landed on the metallic floor over there, ever hear of carpet?”
“You complain a lot. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
Kevin forced-blinked two more times. “Are you gonna help? Or—”
Ziron’s face distorted as he made the most peculiar sound. By the time he understood what the cat was doing, it was too late.
“No, wait—”
But Ziron didn’t and spat so hard and fast that the projectile made a large grey stain on Kevin’s torso.
“That’s disgusting.” Kevin grimaced at the stain. “Oh damn, it’s everywhere. Why did you spit on me?”
“You said you were in pain. I’m just trying to help,” said Ziron dubiously.
“By ruining my favorite shirt? Are you serious?”
Kevin was so disgusted that he didn’t realize that the stain was getting bigger and moving about.
“Who said anything about spitting on you? That isn’t phlegm, I don’t know what your pets are doing on Earth, but we Sphynx are more evolved than that.”
“Says the cat who loogied on me!”
“If you stop complaining for just a second and pay attention to what’s happening, maybe you’ll learn something, Kevin.”
Kevin looked at his shirt and saw that the grey compound was dramatically extending and covering most of his torso. It moved about as if it were alive.
“What is this stuff?”
“It’s a nano-bonding agent, self-replicating, and polymorphic in nature. It’s basically going to become a part of you. It’s my latest invention,” Ziron said with a big proud smile. “I call it the nano-armor or nano-suit. Haven’t really decided yet. It’s gonna take care of your injuries shortly, but that’s only one of its functions…”
Kevin was so tantalized by watching it expand over most of his body that he wasn’t listening to Ziron anymore. Soon the nano-armor had traveled over Kevin’s body, but it stopped at his neckline. Then the most peculiar thing happened, small shreds of his clothing fell off.
Across the Galactic Pond - Box Set: The Complete FAR BEYOND Space Opera Series Page 6