Kevin could see terror in her eyes. Apparently, she had never seen a creature as vile as this one. Kevin remembered how scared he was just looking at it on TV, so he could only imagine how scared she felt right about now.
“Easy, Boomer.”
“We both know she doesn’t deserve to breathe.”
“I—I’m sorry,” pleaded Lacuna. “I don’t think I entered the right command—”
“Don’t waste your breath,” cut in Kevin.
“Nor insult our intelligence,” added Boomer.
“W—What are you going to do to me?” Lacuna asked.
“There never was a relic? Was there?” asked Kevin.
Lacuna looked away.
“Answer me! Or I let Boomer eat you.”
“You wouldn’t dare?”
If there was ever a time for Kevin to practice a poker face this was it. He hardened every one of his facial muscles and gave Lacuna a stare to remember.
“Try me.”
Boomer approached her slowly and she threw her hands in front of her defensively. “Ok, ok. No, there was no relic. I wanted this fleet for myself. But there are plenty of them out there, perhaps we can share? I just need one of them. After all, without me you wouldn’t even know they existed.”
“You’re unbelievable!” screamed Kevin. “You were willing to kill us to get them, and now you’re still trying to negotiate?”
“Fair point—Sorry?”
“Can I eat her now?” asked Boomer impatiently.
“No, no, no,” she pleaded. “I can be of use to you, I promise. And after all, I haven’t given you the coordinates to the princess yet.”
That much was true.
“Where is it?” roared Boomer.
“Come on now, if I tell you, you have no reason to keep me alive.”
“At this point,” said Kevin, “does it really matter? Perhaps some actions are too heinous to forgive. Perhaps you need to learn responsibility the hard way, even if it’s the last thing you do.”
“Just say the word, Kevin,” said Boomer with agitation.
“Wait, wait. Ok, here,” said Lacuna, her voice trembling.
She reached into her pants pocket and took out a small data crystal and handed it to Kevin.
“This contains the last location the spy relayed to Jared and the ships’ energy signatures so you can track their current vector. I thought it better to not let the spy know of the change in ownership just yet, you know, loyalties and such. There’s also some valuable information about the Kregan destroyer on the crystal. It’s a one-of-a-kind ship, really, not at all the same as their other craft. The extra blueprints of the ship should provide you with a tactical advantage.”
Kevin took his helmet off, threw it to the side, and grabbed the crystal, securing it in his own pant’s pocket.
“Can I eat her now?” asked Boomer.
“Wait, what?” exclaimed Lacuna. “I just gave you what you wanted. Have mercy!”
“Like the mercy you’ve shown us and Ziron,” said Kevin.
“Your cat friend is still alive. I just put him into a gentle sleep. Alright, he might wake up with a bit of a headache but that’s just an unfortunate side effect from the sleeping drug.”
“We can’t trust you, and we can’t take you along, you may try to sabotage or kill us again. Letting Boomer eat you seems like the safest course of action.”
Some sensations must have come back to Lacuna’s leg as she tried, painfully, to get back on her feet.
“I’m glad you had that set on stun,” she said once she was standing up.
“I’m not,” countered Boomer.
Ziron’s voice boomed through invisible speakers. “Just kill her, she’s too much of a risk!”
“Good to hear your voice, Zee,” said Kevin. “I—I don’t know, perhaps we should just give her a ship and let her go.”
“Yes, that’s a great idea—”
“Shut up!” roared Boomer.
Lacuna froze.
“Look, Kevin,” argued Ziron over the ship’s sound system. “If you’re not going to step up and do what needs to be done, then I sure will.”
“What? Wait!”
But Ziron didn’t. Two trap doors opened in the ceiling and two laser cannons lowered and acquired Lacuna with laser precision. Whatever fear Kevin saw in her eyes earlier had now grown tenfold. She had the look of someone who knew she was about to die.
“No! Don’t shoot, Zee,” implored Kevin.
“Sorry—”
Kevin reacted instinctively and jumped forward, hands first. Boomer, who must have predicted his action, darted forward too when the laser cannons opened fire. Kevin grabbed Lacuna in midair, pushing her out of the way, not even realizing that his head was somewhat being cushioned by her chest. Two powerful blasts left the cannons and one streaked past his head, burning the top of his shoulder, while the second blast was deflected by Boomer’s shield as he jumped to cover Kevin.
Before he was about to crush both Kevin and Lacuna, he gave one strong flap of his wings and landed to the side.
“Are you fucking insane, Ziron!?” complained Boomer. “You’d better have died of a heart attack or I’ll eat you myself!”
But there were no answers. Not with words anyway. All they heard was a scared mewing sound.
Kevin felt a strong pain in his shoulder where the laser had burned through his flesh and had fused part of his synthetic shirt with it, right between the reinforced plating neck and shoulder pieces. He got up, nonetheless, and grabbed his gun from the floor.
“Thank you—”
But Kevin didn’t wait for Lacuna to say anything else, and he shot her in the chest twice. She lost consciousness on the spot.
“Let’s drag her sorry ass back to the bridge.”
21
Kevin didn’t see Ziron as he entered the bridge. Boomer, now back in tiger form, followed him in with Lacuna on his back, still unconscious.
“Hey, Zee, where are you?”
“I’m sorry,” said a tiny muffled voice behind a console.
“You don’t have to hide, we forgive you.”
Ziron’s head timidly peaked out from cover but retracted immediately when Boomer roared loudly.
“Boomer!” shouted Kevin.
“I’m so sorry,” implored Ziron. “I never wanted to shoot you!”
“I know,” said Kevin. “It’s okay, it’s just a flesh wound. We need to get this fleet up and running.”
“I’ve actually made some good progress on that,” said Ziron, his voice still shaky.
Kevin gave Boomer a meaningful look. “Just come out from there, we’re not going to hurt you.”
Ziron stepped out.
Kevin grabbed the crystal and threw it to Ziron who caught it. “That contains all we need to get to Kalliopy. How soon can we be on our way?”
“I should be able to write a crude two-way communication and remote-control protocol with this ship within ten minutes, maybe less.”
“What about the other ships?”
“Fortunately, the main destroyer in this fleet is fully networked with the others in the fleet.”
“That’s good news. So we can take the entire fleet with us to go rescue the princess?”
“Not exactly. Four of the ships will have to stay here for now. We can always come back for them later. Two have depleted all their energy reserves and the other two are simply too low in energy to power their engines.”
“Bottom line?”
“We’ll have a tad over half a fleet. But, I must point out that their weaponry, while top of the line a thousand years ago, aren’t exactly up to snuff today.”
“One problem at a time. Let’s get crackin’.”
“What about her?”
“I’ll deal with her myself.”
Ziron quickly walked next to Boomer and searched Lacuna.
“What are you doing?” asked Kevin.
He removed a small oval pink capsule that looked like jewelry f
rom Lacuna’s attire and threw it to Kevin.
“That’s how she incapacitated me.”
* * *
When Lacuna woke up, she was securely tied a chair at the back of the shuttle, which they had used to get onto the Orus.
“My—my head is killing me,” she moaned.
“Well, at least you’re still breathing,” said Kevin. “I think a headache is not too bad a tradeoff.”
“Where am I?”
“In the shuttle we’re giving you.”
“Why am I tied up?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“I do. I learned my lesson, I promise. I’m just looking forward to going back to Omicron and hope we never cross paths again.”
“You got that right. You’re in luck, that’s exactly where this shuttle is programmed to go. And since it doesn’t have hyperspace capabilities, it will take you a few weeks to get there. Let you practice patience and give you ample time to reflect on your actions.”
She looked at her arm and saw an IV attached to it. “Is that what this is for?”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want you to die of thirst or hunger on your way back, but it’s not secured all that well, so there’s no guarantee it won’t fall off if you struggle trying to get yourself free.”
“I can’t get stuck here for weeks,” she protested, “someone’s gonna take all that’s mine in Omicronia’s tower!”
“You should have thought about that before trying to double-cross us. And, technically, they’ll be taking over Jared’s operation, won’t they? You know what? I’d love to stay and chat, but I have lots to do.”
Kevin took a step forward and lowered his head to Lacuna’s level.
“Goodbye kiss?” she asked.
“Not a chance, knowing you, you have your tongue layered with nerve agent.”
Lacuna smiled. “You’re a quick learner, but Kevin, let me ask you one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Why?”
“You’ll have to give me more than that.”
“Why keep me alive? You know that if the positions were reversed, you’d be floating in space right now, so why not just kill me? Why give me a chance to get back at you in the future?”
“Because I don’t consider myself a cold-hearted killer. And because not everybody is an asshole, at least not from where I come from anyway.”
“You should go back there, this universe will swallow you whole and spit out your bones.”
Kevin shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Looking forward to seeing you again, nugget.”
“I’m not. Nighty night,” said Kevin before squeezing the pink sleep-gas container next to Lacuna’s nose.
Kevin then pressed two controls on the shuttle and exited in a hurry. He looked as the backdoor closed and the shuttle lifted off the Orus’ landing bay and flew through the atmospheric shield before heading into space.
Even though I hope we never see each other again, something tells me we will. And, weirdly enough, I’m kind of okay with that.
* * *
“What am I supposed to eat now?” complained Boomer in his Beagle form. “You didn’t let me eat Lacuna, and you won’t let me have Zee fricassee. Be reasonable.”
Kevin smiled. “What’s wrong with the rations we brought back from the Orus?”
“Oh, yeah, thousand-year-old rations, yuuuummm! Have you tried this stuff? Even I have better standards than that?”
“You’ve eaten worse things and you know it.”
“Perhaps.”
“Do we really want to go there?”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary.”
“I thought so.”
“Hey, Kevin, can I ask you a question?”
“Plenty of time until we go into battle again, so sure, shoot.”
“Why did you keep her alive? I mean, that Lacuna chick is bad news, surely you can see that.”
“I can. But I chose to give her a second chance. Though I might live to regret it.”
“Well, with what soon awaits us, one can only hope.”
They both laughed.
“We’ll be fine. We didn’t go through all of this to let a single Kregan dreadnought and a few measly pirate ships stand in our way, am I right or am I right?”
Boomer barked.
* * *
Kevin was rubbing his chin as he looked at the holographic representation of the enemy fleet. He’d been looking at it for longer than he cared to, but he still wasn’t completely sure how to pull off the rescue mission.
Brute force? Stealth approach? Diversion? A mixture of all three? After all, each had their pros and cons.
“So have you decided on a game plan yet?” asked Ziron as Boomer snored in the background.
Game plan. If only this was a game. I could just restart from the checkpoint if I died or messed up my objective. But it’s not. This is life and death, ours, as well as Kalliopy’s. I can’t afford to screw this up.
Kevin rubbed his eyes, unable to hide his fatigue anymore, both mental and physical. “I’m not sure. Why can’t we just beam her out again?”
“We’ve been over this, they’ve deactivated her sub-space implant, so you’ll need to wear one and inject her with one as well when you reach her. But let’s count our blessings here. If it wasn’t for the extra blueprints Lacuna had on the data crystal, I wouldn’t have been able to beam you in the ship with their shields up. But with that info, I can beam you in and both of you out again once you’ve injected her with the implant.”
“At least there’s that,” said Kevin with a long drawn-out yawn.
“We still have three hours, perhaps you should try and sleep at least one or two of those.”
There’s nothing I want more, but I can’t.
“I wish I could, believe me. Can’t you just inject me with a boosting cocktail? You know, some stims of some kind.”
“I’m not sure that would be good idea.”
“Not what I asked, Zee. Yes or no?”
“I suppose…”
Kevin slowly dropped his head to the side.
“Okay, yes,” continued Ziron, “I can, but maybe we should do that later, so that you don’t crash in the middle of your rescue mission.”
That’s actually not a half-bad idea.
“And you’re sure there’s no way to fix my smart armor?”
“Not going to happen. It would require weeks to make a new fully functional prototype I’m afraid.”
“What about a less functional one?”
“I don’t think you want to risk your life using my beta software, and even if you did, I simply don’t have the resources or the time.”
Kevin worried that infiltrating the Kregan ship without that advantage was suicidal. He could stay aboard, command the fleet remotely, and send Boomer in his stead, but as much as he trusted his dog to be able to pull it off, he couldn’t possibly imagine putting him in the line of fire.
No, I can’t do that. Think, Kevin!
“What about Boomer’s armor? Did you juice it up? And can’t you just transfer it to me?”
“It will be back to nearly full power by the time we deploy, yes. As for transferring it to you, I wish I could, but the smart nanites network already adjusted to his physiology, so—”
“What would be the downside of that?”
“What do you mean?”
Kevin let his palm slide from his forehead to his chin. “I mean, technically speaking, if you were to transfer the armor to me, what would happen?”
“If you survive the link, which I cannot guarantee, though I suppose we can run simulations to make sure we limit transfer risks to a bare minimum; then the nanites in the armor would transform you into a Beagle as your resting form. And there might be side effects if your interaction with the armor is prolonged for too long.”
“Such as?”
“Well, if you start randomly scratching yourself out of the blue after the mission, don’t come and com
plain to me ‘cause I don’t think this option is worth exploring.”
“Swell, and warnings aside, once I wear his armor, could I then just simply morph into myself to compensate?”
“No, like I told you, this is an older model, it will only work with a quadruped transformation due to the adaptability of the neuronal nanite matrix. Its imprint is now fixed to quadrupeds. I know, that’s quite the design flaw, but that’s how it is. So, you could still transform into all sorts of things that walk on four legs, even a walking dog or dragon, but not a human that naturally walks on two legs.”
“That’s why Boomer looked more like the alien in the third movie of the franchise. I think I understand the limitation.”
Ziron’s eye blinked slowly. “I’m not sure you fully do, Kevin. Movie references aside, the chances of you being able to perform as a quadruped as well as Boomer can, are slim at best. Your conscious mind is simply too accustomed to walking on two feet.”
“But you said that I can walk on two legs in these forms, like Boomer could.”
“Yeah, being able to do it is not the issue. Look at me, I can walk too if I choose to, but it’s more comfortable, and more importantly, natural and instinctive to just use all four legs. I can run faster too. There’s no way I can compete with you in a race on just two legs, just like I’ll smoke you on all fours.”
“Then I should just go with Arcadian space marine armor and guns blazing.”
“Without heavy shields, that’s just plain crazy. You said it yourself. It would be suicidal.”
“I can’t believe I screwed this up by trying to become a giant robot. What was I thinking?”
“Hey, give yourself a break, you didn’t know that would damage the armor permanently by overloading its power source. I should have warned you to never deplete or push the power cell beyond its limits. I share the blame for this too.”
But it didn’t matter whose fault it was. And Kevin was painfully aware of that. Not to mention part of him wasn’t sure he would have acted differently even if he had known the limitations.
“You don’t understand, Ziron. I always do these things. It’s like when I got a newer, less crappy computer last year and heard of the art of overclocking. I went at it heads down, without doing my research but confident I knew enough about tech to make it work easy-peasy. With the dumb illusion that I could get more muscle out of that CPU, instead of enjoying the nice bump in power it already provided. Well, would have, if I had not burned it to a crisp, may it rest in peace. I get these shiny toys, and when I do, I have the bad habit of wanting them to be better, and more often than not I end up breaking them. Look at the Thalamos. I ruined the best prototype ship you ever built.”
Across the Galactic Pond - Box Set: The Complete FAR BEYOND Space Opera Series Page 18